CT>;

COi
SxJ^ibris

PROFESSOR J.S.WILL
 Caof con
Scffing Berber (Soetfye

SELECTIONS
EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND A COMMENTARY
BY

WILLIAM GUILD HOWARD

Assistant Professor of German in Harvard University

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY
 H

COPYRIGHT, 1910,

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

 PREFACE.
THE purpose of this volume is to facilitate the approach
to Lessing s Laokoon, and to make the study of the ques
tions treated by Lessing as instructive as possible. Ac
cordingly, I have cleared away from the text sundry
archeological obstructions, which Lessing himself was
ready to sacrifice in a second edition; I have modernized
the language, have drawn upon Goethe and Herder for in
terpretation or criticism, and have set forth at some length
the history of the problems. My
treatment of the text has
been guided by considerations of convenience and expedi
ency only. I have omitted what I regarded as unessential,
and have not indicated the places where omissions occur.
In the interest of concinnity I have even allowed myself to
substitute nun (p. 124, 1. 16) for an original vielmehr; but
every other word here reprinted was written by the author
to whom it is attributed, and the line of the author s
thought remains unaffected by my editorial changes.
My critics will note the freedom with which I have made
use of the labors of my predecessors in the various fields
that I have had to cultivate, and will perceive that greater
or less independence is displayed, according to the degree
of my own competency in theseMuch I have found
fields.

done for me; but I have done

over again, and frequently
all

with new results. This applies especially to the work of

Bliimner. The editions of Laokoon by Cosack, Boxberger,
Hamann, and Phillimore, of Goethe s essay by Witkowski
and Meyer, of Herder s Wdldchen by Lambel, have all stood
me in good stead. Erich Schmidt, Haym, Muncker, and
iii
iv PREFACE.

Suphan have furnished me in many places with indispen

sable information. The chapter on the history of the arts is
largely based upon Springer; and innumerable obligations
to others areacknowledged or are manifest in the course
ofmy Introduction and Commentary. The Commentary
was written before Schmarsow s Erlduterungen came to
hand; but I have been glad of the opportunity to incorpo
rate in it many made by him.
points
A remark
of Herman Grimm s made twenty
years ago
(Aus den letzten fiinf Jahren, p. 60) suggested to Professor
Calvin Thomas of Columbia University the preparation of
such a book as this; and from Professor Thomas the idea
came indirectly to me. To my Harvard colleagues, Pro
fessors Kuno
Francke, H. C. Bierwirth, E. K. Rand, and
G. H. Chase, am indebted for various kindly services; and
I

particularly to Professor Bierwirth for incisive criticism of

my manuscript and painstaking assistance in reading the
proofs.
The following familiar abbreviations have been used:
W. A. : Weimarcr A usgabe, Goethes Werke herausgegeben im Auf-
trage der Grossherzogin Sophie von Sachsen, Weimar, 1887 ff.
Bliimner: Lessings Laokoon herausgegeben und erlautert von Hugo
2
Blumner Berlin, 1880.
,

L-M: Lessings sdmtlichc Schriften herausgegeben von Karl Lach-

mann, 3. Auflage von Franz Muncker, Stuttgart, 1886 ff.

DNL: Deutsche National-Liter-alur herausgegeben von Joseph

Kiirschner, Stuttgart, without date.
DLD: Deutsche Litcratur-Dcnkmale herausgegeben von B. Seuffert
(A. Sauer), Heilbronn (Berlin), 1881 ff.

Neudr.: Ncudruckc deutscher Liter aturwerke des XVI. und XVII.

Jahrhunderts herausgegeben von W. Braune, Halle, i886ff.
W. G. H.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS,
April, 1910.
 CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION PAGE
I. PRELIMINARY REMARK vii

II. LAOCOON IN POETRY AND SCULPTURE viii

III. LESSING AND His FRIENDS xii

IV. LESSING S PROBLEM AMONG THE ANCIENTS .... xix

V. "POETIC" PAINTING AND SCULPTURE xxvii

VI. "PICTORIAL" POETRY xxxvii

VII. LESSING S PROBLEM AMONG THE MODERNS .... 1

VIII. LESSING S Laokoon cxl

IX. HERDER cl

X. GOETHE clviii

TEXTS
GOETHE, Ubcr Laokoon i

LESSING, Laokoon 17

HERDER, Erstcs krilischcs Wdldchen 155

LESSING, Entwiirfc 281

COMMENTARY 329

BIBLIOGRAPHY 467
 INTRODUCTION.

PRELIMINARY REMARK.

OF the three texts included in this volume, the first,

Goethe s little essay, Uber Laokoon, is a description and

interpretation of the famous marble group as a work of

plastic art ;
the second, Lessing s Laokoon, is
primarily a
delimitation of the respective fields of what Lessing calls

painting and poetry, that is, pictorial, or, more specifi

cally, plastic art and literary art; the third, Herder s Erstcs
kritisches Waldchen, is a criticism of Lessing s Laokoon.
The three were written from different points of view and
represent wide differences of opinion. Taken by and large,
they may be said to contain in essence the contribution
that three of the most important movements of the eight
eenth century in Germany made towards the solution of
one of the problems dearest to man, the ways and means
of artistic expression. The classical spirit in Goethe, com
mon sense and enlightenment in Lessing, and the pre-
romantic spirit in Herder co-operate in the determination
of the truth. In respect to many details all three men
were mistaken ; conflicting opinions cannot be altogether
correct ;
bases of fact are subject to revision as knowledge
increases. But the very divergence in the views of such
original and sagacious investigators as Lessing, Herder, and
Vlll INTRODUCTION.

Goethe is a welcome reminder of the many-sidedness of

the questions at issue, and is itself a suggestion that in a

higher sense all three were probably right. Be this as it

may, their discussions are not only characteristic of them
selves; they are of the highest historical importance, and
they remain permanently valuable aids to the comprehen
sion and the solution of esthetic problems.
In point of time, Goethe s essay is the latest of the three
documents here reprinted, it contains references to Les-

sing s Laokoon. Nevertheless, it seems proper that Goethe s

description should precede Lessing s treatise, to which the

statue furnished the name, the alleged starting-point, and a
convenient example, but which quickly passed on to other
examples and to theoretical considerations ; for an intimate
acquaintance with the statue is an indispensable presuppo
sition to the study of the theories which it was used to

illustrate.

II.

LAOCOON IN POETRY AND SCULPTURE.

The marble group of Laocoon, now in the Museum of the

Vatican, was found January, 1506, walled up in a sump

in

tuous apartment near the so-called Sette Sale seven rooms (" ")

on the Esquiline Hill in Rome. How it got there and who

the sculptors were nobody knows. It was, however, imme
diately identifiedwith the statue mentioned by Pliny the
Elder (Nat. Hist., XXXVI, 37) as being in the palace of
Titus, and as being the work of Agesander of Rhodes and
his two sons, Polydorus and Athenodorus ;
and there is now-
a-days little disposition to question this identification. As
to the time when the sculptors lived, opinions are consider

ably at variance. The occurrence of their names in certain

 INTRODUCTION. IX

1
inscriptions found in Rhodes has led some archeologists to
assign them to thefirst, or even to the second, half of the

first century B. c. Others reject the evidence of these in

2
scriptions altogether and rely upon comparative studies in
the history of Greek art for the determination of dates.

Among the latter there are scholars who place the Laocoon
as far back as 200 B. c. There is a notable similarity of

conception and execution between this group and some of

the figures in the frieze of the great altar of Zeus at Perga-
mon (197-175 B.C.), recently set up in a special museum
at Berlin. Especially noteworthy is the likeness of the priest
Laocoon to one of the giants of the frieze in respect to his
whole attitude and also to the elaborate anatomical detail of
the sculpture. 3 It is therefore generally supposed that the

Rhodian artists were influenced by the Pergamenian school.

That the Laocoon is so late as the time of Titus (emperor,

79-81), as Lessing thought, is not likely; but the present

tendency is to regard it as late rather than early, and the
4
date 50 probably not far from correct.
B. c. is

The subject of the statue is a story variously told or re

6
ferred to in ancient literature. The best-known version,
and the one that first gave the story wide currency, is that
in Virgil s
sEncid, II, 199 ff. y^Eneas, relating here to Dido
the events connected with the fall of Troy, tells how Lao-

1
Cf. F. Ililler von Gaertringen, Jahrb. d. arch. 7j/., IX, p. 23,
and XX, p. 1
19.
2 Cf. W.
llelbig, Ftihrcr durch die offentlichett Sammlungen klas-
sischcr Alterliimer in Rom 2 , Leipzig, 1899, I, pp. 90 f.

3
Cf. Jul. Ziehen, Kunstgeschichtliches Anschauungsmaterial zu
2
Lessings Laokoon Bielefeld u. Leipzig, 1905, p. 13.
,

4
Cf. R. Foerster,/a>4r^ d. arch. Inst., XXI, I ff, esp. pp. 25, 32.
6
Cf. C. Robert, Bild und Lied, Berlin, 1881, pp. 192 ff A. Bau- .
;

meister, Denkin tiler des khissischen Alttrturns, Munchen u. Leipzig,

1885 ff , II, p. 809; R. Foerster, /. c.,
pp. 15 ff.
X INTRODUCTION.

coon, a priest of Apollo, protests against the admittance of

the wooden horse of Ulysses within the walls, and hurls his

spear at it.
By the advice of Sinon, the horse is neverthe
less admitted, and Laocoon is soon after punished by the
gods for his
presumptuous attempt to cross their purposes.
While making a sacrifice on the shore, he suddenly sees
his two sons overpowered by two huge serpents that come

up out of the waves, and hastening to their aid, he becomes

himself involved in the deadly coils. Virgil s narrative dif
fers materially from earlier Greek versions. The Roman
grammarian Servius (second half of the fourth century A. D.)
in his commentary to Virgil (&ncid, II, 201) cites the Greek

poet Euphorion (fl. 200 B. c.) as follows Laocoon, the :

priest of the Thymbraean Apollo, celebrating at the altar of

Neptune the apparent withdrawal of the Greeks, is attacked

and killed by two serpents sent by Apollo, whom he had
previously offended by the desecration of his temple. Arc-
1
tinus, one of the Cyclic poets, relates in the Iliupersis that
Laocoon and one of his sons were killed ; Sophocles in
his tragedy of Laocoon, on the contrary, appears to
lost

have represented both sons as perishing with their father ; 2

and Hyginus, 3 following the Greek tragedians, tells how
Laocoon married against the will of Apollo and atoned by
death with his two sons. Relics of the lesser arts, a scarab
and a vase, show that the story of the destruction of all

three was quite ancient ;

and though in the marble group
the elder son, on the father s left, is not wounded and may
escape unharmed, the sculptors probably intended that he

1
Epicorum Grcecorum Fragmenta, ed. G. Kinkel, Lips., 1877, I,

p. 49.
2
Dionysi Halicarnassensis Antiq. Roman., ed. C. Jacoby, Lips.,
1885, I, cap. 48, p. 76.
Faintly ed. M. Schmidt, Jenae, 1872, no. 135.
8
 INTRODUCTION. XI

should be thought of as about to share the fate of his father

and younger brother. 1
The statue was found in a remarkable state of preserva
2
tion. Except for the right arms of the father and the
younger son, and a portion of the right hand of the elder
son, only a few unimportant details were damaged or miss
ing. During the last four centuries, however, many acci
dents have happened to the figures, and the attempts made
to patch up and restore have sometimes been hasty and
unintelligent. The history of these attempts is complicated

and for our purposes unimportant. It has long been rec

ognized that the restoration of the right arms above men

tioned is incorrect. The right arm of the younger boy was
presumably dropped back over his head and hanging with
muscles quite relaxed, as in the frontispiece to this volume ;

that of the father was long thought to have been likewise

bent backward, the hand probably clutching the tail of the
serpent that is biting him in the hip. A recent discovery
seems to confirm this conjecture beyond peradventure. On
the fourteenth of January, 1906, Dr. Ludwig Pollak an
nounced at a meeting of the German Archeological Insti
tute in Rome 3 that he had accidentally found in the

possession of a Roman stone-cutter an antique arm with

the fragment of the coil of a snake, which could be nothing
but the right arm of a Laocoon. It is of a different marble

from that of the Vatican group, and is on a somewhat

1
Cf. \V. G. Howard, Publications of the Modern Language Associa
tion of America, XXI, pp. 941 ff.

2 Ad. Michadis./aArJ.
Cf. d. arch. fnst. t V, pp. 15ff.; K. Sittl,

Empinsche Stitdien ilber die Laokoongruppe, Wurzburg, 1895; and

Foerster, /. c.
8
Mitteilungen des kaiserl. deutschen archdologischen fnst., XX,
pp. 277 ff. Cf. The Illustrated London News, June 23, 1906, p. 902.
Xll INTRODUCTION.

smaller scale, but it

unquestionably belonged to an ancient
copy. Dr. Pollak has presented the fragment as an anni

versary gift to the Museum of the Vatican, and it is said

that the directors intend to make a new restoration in con

formity to it.

III.

LESSING AND HIS FRIENDS.

Goethe s essay Uber Laokoon is the work of a man who

in fullness of knowledge and maturity of judgment expounds

the qualities of the statue according to criteria firmly estab
lished in his own mind, and uses it as an example of what
is possible and desirable in sculpture. The method of the

essay is dogmatic.Goethe starts from first principles and

shows how this work of art conforms to them. He does,
it is true, set forth the principles themselves more and more

fully as the exposition proceeds. But there is no discussion

of the validity of the principles; this is assumed as self-
evident and incontestable. One hesitates to attribute dogma
tism to Goethe as an habitual critical method. If anything,
he seems, especially in his later years, unduly ready to
recognize the merits of works and of authors very unlike his

works and himself. He was a man of the widest possible

sympathy, by no means unacquainted with experimental,
inductive methods, and was a searcher after truth in many
fields. But he was no friend of abstract speculation. He
preferred to judge and classify a concrete case rather than
to develop a theory by the examination of cases. He could
respect another man s theory without approving it and if ;

we except his studies in natural science, he appears more

often as a judge handing down decisions than as an investi

gator of the bases and principles of laws. Goethe was a

 INTRODUCTION. Xlll

poet, a of feeling, instinct, and intuition even when he

man
philosophized. An experience was of more value to him
than an idea, and a thing was more estimable than a thought
about it.

Lessing (1729-1781), on the contrary, was a born critic

and logician, delighting in intellectual controversy and in

the making of theoretical distinctions. While still a student,
he argues questions of doctrine or of ethics with his father.
As a young journalist he not only reviews a great variety
of literary products, but also seizes every opportunity to de
bate the esthetic or philosophical problems involved. From
the beginning of his career as a writer, Lessing impresses us
as combining in a rare degree knowledge of books and

knowledge of men. His studies had been somewhat irreg

ular and spasmodic, but they were thorough and of wide
range. Even as a schoolboy he had both studied and imi
tated Anacreon. As a university student at Leipzig (Sep
tember, i 746, to June, i 748) he looked forward to becoming
a German Moliere, equipping himself for this career by exten
sive occupation with dramatic literature ancient and modern,
and by extensive acquaintance with the theater before and
behind the scenes. He wrote numerous poems, hardly more
than exercises in composition, imitations, translations, witti
cisms, products of the understanding, like most of the
verses written before the example of Klopstock gave a new
dignity to human emotions. Lessing s early interest in the
fable and the epigram testifies to the predominantly intellec
tual character of his genius. His plays, beginning likewise
with imitations, compilations, and the manipulation of mo
tifs and characters found in dramatists from Plautus to Mari-
vaux, culminated, even before he left Leipzig, in presentable
pieces that expressed personal convictions and gave evidence
of a talent for dialectic exposition which was of far greater
XIV INTRODUCTION.

consequence than the particular subjects on which it was for

the time being employed.
After a short sojourn in Wittenberg (June to October),
Lessing November, 1748, to Berlin. More
proceeded, in
from necessity than in consequence of any matured plan he
plunged into journalism and in this wearing but stimulating
;

occupation he soon found a field particularly suited to his

talents. In February, 1751, he entered into a regular en
gagement with the publisher of the Vossische Zeitung, and
from December, 1752,10 October, 1755, he was in general
charge of the critical and literary department of this news
paper. In number, his criticisms ran up into the hundreds ;

in form, they were brief, incisive, frank, but, on the whole,

far from revolutionary. Lessing had not yet found himself
as the reformer of German literature. Under the title Das
Neueste aus dem Reiche des Witzes, he published from April
to December, 1751, a monthly supplement to the Vossische
Zeitung, likewise somewhat perfunctory, even when he
treated such significant works as Batteux s treatise, Les
beaux arts rcduits a un mcme principe (1747), Diderot s
criticism of Batteux in the Lettre sur les sourds et muets
a T usage de ceux qui entendent et qui parlent (1751), or
Rousseau s Discours sur les sciences et les arts (1750).
At the very end of the year 1751, Lessing went once
more to Wittenberg, buried himself in books, and obtained
the degree of master of arts on April 29, 1752. His critical
instinct developed in the same measure as his exact knowl

edge increased. He found a welcome occasion to replenish

his purse by submitting a mass of corrections to the Allge-

meines Gelehrtenlexikon of the Leipzig University Librarian,
Christian Gottlieb Jocher and to expose the bungling igno
;

rance of a translator of Horace, Samuel Gotthold Lange, in

Halle, first in a Brief printed in 1753; then, piqued by
 INTRODUCTION. XV

Lange s haughty reply, in the unanswerable Vade mecum

fiir den Hrn. Sam. Gotth. Lange, Berlin, 1754.
Hardly back in Berlin in November, 1752, Lessing began
the publication of an edition of his collected works, G. E.

Lessing s Schriften, which appeared in six volumes, pub

lished by Voss between 1753 and 1755. As a fruit of his

industrious reading in Wittenberg there appeared in the

second volume (1753) twenty-five critical Briefe, among

them an independent and fearless criticism of Klopstock s
Messias ; and in the third (1754), a series of Rettungen,
exculpations of various men, including Horace, from long
standing charges that Lessing had found to be not well es
tablished. With these evidences of scholarship, acumen,
and outspokenness, Lessing won for himself a recognized
place in the world of letters of the Prussian capital. In

1752 he became a member of a Monday Club in which the

philosopher Johann Georg Sulzer and the Horatian scholar

and translator Karl Wilhelm Rainier were his associates.
Most important for the future of German letters was, how
ever, the close friendship which Lessing formed in 1753 with
the Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, and in 1754
with the bookseller, author, and editor Friedrich Nicolai.
Nicolai (1733-1811) was during the entire latter half of
the eighteenth century one of the most active, productive,
and domineering, if not dominant, figures in German literary
life. A person of extensive knowledge of literature, he never
hesitated to pronounce opinions on men and things ;
an
open eyed observer, he recorded the impressions made upon
his mind as he traveled about in Germany and Switzerland;

no philosopher, he nevertheless haled before the bar of his

common sense the esthetic, moral, and metaphysical ques
tions which agitated the minds of his contemporaries. As a
champion of rationalism and enlightenment he combated
XVI INTRODUCTION.

and sentimental enthusiasms by his Freuden

superstitions ;

desjungen Werthers (1775) he incurred the enmity of

Goethe and Schiller, and had to submit to ridicule in Faust
1
(I, 4144 ff., 4267, 4319) as well as in the Xenien of 1796.
In his latter years Nicolai grew more emphatic and less

intelligent he failed altogether to keep pace with the prog

;

ress of the times ; and the Romanticists in particular pro

tested that having always been a bookseller out of his

sphere, he had no right as a writer to regard himself as the

successor and heir of Lessing. But their spite should not
blind us to the fact that as an organizer, publisher, and
business man, Nicolai was not only helpful in many ways to

Lessing, but also a real power in the world of letters for

years ;
nor to the further fact that by founding the periodi
cals Wissenschaften und der freien
Bibliothek der schonen
Kiinste (1757 ff.), Briefe, die neueste Literatur betreffend

(1759-1766), and especially the AUgemeine deutsche Biblio

thek (1765-1798), Nicolai made himself the generalissimo
of German critics, and gave to Berlin the importance of a
headquarters of enlightenment for no less than two literary
2
generations.
Lessing s indebtedness to Mendelssohn (1729-1786) can
hardly be overestimated and on the other hand, too much
;

credit can hardly be given to Lessing for having through

advice and encouragement furthered the development of
Mendelssohn into the first man of letters among the German
Jews. Mendelssohn was the prototype of Lessing s Nathan
the Wise. He was a true friend in all personal relations, and
a judicious counselor in questions of philosophy. Both the
theory of the tragedy and the theory of the difference be-
1 Ed. E. Schmidt and B. Suphan, Weimar, 1893, nos - IOI II2

246-284, 343-346, 43 6 465, 492, 811.

.

2
Cf. J. Minor, DNL 72, pp. 275 ff.
 INTRODUCTION. XV11

tween painting and poetry later the subject of Laokoon

were debated orally and in by the two friends and
letters ;

for Laokoon Lessing adopted definitions and ideas which

Mendelssohn had already printed. In 1755 Lessing made
Mendelssohn acquainted with Nicolai. In 1757 Mendels
sohn became joint editor with Nicolai of the Bibliothek der
schonen Wissenschaften und der freien Kunste. He con
tributed to the Briefe, die neneste Literatur betreffend, and to
the earlier numbers of the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek.
The intimacy of Mendelssohn s and Lessing s intellectual

life is well symbolized by their publication in 1755 of a joint

product, a polemical treatise on Alexander Pope s meta

physics in the Essay on Man, to which they gave the title
Pope ein Metaphysiker!

Lessing did not, however, long continue in immediate

daily association with his lierlin friends. Interest in the thea
ter attracted him once more, October, 1755, to Leipzig;
in

but the separation was not allowed to interrupt their spiritual

intercourse, and had for us the advantage that they were
now compelled to debate their problems in letters. Men
delssohn was the most generous of the correspondents. The
drama was uppermost in Lessing s mind. Between 1754 and
1758 he published as a continuation of earlier Beitrage four
volumes of a Theatralische Bibliothek, consisting of one essay
on the comedie larmoyante, another on the dramatic works
of Seneca, and twelve further articles on the history of the
drama in Spain, Italy, France, and England. In 1760 Les
sing wrote an extensive of Sophocles (printed in 1790^,
life

and published, under the title Das Theater des Herrn Di

derot, translations of Diderot s plays Lefils naturel and Le

pere de famille, as well as the treatises that Diderot had

appended to them. Meanwhile Lessing had also turned his
attention to theory and practice in other forms of literature.
XV111 INTRODUCTION.

In 1759 he edited with Ramler the epigrams of Friedrich

von Logau, with observations on the language of the poet,
and a vocabulary. In the same year he printed a volume
of fables with a preface and with five chapters of a treatise
on the fable. The first of these chapters contains a defini
tion of action, a passage important for the interpretation of

Laokoon, and a clear anticipation of Laokoon in the sen

tence llnb id) farm e3 fitr etne untritcjlicfyc s]*robe auSgcbcu,
:

bag etne gabel fd)lerf)t tft, bag fie ben Xiamen ber gabel
gar nid)t oerbient, rocnn ifyre oenncmte anblung fid) a,an$
malen (agt. 8ie entljalt alsbann ein MogeS 33tlb, unb bei
1
Dealer Ijat feme Jfabcf, fonbern ein (Smblema cjemalt.
In the spring of 1756 Lessing had started with a young
Swiss patrician, Winkler by name, to make a tour of Europe,
but had hardly reached Amsterdam, in July, when the break
ing out of the Seven Years War put an end to the journey,
and both returned to Leipzig. In May, 1758, Lessing was
again in Berlin, where he stayed until the capture of the city
by Russian and Austrian troops in November, 1760, drove
him away. Hearing that the post of secretary to the com
mandant of Breslau, General von Tauentzien, was vacant, he
applied for it. His friends looked askance upon this deser
tion of the realm of letters for the distracting life of practical
duties in a military camp ;
but Lessing well knew that he
was making no mistake. He
had no intention of identifying
himself with a literary clique in Berlin. The most trenchant
of the earlier Briefe, die neueste Literatur betrejffend, had ema
nated from his pen ; but he contributed nothing to the All-
gemeine deutsche Bibliothek; and he was confident that a few
more years of contact with men would only sharpen his wits
and give zest to his appetite for occupation with books when
he returned to them. So he wrote to Ramler on the sixth of
1 L-M VII, p. 429.
 INTRODUCTION. XIX

December, 1
760. He filled the office of secretary to Gen
eral Tauentzien for four years, being for the greater part of
the time stationed in Breslau. He attended to his not very
arduous duties conscientiously, he participated freely in the
gayeties of life of the garrison, and he patiently endured the
shakings of the head of those who believed that he was wear
ing himself out in riotous living and excessive gaming. For
in the midst of all this he was buying books, browsing in the

library, mulling over esthetic problems, and profiting like

a student on a holiday from a change of air and a new occu

pation. In Breslau Minna von Barnhelm was conceived,

materials for solving the problems of his Laokoon were gath
ered and garnered, and meditation on these problems crys
tallized into systematic plans or briefs of an argument on the

essential difference between painting and poetry.

IV.

LESSING S PROBLEM AMONG THE ANCIENTS.

The problem which Lessing undertook to solve in Lao
The likeness and, to a
koon was no new one. certain extent,
the difference between painting and poetry had been ob
served and noted by the very first philosophers whose es
thetic speculations have come down to us ;
and in Lessing s

own time the subject was treated so often that it may fairly
be called the favorite subject of the age in which esthetics
developed into a special branch of science. In his preface
Lessing mentions several ancient philosophers in contrast to
many of his own day whom he does not name, saying that
whereas the moderns have rather confused than distinguished
the different realms of the sister arts, the ancients kept them
apart in practice, and also, so far as can be judged from their
 XX INTRODUCTION.

extant writings, in theory. The ancients to whom he refers,

Apelles, Protogenes, Aristotle, Cicero, Horace, Quintilian,

Simonides, and Plutarch, belong indeed to widely different
times and represent widely different interests and views;
and when Lessing speaks in general terms of the ancients " "

l
we are justified Herder
in 21), what
asking, with (/8<5,

ancients, who, where, and when ? Notwithstanding all their

sure instinct in art and penetrating insight in speculation,

by no means defined the respective

"

Lessing s ancients "

spheres of the formative and the rhetorical arts. For the

ancient artist never being, like so many moderns, an illus
trator of poetry, nor the ancient poet an interpreter of paint
ing or sculpture, the problem hardly presented itself to the
ancient philosopher in the form in which it appeared to

Lessing furthermore, ancient speculation did not begin

;

until the period of the most excellent production in the arts

was passed.
The earliest of the philosophers whom Lessing mentions
is properly Aristotle (384-322 Plato (427-347
B.C.); for
B. the first really to treat esthetic subjects, in no wise
c.),
broached Lessing s problem, and his most significant opinion
about these matters, the doctrine of imitation (/xi /^orts) suf ,

fered from his peculiar attitude towards ideas as distinguished

from reality, an attitude which caused him to assign the
fine arts to a position below the useful arts in the scale of

values in human life. Aristotle himself nowhere formulated

the difference between the arts in very useful fashion. But
his conception of the universal Greek doctrine that all arts

are arts of imitation superseded Plato s and maintained

canonical authority down to the eighteenth century. By imi-

Ration Aristotle does not mean the copying of an objective

f
W^ *
1
The Italic figures refer to pages of the text; the others to the
lines, thus :
page 186, line 21.
 INTRODUCTION. XXI

model, but creation in objective form, the representation of

a spiritual entity in material manifest to sense, the expression
of an idea, a conception, an imagined thing, a subjective
notion in short, an ideal. This ideal is in its turn the
artist s divination of the essential quality inthe things of
sense ;
the higher principle which finds in reality only
it is

an imperfect embodiment, but in art a perfect one.

Aristotle classifies the arts according to the objects and the
means of At the beginning of the twenty-
their imitation.

fifth chapter of the Poetics he says, "The poet being an

imitator, like a painter or any other artist^ must of necessity
imitate one of three objects things as they were or are,
things as they are said or thought to be, or things as they
Imitation of things as they ought to be
" "

ought to be."

is a realization of the intentions of nature, the representation

of a higher truth than that of reality, through freedom from

the constraints of accident and the stubbornness of material.
As to the means of imitation, these are bodily form, color,
sound, and articulate speech in which, however, rhythm
;

and harmony are two special modes of form as well as of

sound and speech. The arts of form are, then, sculpture
and dancing (rhythmical form) ; the art of color is painting ;

of sound, music of speech, poetry.; Dancing, music, and

poetry are rhythmical arts painting and sculpture are arts
;

of rest. and dancing, but

Aristotle subdivides poetry, music,
has nothing more to say about the distinction between paint

ing and poetry indeed, he says in general little about paint

:

ing or sculpture.
Cicero (106-43 B - C furnished Lessing with a few details
connected with the history of ancient art ;
but his eclectic
philosophy was not to Lessing s taste (cf. ^7, 8), and his
references to painting are few and incidental to his exposi
tion of the nature and qualities of that art which interested
XX11 INTRODUCTION.

him above all others, the art of oratory. There is in his

numerous works no trace of insight into the differences
between painting and poetry.
Horace (65-8 B. c.) had a supreme interest in poetry, as
Cicero had in oratory. His Epistola ad Fisones (Ars
Poetica\ a familiar letter of advice, intermingled with pleas
antries, to two young men about town, is far from being
systematic least of all is it broad enough in treatment to
;

include the manifold forms of other arts than the art of ex

pression in words. Like Cicero, Horace uses painting to

illustrate points For later generations
important in poetry.
it was ominous that began with a simile from pic
his epistle
torial art, and, in two other places, seemed, instead of distin
and poetry; as if the undoubted
guishing, to equate painting
likeness between them in some respects extended to all
things not excluded by the obvious difference between con
tours and colors on the one hand, and words on the other.
To emphasize the importance of unity and congruence of
parts in a literary work,Horace (1. i fT.) describes a gro
tesquely composed picture. To emphasize, on the contrary,
the freedom of the creative artist from artificial or material

restraints, he says (1. 9 f.)

that painters and poets have
always had equal power what they wished to
to attempt
achieve. And insisting upon the right point of view in judg
ment, he declares (1. 361 f.)
:

"

Ut pictura poesis ; erit, quae, si propius stes,

Te capiat magis, et quaedam, si longius abstes."

That is to say : there is a broad style and a miniature style

in poetry as well as in painting, and to form a just opinion of
either poetry or painting you must place yourself at the right
distance from each. Though what he says is innocuous,
Horace rather encouraged than discouraged confusion be-
 INTRODUCTION. XX111

tween thearts and especially among those who remembered

;

his Ut pictura poesis but forgot its context. Before the

appearance of Laokoon, this phrase had the cogency of an
axiom.
Quintilian (born 35 A. D.) makes in his Institutio oratoria
a few stray references to painters and sculptors, and has in
one place (lib. XII, cap. X, i
ff.)
a passage valuable for
the history of certain ancient artists ;
but he nowhere shows

any markedly original knowledge of other arts than rhetoric,

nor does he attempt any excursion into lands unknown.
Simonides of Ceos (c. 556-468 B. c.) was a writer of
threnodies and epigrams. The saying of his which Lessing
(24, 1 6) quotes from Plutarch to the effect that painting is
dumb poetry and poetry is a speaking picture was no more
than a witty antithesis ; but its precision and suggestiveness

gave it, like Horace s Ut pictura poesis, unlimited currency,

and, especially among the Italians of the sixteenth century,
the authority of self-evidence.
A far more noteworthy saying, however, is found in a well-

authenticated story about a much greater Greek poet, Sopho

cles. Athenceus (c. 200 A. D.) relates in his Ai7rvoo-o<to-Tcu

(discussions on food, i. e., table talk), XIII, p. 603 E, that

Sophocles having applied to a blushing boy the line of poetry
"The
light of love beams from his purple cheeks," a school
master protested that purple cheeks was a poor expression,
inasmuch as no painter could conceivably paint cheeks
purple without making his picture both ugly and ridiculous ;
and that the poet, who meant to describe beauty, should not
have suggested ugliness. Whereupon Sophocles replied that
purple cheeks was as good an expression as the Homeric
"

golden-locked Apollo or rosy-fingered

"
"

Dawn." A painter,
he said, would not paint hair golden; and if he painted a fig
ure with rosy fingers the hands would look more like those
XXIV INTRODUCTION.

of a dyer than of a beautiful woman. The difference between

a picture conjured up in the fancy of a poet, and one painted
on wood by a colorist is here distinctly perceived, and like
wise the corresponding difference in the means employed by
the two kinds of artists the poet s epithets are not to be
:

taken in a sense, and the imagination is pleasurably

literal

stimulated by the attribution of qualities which would appear

offensively exaggerated if given to material objects.

In the voluminous works of Plutarch (c. 46-c. 125 A. D.)
we find valuable evidence of insight into the laws of poetry
based upon the philosophy of Aristotle especially a sensible
separation of poetic beauty from moral truth and consid
erable attention given to music. The distinction between
poetry and painting which Lessing quotes (24, 27) means
rather less than Lessing makes it out to mean in the mate :

rial and the manner of their imitation these arts are different.

The material of painting is lines and colors; the material of

poetry is words and sentences ; but as to the manner, the

difference is conditioned by the material words have to be:

manipulated otherwise than colors nevertheless, that histo

;

rian is the best who gives in his history such a series of vivid
and affecting pictures of the past as a painter would give
if he represented to our very eyes the scenes and actors
described.
These are the ancients whom
Lessing mentioned.
1
If one

wished to be exhaustive, one would have to include others

in the list, e. g., Pliny the Elder (23-79 A D fr m whose -
-)>

Natural History, the most valuable compendium on ancient

art that has come down have quoted 2 the names of
to us, I
the probable sculptors of the Laocoon. But Pliny was no
theorist and in general, it is useless to continue a catalogue
;

from which only a negative result can be obtained. Lessing s

1 2
Except Apelles and Protogenes ; cf. 2$., 2. P. viii.
 INTRODUCTION. XXV

praise of the esthetic philosophy of the ancients is excessive.

One name, however, which he does not adduce, is in some
ways the most noteworthy of all. The Greek rhetor Dio
Chrysostomus (c. 50-117 A. D.), famous for eighty Orations
some of which are rather essays than speeches pene
trated deeper into the secrets of rhetorical and formative art
than any of his predecessors. In his
(Olympian) twelfth

comparison between poet and

l
oration Dio institutes a real

sculptor in the treatment of one and the same subject :

the poet is Homer, the sculptor is Phidias, and the subject

is Zeus. defending his
Phidias, method of production,
declares that he has rivaled and vanquished Homer; for
after the creation of his Olympian Zeus it became impossible
for anyone to conceive the god in any other form. In com
paring the two classes of artists, Dio makes the following
points: (i) sculptors have studied poets who preceded
them in time and have derived inspiration from the poets
conceptions and representations of the gods ;
(2) Homeric
epithets have guided sculptors and painters ; (3) Homer s

conceptions of gods vary with circumstances his Zeus is at :

one time gentle and at another time terrible ; (4) poetry has
a greater range than sculpture ; (5) poetry narrates manifold
actions and movements ; (6) poetry can without offense de
scribe human forms in colossal proportions ; (7) sculpture
is restricted to a single moment and a stationary subject (8) ;

in poetry, Zeus can be described as hurling thunderbolts ;

(9) in plastic art he cannot be so represented (10) the ;

formative arts cannot exaggerate human proportions, because

they work for the outward eye ;
(n) sculptors and painters
have conformed to the ideals of poets, and (12) to popular
traditions about the gods; but (13) sculptors are unable to

represent all poetic conceptions in stone ;

for many of these
1 Ed. L. Dinclorf, Leipzig, 1857, ff.
I, pp. 213
XXVI INTRODUCTION.

they have to resort to symbols; (14) words are elastic and

easy to manipulate (15) the artist in marble has to overcome
;

the resistance of a hard material ;

and the artist in colors has
technical difficulties which restrict the range of effects pos
sible to him. In these propositions the doctrines of coexist
ence for sculpture and painting and succession for poetry,

of the "

fruitful moment "

for the formative arts in general,

of a difference in subject corresponding to the difference in

the artistic means, and divers details, are so strikingly similar
to Lessing s doctrines and to details of his treatment that,

provided I>essing
knew this oration, we are surprised to find
no mention of I )io in Laokoon. That he had knowledge of
it cannot be proved, but is probable ;
for
among his post
humous papers we find a complaint Uber die Mangel ties
antiquarischen Studiwni which refers to Dio s orations; and
silence in Laokoon is no proof of ignorance, as can be shown
inother examples no less striking than this. 51

Lessing s Laokoon, and still more the plans and excerpts

made during his preliminary studies in the subject, show that
other writers of antiquity than those mentioned above might
be added to the list. lieyoml an occasional gleam of com
prehension we should, however, find in them nothing to
demand attention. Indeed, so far as the development of a
criticaltheory is concerned, we may jump from the first
century to the fifteenth or sixteenth; am! as for practice in
the arts, it is well known that late Roman and early Christian
art,the painting and sculpture of the Middle Ages, and to
a considerable extent also of the Renaissance, revelled in

allegory and strove to illustrate both pagan and Christian

L-M XV, p. 99.

a
The contention of J. R. Asmtis (F.uphorion, IV, pp. 38 ff.) that
Laokoon largely traceable hack to Dio s oration for substance and
is

form docs not commend itself to my mind.

 INTRODUCTION. XXVl i

mythology with all the inclusive-ness of history and poetry.

Late Latin and medhcval poetry, on the other hand, is no less
full of allegory and description and the most lasting cflect
;

of the Renaissance seems to have been a confirmation of the

medieval fondness for these two things. To appreciate the
timeliness of Lttokoon we need only observe the prevailing
taste in art and literature of Lessing s own generation and of
the generations immediately preceding.

V.

"POETIC" TAINTING AND SCULPTURE.

With respect to continental Kurope at least, Voltaire was

abundantly justified in calling the seventeenth century le

siccle de Louis XIV. During not a few of the many years

of his reign (1643 1715) Louis exercised a real hegemony
in European affairs ;
and even after his political sun had set
he was, as a sovereign, an object of emulation to other
princes, great and small while the achievements of those
;

who had enjoyed patronage in literature and art secured

his

to French taste and French standards a portentous prestige,

nowhere more so than in Germany. The principal North
German courts, at Dresden, Braunschweig, and Merlin, vied
with one another in lavish imitation of the splendors of

Versailles; and the history of the arts in Germany for the

hundred years ensuing after about 1650 is largely bound up

with the history of these courts. Germany was hardly ever
less original or less productive than during this period so ;

that when we have chronicled the relative esteem in which

Italian, French, or Netherlandish masters were held at this
place and at that time, we have told the story of the forma
tive arts for those times and places.
XXV111 INTRODUCTION.

It is customary to refer all kinds of art, including literature,

in the hundred years under review, to the prevalence of three
styles or fashions called Barock, Rokoko, and Zopf. They
represent the gradual change from magnificence of outward
display to a weaker, more playful adornment of the entourage
of personal life ; and finally to the stiff, plain, and sober ex

pressions of the age of reason and philanthropy. In France,

Barock was the characteristic form in the time of Louis XIV ;

Rokoko belonged to the first half of the reign of Louis XV;

and the Zopfstil began with the appearance of Mme. de
Pompadour, about 1750, and continued through the reign of
Louis XVI. In Germany, the first imitators of Louis XIV
were devoted to Barock; Rokoko developed at the same
time and along parallel lines in Germany and France the ;

Zopfstil showed tendencies to return to classical forms,

and was contemporaneous with the efforts of Lessing and
others to guide their fellow-countrymen to the imitation
of classical models. The renaissance of classicism in the
latter half of the eighteenth century in Germany has, there

fore, some of the aspects of a national revolt against the

supremacy of the French. It was also the turning away

from both the decadent Italian and the naturalistic Nether

landish schools.
For all the nations of Europe, Italy was in the seventeenth
it had been in the sixteenth, the great exemplar in
century, as
everything pertaining to the arts ; and national styles or man
ners were for the most part local developments of ideas im

ported from Italy. The Barock style was of Italian origin ;

and Italian Barock architects, sculptors, and painters held

sway over several generations. The architects Francesco
Borromini (1599-1667) and Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680)?
and their followers, carried the tendencies of the Italian
Renaissance to the utmost in the direction of picturesque-
 INTRODUCTION. XXIX

ness, seeking to attain in buildings all the effects of per

1
spective, of light, shade, and color. They designed their

exteriors with broken curves, irregular outlines, symmetrical

masses, and surfaces covered with ornament they placed ;

statues in niches or on columns and entablatures. In the

interior they used structural elements as framework for

more statues and for paintings ;

and they provided for

especially gorgeous ceilings. Combining every variety of

motifs that ingenuity could devise, they had no respect for
the integrity of any, but made each subservient to the effect
of the whole. They preferred pillars to columns, and a
group of pillars to a single one. Disregarding the normal
function of the arch, they flattened or broke and depressed
it,

its center. Opulence and movement, but ostentation and

restlessness are the total impression of this style of building.
The sculpture of the time, often calculated for architectural
or ornamental effects in connection with particular buildings,
was conceived and executed in the same spirit of display.
Bernini is also the most eminent of the Barock sculptors.
He made portrait statues and fountains he treated subjects
;

from antiquity, and allegorical "virtues" and "vices";

he
exaggerated the muscularity of men, and for contrast em
phasized the voluptuous fullness and softness of female
figures. By a certain naturalism of form he sought to
disguise the hollowness and artificiality of many of his

subjects ;
and in general he employed an inexhaustible
variety of technical means to secure theatrical effects more
picturesque than plastic effects often belonging, indeed,

to the art of dancing rather than to the art of carving

in stone. His statue of Daphne, pursued by Apollo and
already beginning to turn into a laurel, is a good example
1
Cf. Anton Springer, Hardback Jer Kunstgeschichte 1 Leipzig, , 1905,
IV, p. 239, for an illustration of a dome designed by Borromini.
XXX INTRODUCTION.

of the kind of subject which he chose, and of the virtuosity

of his technique. 1
Italian painting of the Barock epoch was distinguished for

a general tendency towards the harsher effects of naturalism

even when its subjects were mythological or religious ; and
though it flourished at Rome and elsewhere in the peninsula,
it marked a decided retrogression from the art of the preced
ing century. Caravaggio (1569-1609) makes the figures of
sacred story human to the point of vulgarity the Caracci ;

(c.1550-c. 1610) strove like him for the effects of real life, and
suggest a certain sensuousness which in Annibale Caracci s
2
Vierge en silence is charming humor, but in his brother
Agostino s Galathca and Polyphemus* approaches the las
civious. Guido Reni (1575-1642), the most celebrated of the
Italian painters of his day, who began his career under the
influence of Caravaggio, was, in his prime, a master of supple
form and warm human feeling, but degenerated into an
indolent sentimentalist. His contemporary Domenico Zam-
pieri, called Domenichino (1581-1641), retained, along with
greater conscientiousness and industry, a healthier naturalism
and a keener sense of fact. These artists and many more,
down to the prolific Luca Giordano (1632-1705), upheld
the traditions of Italian painting as an art contributing to
the adornment of life but they are not, in any such degree
;

as their predecessors, interpreters of life in forms of beauty.

They are mannerists rather than stylists ; and though their

very limitations saved them from often attempting to express

the inexpressible, which in the fertile minds of Titian 4 and
5
Correggio tended to become a baffling or incomprehensible
allegory, the influence of Correggio upon the Caracci and
1
Cf. Springer, /. c.,
p. 241 ; Ziehen, /. c.,
p. 45.
2 4
Springer, p. 249. Ziehen, Anschauungsmaterial, p. 9.
8 G
Ibid., p. 247. Ibid., p. 10.
 INTRODUCTION. XXXI

upon all of the Barock painters was in this respect and in

others both strong and lasting.
French art of the seventeenth century, developing under
Italian influences, and, through the foundation of the French

Academy at Rome 1666, manifesting a conscious inten

in

tion of remaining open to them, took on, nevertheless, with

all the other accessories of life, a decidedly national and royal

aspect under the patronage of Louis XIV. The palace

of Versailles, begun as early as 1624, but completed by
Louis XIV, is impressive, with its setting in a garden of geo
metrical avenues and magnificent prospects, chiefly for the
enormous length to which it extends. Barock in respect to

pompous proportions, the building itself is, at least on the

outside, free from the excessive complexity of Italian de
l
signs ; designed by Jules Hardouin Man-
and, like others
sart(1645-1708), shows a tendency to revert to the simpler
forms of the Italian Renaissance. Louis XIV s buildings
were more highly ornamented in the interior than
in general

on the exterior and French painting, sculpture, weaving,

;

and cabinet-making combined to equip the structures with

gorgeous and truly regal adornments and furnishings. The
greatest painter of the reign, Charles Lebrun (1619-1690),
was far more successful on walls and ceilings than in his
many canvases. The sculptors followed in the footsteps of
Bernini; and the most famous of them, Pierre Puget (1622-
1694), made P>ernini s vivacity seem weakly nervous in com
parison with his own grandiose passion and latent power.
2
Puget s Milon of Crotona, attacked by a lion, and helpless
because his left hand is
wedged into a cleft in an oak, fur
nishes an opportunity for an interesting comparison with

1
E. g., the dome of the Hotel des Invalides in Paris; Springer,
iv, p. 344.
2 In the
Louvre. Cf. Springer, p. 354; and Goethe, /^, 21.
XXX11 INTRODUCTION.

Laocoon, especially with respect to his wide-open mouth.

Magnificence, power, dominion, and dignified elegance were
l
the qualities with which French artists endeavored to glorify
Louis XIV ;
and the imitators of the roi soleil in Germany
inculcated in their artists the same spirit. For models in
the details of execution, German artists went rather to the
source from which the Frenchmen themselves had derived

inspiration, namely, the art of Italy.

Of the German courts which imitated that of Versailles,
the first to be mentioned
is Dresden, not
only because in
point of time the French magnificence was reflected here

earlier, but also because enthusiasm for the artistic expres

sion of sovereign grandeur here went farther and lasted

longer than elsewhere in Germany so that in Lessing s

;

generation Dresden was the most conspicuous center of in

terest in the arts north of the Alps. The beginnings were
made by the Elector Johann Georg II (1656-1680), an
avowed adherent of Louis XIV, the recipient of French sub
sidies, and an extravagant devotee of the pomp and show of

sovereignty. His grandson, August II, der Starke, outdid

the grandfather in splendor, and gave to his capital its most
characteristic building, the Zwinger. This building, planned

1
The esthetics of French painting and sculpture found classical
expression in lectures and discussions at the Academie royale de
peinture et de sculpture, of which body Lebrun was the soul. Cf.
Henry Jouin, Conferences de F academic royale de peinture et de sculpture,
Paris, 1883, and W. G. Howard, Publications of the Modern Language
Association^XXIV, pp. 40 The kind of sculpture against which
ff.

Lessing raised his protest well represented by the \\ork of Jean

is

Baptiste Pigalle (1714-1785), especially his famous monumental tomb

of the Marechal de Saxe in the Thomaskirche at Strassburg. As
may be seen from the picture in the Zeitschrift fur bildende Kitnst,
XVIII, p. 152, this monument represents the extreme to which alle
gory may, or may not, be carried in sculpture.
 INTRODUCTION. XXXI 11

under the immediate supervision of the Elector by Daniel

Puppelmann (1662-1736), is a structure of seven pavilions
connected by a gallery of one story and enclosing an oblong
courtyard of some fifteen thousand square yards, the whole
conceived as the front yard of a royal palace which was
never erected, but for which a museum building was ulti
mately substituted. The Zwinger was intended to furnish a
framework and background for garden parties, pageants, and

masquerades. In design it followed, like the palace at

Versailles, the model of Roman baths and palaces. But in
contrast to the sober exterior of Versailles, the Zwinger
shows extreme profusion of external ornamentation and if ;

the effect of the whole is grandiose, the pavilions, provided

as resting places for participants in court festivals, produce
rather the effect of picture frames than of architectural
1
masses, and seem rather like cozy corners within a ball
room than like shelters from the winds and rains of the outer
world. In a small picture, such a pavilion looks as if it were
made of porcelain. In both of these respects it prophesies
the Rokoko style.
The next reign, that of August III (1733-1 763), witnessed
the efflorescence ofRokoko and along with it a return from
French to Italian taste. The Court Church with its sixty-
four statues of saints had an Italian architect, Gaetano
Chiaveri (1689-1770); Italian opera superseded French
comedy and tragedy at the Court Theater and the picture
;

gallery was filled with paintings of the Dutch and Flemish

masters, but especially of the Italians after the time of

Raphael. Furthermore, the greatest development in the
manufacture of porcelain took place between 1730 and 1756
at Meissen ;
and Mtissner Forzellan was the Rokoko product
par excellence. At first used for the making of all sorts of
1 Cf. the western pavilion in Springer, p. 381.
XXXIV INTRODUCTION.

vessels adorned with painted figures, the soft clay soon came
to be modeled into an infinite variety of plastic forms, such
as cups, candlesticks, vases, and bric-a-brac for mere pur
poses of decoration. Leaves, flowers, flames, waving scarfs
and banners, tiny knights, ladies, nymphs, cupids, dancing
and playing swains and children all very
pretty and dainty,
but capricious and fantastic the forms of this art betokened
serene unawareness that the question had ever been asked
whether there is not, after all, some difference between the

arts which based upon the material of their imitation. 1

is
2
Saxony produced porcelain Dresden was a colony of Italy
; ;

but neither the French nor the Italian masters founded here
3
a German school of art.

Politically, the most important court in North Germany

during the eighteenth century was that of Berlin ; and in

many respects the rapid rise of Prussia gave a new turn to
German affairs. But in the arts Berlin was less of a leader ;

perhaps for the very reason that the more practical sense of
the Prussians prevented leadership in the then popular direc
tion. The Elector Frederick III of Brandenburg (1688),
who as Frederick I assumed the title of King of Prussia

(1701-1713), was not unlike August II of Saxony in fond

ness for the display of royalty ;
but he was less extravagant
and less pompous. His buildings, the Royal Palace and the
Arsenal Berlin, are, especially the former, impressive for
in

massiveness and imposing proportions, and are more like the

palace at Versailles than the Zwinger in comparative free

dom from inorganic ornamentation. In Andreas SchUiter

359; and Ludwig Volkmann,

1 Cf. Ziehen, pp. 46 ff.; Springer, p.
Grenzen der A iinste, Dresden, 1903.
-
So Winckelmann calls it; Gedankcn iiber die Nachahmung der
griechischen IVerke (1755), DLD
20, p. 8.
8 Cf. C.
Justi, Winckelmann*, Leipzig, 1898, I, pp. 228 ff.
 INTRODUCTION. XXXV

(1664-1714) the king possessed the most talented sculptor

of those days, an artist whose work is distinguished for vigor,

precision, and truthfulness to life. These qualities are con

l

spicuous in the masks of dying warriors with which he

adorned the keystones of the window-arches in the court of
the Arsenal, and also in his masterpiece, the equestrian
statue of the Great Elector,- which stands on the Lange
Briicke behind the Palace. But even Schliiter could not
altogether escape the Barock atmosphere of the time. The
figure of the Elector bestrides a powerful horse, true in every
detail to the idea of a big-boned, full-blooded, and muscular
animal ;
but the rider not happily arrayed as a Roman
is

emperor ;
and at the corners of the pedestal there are
four chained figures, of dubious significance but indubitable
restlessness.

The arts received little attention from the second king of

Prussia, Frederick William I

(1713-1740). Under Fred
erick the Great (1740-1786), French taste prevailed in all

the arts. Sans Souci at Potsdam was another Versailles.

Frederick s architect, Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff
(1699-1753), built here and in Berlin upon the model of
French classicism, but decorated the interior of his buildings
in the Rokoko style. There were at this time no German
painters or sculptors of renown in Berlin. Daniel Chodo-
wiecki (1726-1801), the German Hogarth, did his best work
as an engraver and illustrator. The painter most closely
associated with Frederick was the Frenchman Antoine Pesne
(1683-1757); the painter whose works are perhaps most
largely represented in Frederick s collections is another
Frenchman, Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), the typical
1 Cf. Springer, p. 383.
2 Cf. Brockhaus, Konversationslexikon, under Deutsche Kunst>

plate V, figure i.
XXXVI INTRODUCTION.

Rokoko painter, whose favorite subject is a group of fine

gentlemen and ladies loitering in a dignified manner in a
park or forest.

Compared with Dresden and Berlin, Braunschweig is of

small account in the history of the arts. It deserves men

tion, however, because its duke Anton Ulrich (born 1633,

died 1714) strove on his part for royal magnificence, and
collected pictures, principally those of the Netherlandish
schools. And might be added that still another prince
it

ling, Landgraf Wilhelm VIII of Cassel, made in the first

half of the eighteenth century an important collection of
Dutch and Flemish pictures, especially Rembrandts.
On the whole, probably not too much to say that in
it is

the seventeenth century the art of painting flourished to a

greater degree in the Netherlands than in any other part of

Europe. Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640), Anton van Dyck
(1599-1641), Adrian Brouwer (1605-1638), David Teniers
(1610-1690) in Flanders ; Frans Hals (c. 1580-1666), Rem
brandt van Rijn (1606-1669), Jacob van Ruisdael (c. 1628-
1682), Philips Wouwerman (1619-1668), Paul Potter (1625-
1654) in Holland are only a few of the distinguished names
which would be hard to match from another corner of Europe.
Having a multitude of traits in common, these men neverthe
less represent a great variety of tendencies and interests, and
each is an unsurpassed master in his particular field. Com
mon to them all are acuteness of observation, naturalness of
color, and love of characteristic details; but the subjects which
each treated by preference range from Christian legend, pagan
mythology, history, allegory, still life, landscape, hunting, vil
lagelife, and scenes from civic life to portraits of contempo

raries. Many of the I hitch and Flemish painters went, like

the French, toRome, and came under the influence of

Italian art ; others were in turn more or less influenced by
 INTRODUCTION. XXXV11

the French. But foreign influence was a small factor when

combined with the native impulse and tradition ;
and of this

tradition we may say that it

taught those born to it to find the

picturesque in almost every situation and in every rank of life,

to humanize religion, and to sensualize even the abstract. In

general, Netherlandish art was characteristic rather than typ
ical ; true rather than beautiful ; often humorous where the

Italian was cynical rather emotional than intellectual ; often

;

grandiose, but never ostentatious ; democratic, sympathetic,

and sincere. It stands at the opposite pole from the ideal of
beauty postulated by Lessing and in that excessive allego
;

rizingwhich Lessing thought the gravest danger to artists of

his day and generation no painter was ever bolder than
Rubens in the series of illustrations of the life of Marie de
Me dicis which he painted for the Luxembourg Palace in

Paris, and which are now in the Louvre. 1

VI.

"PICTORIAL" POETRY.

If we now makea rapid survey of the course of German

literature of theseventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, it
appears that the same foreign influences which then determined
the taste in painting, sculpture, and architecture operated also
to make German poetry then less national than at almost any
other time in recent history. Luther s Reformation had been
a democratic movement, the great questions of which were
debated before the forum of the people and in the language
of the people. But the end of the sixteenth century witnessed
an ominous return to Latin as the language of the cultivated ;

the troublous times of the Thirty Years War

(1618-1648)
1 Cf. the volume Rubens in Klassiker der Kunst, V, Stuttgart, 1905.
 XXXV111 INTRODUCTION.

brought such a horde of foreigners to Germany that the

German language was well-nigh swamped with outlandish
words and expressions ;
between this war and the Seven
Years War (1756-1763) the cleft separating the learned and
the unlearned yawned wide, and
" "

polite letters banefully

emphasized the artificial courtesy of caste. Meanwhile men

of position and men of letters who had the cause of German
culture at heart sought inspiration partly in classical antiquity,

partly in the example of those countries which had developed

a national culture in the light of the revival of learning, espe

cially Italy and France. The Italian academies were the

models of the Deutsche Sprackgesellschaficn (e.g., Diefrnclit-
bringende Gcsellschaft, 1617) and the French J U wde with
;

Pierre Ronsard (1524-1585) atits head was the guide of the

"

father of German poetry,"

Martin Opitz (1597-1639).
Both the Sprachgescllschaftcn and Opitz are entitled to
credit for their aims, and for some of their achievements. In

part their objects werewholesome and national. The Sprach-

gescllschaften endeavored to purge and dignify the language ;

Opitz taught by precept and example that the proper basis of

German verse was the accentuation of words instead of the
I mere enumeration of syllables which had satisfied Hans
Sachs. But with the members of these Gestllschaftfn^ in
cluding Opitz, the fatal doctrine prevailed that poetry was an
elegant accomplishment, a useful art for the celebration of
weddings, birthdays, and public events a means of expres ;

sion which could be acquired and practiced like any other

exercise of wit and skill ;
a trick to be learned of the Romans
and so that the bulk of the products of these
their imitators
;

rhymsters are little better than imitations of imitations, artifi

cial manipulations of classical mythology, stiff and dull versifi

cations of Christian sentiments,or preposterous masqueradings

in the guise of impossible swains and shepherdesses. Opitz s
 INTRODUCTION. XX\1X

Buck von dfr deutschen Poeterey (1624), the magna charta of

diction for the seventeenth century, deals with hardly any other
matters than questions of definition and form, on the authority
of Julius Caesar Scaliger (1484-1558 ; Poetices libri\ll, 1561)
and Ronsard (Abrege de Fart poetique en notrepocsiefran<;aise,
1565). Opitz was not lacking in a sense of the import of his
art ;
l
but how crude his conception of it was, the following
2
verses to his friend, the painter Strobel, bear witness :

. . . bcnn jollt id) Tid) nidjt fennen,

3d), ber ^oeten Xeil, als tote fie mid) ja nennen,
Xid), after dialer ^id)t? @3 tuctB faft aud) em Jtinb,
Xein mtb mctne Atunft Okfdjtwftcrfinber finb:

t"rf)retben auf papier, ^{)r auf Rapier unb ^ebcr,

fyoli, ^Retail unb olb; ber ^infel mad)t ber 3cber f .

^cbcr tuicberum bent ^infct ollcs nad).

8
,
tt>a^
l)terbeoor ber (Sfyeroucnfcr fprad^,
Xcr ^Dinnn, bem 05riec^enlanb unb 91 om and) nic^t be^aljlen
s
Xer fi Iugljeit Ijotjen JKcrt, bafe Chier ebles JJialcn
s
unb bic 4Jocterci
^oetcret, btc fd)iuctiV f

1
s
6iu rebenbc3 (^cmdlb unb -Btlb, ba$ lebc, fet.

The poetry of Opitz and those who regarded him as their

master belongs to a kind of belated Renaissance. It was the

work of respectable scholars and sober craftsmen. The re

ligious poetry of Friedrich von Spec (1591-1635), Simon
Dach (1605-1659), Paul Fleming (1609-1640), Paulus
Gerhardt (1607-1676), Johann Scheffier (1624-1677) is not
lacking in genuine human feeling along with its correctness
of form. The same is true of Fleming s love poems, and of
the epigrams of Friedrich von Logau (1604-1655). These
poets represented the classical spirit in a time that was tend-
1 Cf. the verses under the rubric Dass die Poeterey utisterblich sgy,
DNL XXVII, p. 14.
2
Tentsche Gedichte, Frankfurt, 1746, II, p. 396.
3
Erroneous for Simonides of Ceos.
xl INTRODUCTION.

ing more and more towards romantic extravagance, as the

Barock influences began to get sway in Germany. In France,
the pseudo-classical pomposity of Ronsard had been sup
planted by \he prtcieux refinements of Francois de Malherbe
(1555-1628). When Paris began to loom up as the shining
example of splendor and elegance, the Germans were rather
dazzled by the splendor than illumined by the elegance, the

very impotence of their attempts at emulation leading to

ridiculous excesses. Fashion usurped the place of style, the
gentleman a la mode, if he seemed a caricature, nevertheless
became a type ;
and politeness, then called Politik, the norm
of conduct for the man of the world of those days, inevitably

suggests policy and not principle.

The prevalence of these ideas is best attested by contem
porary protests against them. Thus Hans Michael Mosche-
rosch (1601-1669), a man by no means free from pedantry
and the ostentation of learning in foreign tongues, devoted a
whole chapter of his Gesichte Philanders von Sittcwald 1 to
upbraiding the German fondness for foreign garb. Johann
Lauremberg (1590-1658), professor of poetry Rostock,at

likewise ridiculed in his Low German Veer Schertz-Gedichtc*

thissubserviency to France in language, titles, and clothing ;

and Logau summed up the situation in the epigram, 3

Ofranfrcid) fyat c lucit flcbvadjt; ftrnnfrcidj fi" & fdjaffen,

v
afc fo mancfyes fianb uub ^olf Hurt) 311 fcincni Wffcn.

As was said above, Fleming was a man of real poetic feel

ing. Fleming at his worst is therefore no unfair example of
4
what then passed for poetry. Here are some lines of his :

1 A la mode Kehrans, DNL XXXII, p. in.

2 Neudr. XVI.
8
Sinngedichte, 1654, DNL XXVIII, p. 181.
* DNL XXVIII, p. 25.
 INTRODUCTION. xli

ben Slumctt.

)er Otofen Wild) unb 33lut muft ityrcn ilBangen tneidjen,

Jlctn rotes 9lagclein mac] ityrcm 3Runbc a,lcirf)en.
1
ie Saffvanblume ftirbt fiir ifyrer a nbc 3icr

SJcrflifemciimictyt ucrftifct aud) fcincr felbft fiir ityr.

SRnrfiijjen fiub luoljl toctfe, bod) uidjt fiir Ujren ^anbett,

5)tc i>ctlrf)en
tucrbcn blnfj, tocnn ftc fid) unity iljr tocnbcn.
31 1) r ^nl5 ift tycller nod) nf5 allc Milieu fctn,
2
Hub ^ruft fttd)t l)in
i()rc bcr Knemonen Sdjctn.
3
Styr fitter Cbcnt rn udjt IDIC ftavfc Sifemblutneit,
S
2ln ityr tft, tua uns fd)trft
s
^and)ca
4
unb ^biuncn. 6
SitaS fng id)? SJlURt bod) it)r, ityr tinmen, fclbft flcftctyn,

Sic fct nod) taufcubiual fo jd)6n, al5 Xaufcnbfd)6n!

It was, however, with the so-called Second Silesian School

that genuine Barock poetry set in, bringing its bombast, its ex
otic obscenity, and its suave gallantry. The Silesian Andreas
Gryphius (1616-1664), the father of the regular German
drama, had sought his models in Holland and in Greece, and
erred rather on the side of heaviness and an overladen style ;

but his fellow-countrymen, Christian Hoffmann von Hoff-

mannswaldau (1617-1679), and Daniel Casper von Lohen-
stein (1655-1683), caught from the Italians Giovanni Battista
Guarini (1537-1625) and Giovanni Battista Marino (1569-

1625) the tricks of amusing a lascivious court with facile and

*
ornately sensual verses. Gryphius in his HorribUicribrifax
could hold up to ridicule the miles gloriosus of the Thirty
Years War
but Hoffmannswaldau in his Heldenbriefe 1 and
;

Lohenstein in his plays, such as Cleopatra? are erotic, im

moderately figurative, and indecent.

1
fiir
=
Dor, in comparison with.
5
Idumaea in Syria.
2
excels. DNL XXIX, pp. 243 ff.
8
rauityt = ricd)t.
7 DNL XXXVI, pp. 3 ff.
*
An East Indian island. 8
DNL XXXVI, pp. in ff.
xlii INTRODUCTION.

From two quarters the reigning pretentiousness of the

Silesian style was attacked and overcome in the last decades

of the seventeenth century : a form of naturalism was arrayed

against its unnaturalness, and a new criticism assailed its ab

surdity. The naturalism was a legitimate descendant of the
popular tradition of the sixteenth century the criticism, a ;

child of the common sense and good taste of the siede <ie

Louis XI V.
Christian Weise (1642-1708), himself a Silesian,
a pedagogue, a man of serious, moral, didactic nature, by
temperament more inclined to esteem substance than to cul
tivate form,was a foe of all hypocrisy, and so a born leader
in the crusade against literary artificiality. His watchword
s
was, JDton inufc bic <>ad)cu alfo Dorbringeu, line ftc nature!!
iinb ungqnmnflen finb, fonft Derttercit ftc nUc grace, fo fiinft*

lid) a(3 ftC abljefaftt tocrbetl. Die drei argsten Erznarren

in der ganzcn Welt} the best known of Weise s four novels,
is as severe in dealing with apish imitation of the French
in dress and language, 2 as in rebuking the pedantry and
8
presumption of those who would substitute Tageleuchter
and Reit-Puffer for the imported but current words Fenster
and Pistole. This was a wholesome protest against Lohen-
stein s bombast. A similar though veiled protest animates
Weise s dramas.
fifty-odd These are distinguished by
complexity of plot and by the effectiveness of individual

scenes ; but above all by realistic naturalness of treatment.

They in prose which is differentiated so as to con

are
form to the character of the speaker they were calculated ;

for actual performance ;

and Weise s endeavor throughout
was to be honestly matter-of-fact. He did not escape

prosiness, but he did avoid bombast.

Nor was his method
of composition by any means free from artifice. In his

8
1 Neudr. XII. P. 66.
2 ff.
Pp. 103
 INTRODUCTION. xliii

best-known play, Der bdurische Machtavellus* the action

of the real personages is enclosed in a dull and elaborate

allegory in which abstract qualities personified bear their

Latin names :
Politicus, Civilis, Simplex, Fidelis, Innocens,
and so forth. In two Weise, though
respects, therefore,
marking a stage beyond Lohenstein, illustrates and foreshad
ows the abuses corrected by Lessing his naturalism is mere :

imitation, and is
germane to a lifeless description of nature ;

and kind of mediaeval allegorizing striving

his invention is a

to express more than it has the means to objectify.

On the side of criticism, the poetry represented by Hoff-

mannswaldau and Lohenstein was attacked by three writers
u
usually associated as opponents of the Second Silesian
2
School": Friedrich Rudolf Ludwig von Canitz (1654-1699),

Benjamin Neukirch (1665-1729), and Christian Wernicke

(1661-1725), men of very different character and careers,
but alikein having profited by the precepts of Boileau, and

in acknowledging a strong preference for the Roman poets

over against the Italians recently in vogue. Canitz was a
cultivated gentleman, a courtier, diplomat, traveler, a man
of taste and discretion a poet only in so far that he could
;

compose with ease and elegance. As a critic he was more

gentle than revolutionary. From the satire Von der Poesie?
his principal critical utterance, it
appears that he regards
4
poetry as a dignified pastime, and an art of imitation of na
6
ture ;
and his chief ground of objection to the Silesian style
6
is its unnaturalness.

Neukirch, by birth and early affiliations a Silesian, repre

sents in his own person the transition from Italian to French

discipleship, and the transference of leadership in literary

1
DNL XXXIX, pp. 2 ff. 4 LI. 5-7.
DNL XXXIX. 5
Llt i
37 ., 4 i >

146-149.
a DNL XXXIX, pp. 404 ff. e LI. 152-159.
xllV INTRODUCTION.

matters from Silesia to Prussia and Saxony for in the first ;

years of the eighteenth century he attached himself to the

court of the Hohenzollern, and in 1774, after his death, his
works were edited and lauded by Gottsched, the Leipzig
dictator, as a safe guide for a groping age. Neukirch wrote
addresses, odes, religious meditations, satires (after Juvenal
and Boileau), translations (notably of the Tclcmaque of Fe -
nelon) and versified criticisms. Among the last-mentioned
1
the satireAuf unvtrstandigt Poeten is the best compendium
of his opinions. Like Canitz, Neukirch derides the prefer
ence for artificial adornment over unadorned nature, 2 and
3
insists upon reason and the good sense 4 of the ancients as
the all sufficient guides for the modern poet.
Wernicke. on his father s side a Saxon, on his mother s an
Englishman, by birth a Prussian, by profession a diplomat,
pursued the art of poetry as an avocation in his youth, and
as a vehicle of satire in his early manhood. He belongs with
Logau as a writer of epigrams ;
he is a predecessor of Les-

sing as a literary critic and, to some degree, as an esthetic

philosopher. He seems to have introduced the word critique

into the German language. In his prefaces and the notes
that he appended to his epigrams he showed how intelligent
criticism of his predecessors, his contemporaries, and himself
could be made fruitful. Though in his youth an admirer of
Hoffmannswaldau and Lohenstein, and always well disposed
towards them personally, he severely arraigns their unnatural
figures of speech, and the other improprieties of the Silesian
style. Sinnlichkeit, by which he means intellectuality, in
genuity, wit, and mental keenness, is the quality which he
demands of poet and poetry the expression of pregnant
;

thought in direct and inelaborate symbols is his poetic

1
DNL XXXIX, pp. 479 ff.
8 L. 103.
2 LI. 97 * L. 145.
ff.
 INTRODUCTION. xlv

method ;
and in spite of the fact that he called some of
his characterizations of persons Gem dtde, and made con
stant use of the terminology of painting in his discussions
of the problems of poetry, he knew how to depict quali
ties of mind in action, and of person in effect on other

persons and he never indulged in frosty descriptions of

;

the outward aspect of things. Lessing paid his critical

respects to Wernicke in the Zerstreiite Anmcrkungen iiber
das Epigratnm. 1
It was VVernicke s fate to be too soon forgotten by his
fellow-countrymen. During the first half of the eighteenth

century one or two men of letters knew and esteemed him ;

but when, in 1749, the Swiss Bodmer undertook a reprint

of Wernicke s works, he was obliged to confess that this
German Martial had been lost to sight, and that his book
had become a rarity possessed by only a few libraries. The
power of a single man could hardly have sufficed to stem the
tide, swollen as was by influences from several directions,
it

which set in shortly after Wernicke s time but the fact re ;

mains that Wernicke had gained wide-spread

s doctrine, if it

recognition, ought to have made once for all impossible the

popularity of that literary abuse which immediately before

Lessing enjoyed the greatest vogue, and, more than anything
else, called forth his Laokoon, namely, ate Schihlerungssueht
in der Poesies
Three German names are unenviably associated with the
mania for description : Barthold Heinrich Brockes (1680-

1747), Albiecht von Mailer (1708-1777), and Ewald Chris

tian von Kleist_(i7i5-i759) ; and a fourth name, that of the

1
Cf. W. G. Howard, Publ. of the Mod. Lang. Assn., XXIII, pp.
520-544, and Rudolf Pechel, Chr. Wtrnickts Epigramnie> in Palaestra,

71, Berlin, 1909.

2 Cf. 25t 12.
xlvi INTRODUCTION.

Englishman James Thomson (1700-1748), was early con

nected with it.

The modern reader has difficulty in finding anything in

Brockes that can conceivably be called poetical ; and the
most lasting impression produced upon the modern mind by
his interminable enumeration of commonplace facts is dull
ness or unintentional humor. Brockes was a man of one

idea, which he expounded in nine volumes of verses : the

idea that the visible universe is in all its details a manifesta

tion to man of the omnipotence and the love of the Creator.

The nine volumes all bore the appropriate title, Irdisches

Vergniigcn in Gott. David Friedrich Strauss described the

verses as ctit gcveiiuter pl)l)fifO tl)colocji|d)er 43cU)ct$. Brockes
himself furnishes a kind of motto for all his activity in

the lines that conclude his Nochmalige Beschreibung der

1
Nachtigall:
3ft ntofllirf), bafe Don folcfyem ingen
3>ie CuelT cin tonenb Stciubcfjen fei?
Gin 3ebcrd)cn, brtn Xon wtb I^cbcn,
@in fltigelf$tt)ingenbet ($cian$i,
in >d)a(I,
cin mud) nut Jpaut untgeben,
@in S
finflenb j{id)t5, cin blofeer ^lang?
Sn fold^cn fovfdjcnbcn (^ebanfen
^crttefte ftcb, incin muntrcr inn;
3d) fdjlofe, nad) ^tn- unb 2Btebcrtt)anfcn,
@^ fci rt)a tmmltfd>e barin.

Every word in the last quatrain is characteristic and sig

nificant.With imperturbable cheerfulness Brockes buried
himself in the contemplation of natural phenomena, argued
the pro s and con s of every minute detail, and concluded that
there was something in each not always much evidently
of Heavenly design. But on the other hand, as has been
repeatedly pointed out, this very absorption in nature on the
1
DNLXXXIX, p. 307.
 INTRODUCTION. xlvii

part of a serenely serious, amiable, and benevolent mind, this

capacity for minute observation and patient report, for enthu

siastic immolation of personal life in the manifold life of the

physical universe, represented a tendency which not only

proved a wholesome antidote to the frivolously unnatural
of the Anacreonticists Hagedorn, Gleim, and
intellectuality
Uz, but also directed attention to a source of inspiration
which since the days of Opitz had been given scant consid
eration. This was the secret of the popularity of Brockes :

he conducted his readers out into the fresh air ;

he opened
their eyes to the facts of vegetable and animal life ;
and if he
did not interpret nature in forms of poetry, he at least led to
the discovery in nature of the stuff of which poems are made.
The first volume of the Irdisches Vcrgnugen in Gott ap
peared in 1721. There were six new editions before 1 745. In
1745 Brockes published a translation of Thomson s Seasons.
1

Thomson was zpoct there can be no two opinions about

that ; and his Seasons are four poems, well planned, well ex
ecuted, abounding in admirable scenes, episodes, and reflec
tions, and constituting as a whole a marvelous interpretation
of the spirit of the times of year. One gets from Thomson s
blank verse like the impression of Marlowe s
something
"
"

mighty not the poised grandeur of Milton, but the

line :

sense of exaltation which accompanies the upward lift of

strength soaring towards an ideal. Stirring rhythm, daring

words and turns of phrase, and original epi
figures, striking
thets ever and anon relieve the mind from the suggestions of

monotony inevitable in a composition on even so short a

series as four similar themes. Lessing, who printed a short
life of Thomson in his Theatralische Bibliothek, beginning

1
This version is in lumbering rhymed lines of eight feet, into which
the diluted substance of Thomson s sentences is cast, but from which
every effect of form and nearly all the poetry are missing.
xlviii INTRODUCTION.

l)omfon ift aud) tit Tcutjdjlanb als cm grower rtid)t

>id)tcr

1
unbefannt, said that the first lines of the canto on Winter
could not be more sublime.
Thomson s view of nature is
noteworthy for the unusually
close alliance in which he sees the life of man and the nat
ural forces which serve or dominate it ; and for the scrupu
lously exact exposition which it enabled him to give of the
phenomena of the physical world on the one hand, and the
conditions of rustic life on the other. One of his earliest
critics, Swift, complained that very happens in the
little

poem ;
and it is true that the action overshadowed by the
is

elaborate setting of the stage. The actors are different from

time to time, and there is no connection between the suc
cessive groups. Thomson was a Roussellian before Rousseau.
He extols nature and the state of nature; not infrequently
he depicts still life ;
but just as frequently it is the moving
things in the landscape that attract his eye, and the opera
tions of husbandry that he describes in their successive
moments. In many a subject, however, that Lessing would
say was better suited to the painter than to the poet, the art
of Thomson leaves little to be desired.
Albrecht von Haller was one of the most remarkable men
of the eighteenth century remarkable alike for the range of
his interests, his industry, and the fruitfulness of his ideas.

A man of the broadest training, he combined encyclopedic

attainments in the natural sciences with the knowledge and
love of poetry. He was a physician, an anatomist, botanist,
a member of the first faculty of the university of Gottingen,
and the first president of the Royal Academy of Sciences
there. From youth he wrote verses, his first
his earliest

models being Lohenstein and Brockes. He never quite out

grew their influence, though his confessed ideal was Virgil,
1
L-M VI, p. 53.
 INTRODUCTION. xlix

and among the moderns, Thomson and Pope made the

deepest impression upon him. Haller s poetry was essentially
didactic in purpose, descriptive and epigrammatic in form.
The very titles of his most ambitious works give evidence
of this character Gedanken uber Vernunft, Aberglauben nnd
;

Unglauben Die Falschheit menschlicher Tugenden ; Die

;

verdorbenen Sitten ; Uber den Ursprung des Ubels. Serious,

melancholy, benevolent, he, like Thomson and Rousseau,

longed to restore men to the perfect state of nature and he ;

surveyed both nature and human life with the eye of a moral
ist and of a scientist at the same time. His most widely es
teemed poem, Die A/pen, first printed in 1732, was novel in
German literature, in celebrating the majesty of the moun
tainsand the corresponding wholesomeness of the life of the
mountaineers. It is rugged and masculine in tone, but

utterly prosaic in form. Haller himself calls attention to the

labor put upon the construction of the stanzas, the care be
stowed to secure for each a climax and a strong conclusion.
He failed to conceal
his art. In the constantly recurring

juwr, bod), allein, well, inbcffcn, luatjr ift tf, and the like, we
feel the breath of argument that chills poetry and the learned ;

1
poet, as Lessing says, malt, abcr ol)itc alle iiufd)itucj.
We must say the same of Kleist : cv malt, abcr ol)ltc
2
ailfd)Una,. The
painting in his Frtihling (i749), closely
imitative of Brockes s translation of Thomson, is equally re
mote with Haller sfrom the poetry of Thomson. Kleist s
poem is in part a rhapsody on the simple life of rustics in ;

part a hymn to the Creator ;

in part a series of scenes ob
served by a stroller in the country; and for the rest, a cata-

1 1 8.
709,
2
Original version in Werkt, ed. A. Sauer, Berlin, Ilempel, I,
pp. 173 ff. Revised version (1756) ibiJ., pp. 206 ff. ; also, ed. Muncker,
DNL XLV, pp. 169 ff.
 1 INTRODUCTION.

logue of the equipments and the surroundings of a farmer.

Near the end of his poem Kleist apostrophizes Haller, grate
fully conscious of spiritual kinship with him. But he is more

ardent, and less didactic ;

more self-conscious ;
and more
inarticulate and exclamatory the less he has to say. Most of
his "pictures"
are derived, through Brockes, from Thom
son ;
much of his method mere indication of
consists in the

things, without even the feeblest attempt to give them objec

tive existence. The spirit of the times, seeking nature, and
reveling in individual feeling, acclaimed Kleist, as it had ac
claimed Brockes and Haller and even Lessing was in his
;

youth not unaffected by the contagion of sympathetic en

thusiasm. But his rationalistic temperament soon saved him
from persistent exaggeration of the emotional elements in
art. Such depicters of still life as Haller and Kleist fairly
challenged criticism. Exemplifying the misfortune of real
talents led astray by false ideals, they inevitably suggested
the doctrine in accordance with which the true poetic ideal
might be rehabilitated. The call was imperative. For not
only did the most lauded poet of that generation, Friedrich
Gottlieb Klopstock (1724-1803), show unmistakable signs of

predilection for exhaustive description, but the theorists of

the time, however much they might quarrel over other ques

tions, seemed to be at one in the adoption of Horace s

supposed identification of poetry and painting in the phrase

Ut pictura poesis.

VII.

LESSING S PROBLEM AMONG THE MODERNS.

In esthetic philosophy, as in the formative arts and in
poetry, Italy and France were the guides and leaders of Ger-
v
many in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the
 INTRODUCTION. li

eighteenth century powerful influences in philosophy, and

favoritemodels in poetry were derived from England ; but
the English themselves had been pupils of the Italians and
the French in everything pertaining to the theory and
practice of the arts. The
science of poetry among the
moderns is ordinarily said to have begun with Marco Giro-
lamo Vida and his Latin verses, Poeticorum libri III (1527);
it received its fullest definition in the ponderous Latin

treatise, Poetices libri VII (1561) of

J. C. Scaliger. Vida
was a modern Horace who imparted advice to a young poet
as to how the highest form of poetry, the epic, might be
striven for in the light of the example of the greatest of
Latin poets, Virgil. Vida makes fewer references to painting
than Horace, and says nothing about the relation in which
the two arts are to be supposed to stand to each other.

Scaliger also enters upon no discussion of this relation, but

rather takes it for granted that the relation is close, saying in
one place,
1
Omnis enim oratio ti8os, crpota, qncm-
/xt/x?;a-i<?,

admodum et pictura : id quod et ab Aristotele et a Platone

declaration csf. This was the common doctrine of the Re
naissance, modified only by the qualifications of the dictum
of Simonides that one art was dumb and the other vocal.
That both treated the same subjects and aimed at the same
results was generally assumed to be self-evident. But the
more penetrating of the writers on poetry, and above all the
numerous painters who wrote treatises on their art, occa
sionally made distinctions which only needed a further de
velopment to put to shame many of the confusions of later
generations and here and there we find a man not unworthy
;

2
to be called an ancestor of Lessing.

1
Poetice, p. 401, ed. of 1617.
2 Ut pictura
Cf. my comprehensive article entitled poesis in the
Publ. of the Mod. Lang. ASSH., XXIV, pp. 40 ff.
Ill INTRODUCTION.

Such a man was Leon Battista Albert!. His treatise Delia

1
Pittura (I436), it so far as
goes beyond technical matters
of practical utility, tends to bring out the likeness rather than
the difference between poetry and painting. But it may well
do this ;
for human emotions, and poetic ideas
beings, human
are, in the author opinion, the highest type of subject which
s

the painter can treat in his imitation of nature ; and the pur

pose of this treatment mere representation.

is expression, not
Such a man a fortiori was Leonardo da Vinci, who left at
his death in 1519 a mass of unedited documents later

loosely gathered into three parts of a Libro di Fittura?

The first of these parts contains in unsystematic form a truly
between the arts. Lionardo regards
"

remarkable "

parallel

poetry as inferior to painting but this is because he seems ;

to recognize no other kind than descriptive poetry ; and be

cause of his natural preference for the eye and the things of

sight over the ear and the things of hearing. Poetry, he

says, can be at best a melody ;
it takes time, its effects are

vague, and its inventions are illusory. Hut painting is a

harmony of simultaneous co operation ;
its effects are im
mediate, vivid, and true to life.
Poetry gives us the shadows
of things ; painting, the bodies that cast the shadows. These
bodies, however, are no copies of reality they are ex ;

pressions of the fancy, and have symbolical as well as

objective significance.
There were other painters in Italy who in the course of
the sixteenth century wrote about their art and its relations
to poetry; but the most valuable discussion of these questions

1
Accessible with a translation into German in R. Eitelberger von
Edelberg s Quellenschriften fur fCunstgeschichtt, XI, Vienna, 1877.
a Edited with a
translation into German and a commentary by
Heinrich Ludwig, in Eitelberger s Quellenschriften, nos. XV-XVII,
Vienna, 1882.
 INTRODUCTION. liii

is found in the works of two men of letters, Benedetto

Varchi and Lodovico Dolce, the latter of whom was known
to Lessing, the former apparently not.
Varchi answered before the Florentine Academy in 1546
painters are similar and
1
an inquiry, wherein poets and
wherein they are different. They are similar in imitating

nature, but they differ in the means that they employ, and to
a considerable extent also in the subjects that they imitate.
For the poet has to do chiefly with the things of the mind
and soul ;
the painter, chiefly with the appearance of the

body. The painter does indeed reveal the emotions of the

soul as they find expression in variations in the appearance
of the body ;
and the poet does also describe external ap
pearances ; but the fact remains that the realm of the inside
of man is the peculiar domain of the poet, and the realm of
the outside the peculiar domain of the painter.
The fame of Dolce has suffered from the just criticism by
2
Lessing of Dolce s praise of Ariosto s description of the

fairy Alcina. Dolce s Dialogo della pittura, intitolato I Arf-

3
tino (i557), was, however, a book that deserved the esteem
in which it was held by Italians, Frenchmen, and others.
Though in the form of a dialogue on the comparative merits
of Raphael and Michelangelo, it develops in orderly fashion
the essential truths about painting in its three parts, inven

tion, design, and coloring. Invention is the poetic element,

common to all creative artists. By means of invention, the
painter rises above mere imitation of visible things, and be
comes, equally with the poet, an interpreter of the facts of

life, a narrator of stories illustrating human experience, and

1
Lezzioni, Florence, 1590, pp. 226-230.
2
128, 31 ff .
8
Translated into German by Cajetan Cerri, Eitelberger s Quellen-
schriften, II, Vienna, 1871.
llV INTRODUCTION.

a translator of truth and goodness into the language of

beauty. By means of design and color he gives to his in
ventions an affecting and verisimilar embodiment, so that his
dumb figures seem to speak, to weep, to laugh, and to ex
press thoughts and emotions. These figures are natural
without being copied from nature ; they combine in a single
form the beauties which nature has scattered among a
thousand individuals ;
the painter thus corrects the imper
fections of nature ;
and he who has thoroughly acquainted
himself with the marbles and bronzes of antiquity can make
this correction with a sure hand. Expressing an ideal, the
painter can give form and substance even to unsubstantial
entities like spirits and qualitiesand being a poet as well as
;

a historian, he personifies the impersonal forces that impel

human beings to act. But it is not well that his allegories
should be so profound or obscure as to be unintelligible.
The seventeenth century saw the seat of speculative ac
tivity in the esthetics of painting pass from Italy to France.
Hardly more than one Italian book of that century attained

to internationalimportance, and this was dedicated to

Colbert, the minister of Louis XIV, and was otherwise akin
in spirit to the ideals of the French. I refer to Le vife dj

pittori, scuttatori, et architetti moderni (1672) by Giovanni

Pietro Bellori. The
preface to this volume is an exposition
of the idea of a painter, delivered as a lecture before the
Roman academy di San Luca in 1664 ;
the volume itself, as

appears from the title, is chiefly biographical. French es

thetics, however, began not only under the influence of
Italian esthetics,but in Italy, and in close contact with
Italian works of art. The science had its origin with a group
of young men gathered about the French painter Nicolas
Poussin (1594-1665), who from 1624 to 1639, and again
from 1642 to his death, resided in or near Rome.
 INTRODUCTION. Iv

Poussin has been calledk peintre cornelien. His favorite

subject was a Roman
or an ideal landscape adorned with
relics of antiquity and used as a background for groups of

figures of men and women of ideal proportions, in graceful

ancient garb, and in dignified attitudes. A picture of his is
L
like a scene from a drama of Corneille s. Poussin left no
theoretical treatises, but he was generous in giving instruction
to disciples ;
and so far at least as the composition of pictures
is concerned, ideas of his persisted in France for a hundred
years or more. They passed immediately into a Latin poem
by one of his disciples, the poem De arte graphica by
Charles Alphonse du Fresnoy, published in 1668, after the
death of the author, with a translation into French prose and
2
with notes by another disciple of Poussin, Roger de Piles.
The poem De arte graphica is an ic art of the poetry of
8

published six years before Boileau s Art poctique.

painting"

Like Boileaii, du Fresnoy draws more or less upon Horace ;

but he stands in still closer relation to Vida and to Dolce ; and

his general conception of the purpose and the method of his
art is that of Poussin. The poem begins with the words
"

Ut pictura poesis erit; similisque poesi

Sit pictura."

1
Cf. Paul Dcsjardins, La mcthode classique de Nicolas Poussin in

La mtthode des classique s frations, Paris, 1904, pp. 165-211.

2 In
1695 de Piles s book, including du Fresnoy s poem, was trans
lated into English prose by John Dryden and to the translation
;

Dryden prefixed a Parallel of Poetry and Painting which is for us

" "

the readiest introduction to the theory of art in which these two

species were equated, and which, as we see, is of ancient origin, as is
the characteristic theory of the Renaissance, and of the classical, or

pseudo-classical, times in France, England, and Germany. Dryden s

"Parallel" is
conveniently accessible in W. P. Ker s Essays of John
Dryden, Oxford, 1900, II, pp. 115-153.
3
Cf. Paul Vitry, De C. A. Dufresnoy pictoris poemate quod
"

De
arte graphica" inscribitur, Paris, 1901.
Ivi INTRODUCTION.

The kind of poetry to which painting is thus assimilated

is, however, dramatic poetry an assimilation quite in the
spirit of Poussin, and at least suggested by Dolce. Vida, fol
lowing Aristotle and Cicero, divides poetry into three parts,
namely, invention, disposition, and elocution. Du Fresnoy,
following Dolce, divides painting into the three similar parts,
invention, design, and coloring. Since du Fresnoy accepts
without question the saying of Simonides, and seeks through
out rather to emphasize the likeness of painting to poetry
than to detect differences between the two arts, we ought to
take his poem for what it
professes to be and not expect it
to be a Laokoon before Lessing. Painting, as he under
stands it, is expression of an ideal, correction of nature in
accordance with individual inspiration and after the model
of the ancients, and the telling of a story or the represen
tation of a scene such as might form part of a drama.
which
"

Specialization of the sense in

"

poetry is taken

obviously removes many of the objections that would have

to be made to an indiscriminate likening of painting to

poetry ;
and the ever-present insistence upon the quality of
expression in a picture gives the painter the right to any
symbols that actually serve his purpose, putting, that is to

say, to the proof of experience where

belongs it the

question how far the artist may go above and beyond nature
in his choice of symbols. Such a theory as Lessing s,
according to which the end of art is the production of

things of beauty, and the means is the depiction of bodies,

approaches the subject from a different side, and must see
questions in a different light. From which side we can ap
proach nearest to the truth is another matter. Painters
have first, last, and all the time sided with du Fresnoy.
Du Fresnoy s commentator, de Piles, goes still farther than
he in vindicating the sovereign freedom and the creative
 INTRODUCTION. Ivii

character of the painter. Besides the edition of De arte

graphica, de Piles published a Cours de peinture (1708), and

other works, in the interest of his theory. It is true that his

boundless enthusiasm for Rubens led him to excessive fond

ness for allegory; true also that the high value which he
attached to expression led him to concede to painters the

capacity to express and arouse passions which few persons

probably experience in the contemplation of pictures ; true,
in the third place, that he raised the notion of artistic illu

sion to the pitch of deception, where effects cease altogether

to be artistic. Nevertheless, some elements of his doctrine
are not only in advance of du Fresnoy ; they are also in

advance of Lessing.
In the first place, de Piles does not rest content with such
an inclusive conception as Lessing s Malerei for distinguish
ing all of the formative arts from poetry. He holds that the
ancient statues exemplify the highest types of beauty ; but
he warns painters against the temptation of copying them too
closely, lest their pictures should seem colder and harder
than marble itself. Secondly, he declares that the way to
give animation to a picture is to catch and preserve in it

those fugitive and transient beauties . such as the dif

"

. .

ferent airs of an assembly upon the sight of an unexpected

and uncommon object, some particularity of a violent pas
sion, some graceful action, a smile, a glance of an eye, a dis
dainful look, a look of gravity, and a thousand other such
*
of which be contrasted with what
"

like things all is to

Lessing says (37) about transitoriness. Thirdly, de Piles,

agreeing with the universal sentiment that the fine arts ought
to be true to nature, perceives that truth is a variable term,
and a special
that there truth is
"
"

for each of the arts. He

recognizes three kinds of truth :
simple, ideal, and com-
1
Dryden s translation.
Iviii INTRODUCTION.

posite, or perfect. Simple truth is the exact copy of reality

exemplified in the art of painting fruits, flowers, and still

life. Ideal truth, exemplified by the ancients, is a new
creation made by combining the elements of nature accord

ing to a preconceived type of beauty, grace, or grandeur.

Composite or perfect truth, finally, a goal which only
Raphael has attained, and he but rarely, consists in such
a coalescence of elements of ideal truth with elements of

simple truth as gives to the former a firm footing on the

ground of reality, and lifts the latter out of the narrow sphere
of the partial, peculiar, and accidental. De Piles does not
develop his proposition // y a un vrai dans chacun des
beaux arts, but its far-reaching import is hinted at in what
was said above about painting and sculpture. It is with

good reason, for instance, that a portrait, bust is either not

draped at all, or only in a loose flowing robe, and a painted

portrait represents the subject in his customary garb, not
withstanding the fact that sculptor and painter alike aim at a

form essentially true to the subject s character. It is equally

purple cheeks may be
" "

certain, to quote Sophocles, that

true in a description, and not in the least suggestive of the
wound which a black and blue countenance would presu

mably indicate to the eye. Lastly, de Piles gives to historical

and landscape painting the supreme places among the kinds
of painting whereas Lessing gravely questions whether
;

1
there is an ideal in landscape, and virtually denies his

torical subjects to the painter because, representing actions,

they belong to the poet. The art of painting could not live

long if it
accepted Lessing s restriction to beautiful bodies in
2
beautiful attitudes.
Besides du Fresnoy and de Piles, Poussin had in the per
son of Charles Lebrun another disciple, and a still more
2
1
Cf. EntwurfNo. 3, Kap. IX. 102,29.
 INTRODUCTION. llX

influential one Lebrun was not only distinguished as a

;
for

painter, spirit in the Royal Academy of

he was the leading
Painting and Sculpture in Paris (founded in 1648 but re

habilitated under Lebrun s influence in 1662) and the ;

Academy undertook in lectures and discussions to formulate

the esthetics of the arts to which it was devoted. In this

endeavor it followed ancient statues as models for individual

figures, Poussin as the guide in the secrets of composition,

and the old pseudo-IIoratian doctrine, Ut pictura poesis, in
the general tendency to regard painting and sculpture as
1
arts of expression, like poetry.
2
In one of the earliest of the lectures, the sculptor Ge rard
van Opstal described the principal figure in the Laocobn
group, pointing out that it was a model of ideal beauty by
the imitation of which the artist could correct the imperfec
tions of nature. Laocoon, he said, was a person of high
birth, of noble figure, dignity, and grandeur just such a

person, we may add, as Corneille would have chosen to

be the hero of a tragedy and the assembled Academy
agreed with these opinions. For the Academy, however,
one ancient statue served as a model no less acceptably
than another, Greek was Greek, and there was no appeal
from that authority. Nevertheless, it was not without rea
s
soning that this authority was recognized. Lebrun defended
Poussin against the charge of having servilely copied the
ancients, by saying that since he and the ancients were
guided by the truth of nature, it was inevitable that Pous-
1 Cf. S. Rocheblave, Vart franfats au XVH e
sticle dans ses rap
ports avec la littcrature, in L. Petit de Julleville s Histoire de lalangue
ft de la littcrature fran^aise, Paris, 1898, vol. V, pp. 660 ff.; Henry
1

Jouin, Conferences de I Academic royale de peinture et de sculpture^

Paris, 1883.
2
July 2, 1667 I Jouin, pp. 19-26.
8
Jan. 7, 1668 ; Jouin, pp. 91 f.
IX INTRODUCTION.

sin s figures should be like those of the ancients, in the same

way that one ancient statue is like another. But indeed the
ancient artists enjoyed great advantages over the moderns :

they had beautiful models constantly before their eyes the ;

Greek mode of life with its freedom from prudery, the loose
garments which in no wise constrained the body, the habit
of frequently dispensing with all clothing, the many athletic
contests, in short, the out door life of the whole people de
veloped a beautiful race so that it is no wonder the Greeks
;

were able to carve beautiful statues. Study of ancient stat

ues had enabled Poussin to perceive and represent nature
as she ought to be and
he composed scenes as
; similarly,
1
they ought omitting superfluous or incongruous de
to be,

tails, and giving to the whole that air of serene grandeur

which the individual Greek figure seems to breathe. The

Academic painters aim at effects indistinguishable from the
effects which poets seek to they endeavor to con
attain :

vey ideas, to tell arouse emotions, and to ex

stories, to

press themselves. This aim is fully set forth by the painter

Henri Testelin in a lecture entitled r Expression genera/e et
particuliere? Testelin goes so far in identifying the rules of
painting with those of poetry that, on the one hand, he de
clares an axiom that a painter will observe the three dra
it

matic unities of action, time, and place and on the other ;

hand, he claims for the painter the same right to allegorical

figures that the poet has to fantastic ones. Each wishes to
give objective form to his subjective conceptions ; there are
mystical conceptions to be symbolized as well as realities
to be plainly uttered or represented ;
and painting is mute
poetry, the rhetoric of artists. Testelin holds, to be sure,
that allegorical figures should not actually take part in scenes
with historical personages, but like statues in a garden may
1 2
P. 94. June 6, 1675 >
Jouin. PP- 153-167.
 INTRODUCTION. Ixi

serve to indicate the place of the action, and suggest the

circumstances under which the action occurs.
It is evident that the members of the Academy of Painting
and Sculpture were endeavoring to do what was done on all

sides during the reign of Louis XIV to determine, estab

lish, and regulate according and reason

to good sense, taste, ;

and done before them

that they believed the ancients to have
the things that they tried to do. In related domains there
of the same reign
"

were two other great regulators

"

the :

Academic franchise for the French language, and Nicolas

1
Boileau (1636-1711) for French poetry. Boileau s Art
poetiquc (1674), an adaptation of Horace and Vida to
French conditions, makes no further reference to painting
than to use its
terminology in the description of poetic pro
cesses. But the author stood in close relations with some of
the painters, and their doctrine was germane to his. l)e
Piles was a friend of .Boileau s; and Boileau encouraged the

painter Antoine Coypel (1661-1722), a friend of both, to

publish a poem VEsthetique du peintre, which may be said
to be Boileau in a new garb, and which Coypel commented
upon at length in a series of discourses delivered before the
2
Academy of Painting. The essence of Boileau s doctrine

may be found in two or three familiar and characteristic

quotations. Thus :

"

Avant done que d ecrire apprenez ,\ penser."

sujet qu on traite, on plaisant ou sublime,
"

Quelque
Que toujours le bon sens s accorcle avec la rime."
"

Aimez done la raison: Que toujours vos edits

Empruntent d elle seule et leur lustre et leur prix."

Jamais au spectateur n offrez rien d incroyable.

"

Le vrai pent quclquefois n etre pas vraisemblable." 3

1 Cf. Rocheblave, /. c., p. 686.
2 In 1720; Jouin, pp. 215 ff.
8 These verses may easily be found in the Art pottique.
Ixil INTRODUCTION.
1
But, in fine, "Rien n est beau que le vrai."

Coypel s ideal of painting is

"

Le dessin elegant de 1 antique sculpture

Joint aux effets na ifs que fournit la nature."

And his supreme commandment to the painter is

"

Puisez dans le vrai soul le solide et le beau,

Que la raison partout guide votre peinceau."

He declares that both poetry and painting produce a per

fect concert which enchants the eye, the mind, the imagi
nation, and the heart; and that in all essential respects
a heroic picture is like a tragedy.
With de Piles and Coypel we have already crossed the
threshold of the eighteenth century. If the esthetics as well

as the painting and sculpture of the time of Louis XIV are

Barock, the Rokoko esthetics, like the Rokoko painting and

sculpture, developed naturally next reign from ele
in the

ments implanted in the national consciousness so that we ;

find atfirst no break in the doctrinal tradition that the

French had derived from the Italians, but a certain shift in

the point of view, and the tendency to emphasize this or that

element, which was not new, but acquired a new significance
by being emphasized. Thus in the extensive work of the abbe
Jean Baptiste du Bos, Reflexions critiques sur la poesie et sur
la peinture (1719), Ut pictura poesis appears as a motto on
the title-page, but the qualities of both poetry and painting

upon which the author lays most stress are those which arouse
emotion. Similarly, the abbe Charles Batteux, who in 1771
edited the four poetics of Aristotle, Horace, Vida, and
Boileau, with a frontispiece illustrating Boileau s proposition,
"

Rien n est beau que le vrai," symbolized by the frontis-

IX, an marquis de Seignelay,

1
1.
j>tire 43.
 INTRODUCTION. Ixiil

piece to his treatise, Les beaux arts reduits a un mcme prin-

cipe (1747), the belief that the object of the arts is the

production of beauty, and that the principle according to

which this is attained is imitation.
object And in 1757,
Anne Claude Philippe de Tubieres, comte de Caylus (1692-
1765), capped the climax of the whole tradition of Ut pictura
poesis by the publication of his Tableaux tires de f lliade, de
f Oily s see a" Home re et de r Eneide de Virgile, avec des obser
vations generates sur le costume. All three of these men were
known to Lessing ;
the last is subjected to a searching crit
icism in Laokoon. v There are, in the works of all three,

points of likeness to the theories in Laokoon, and hints at

doctrines which only awaited a firm foundation in Lessing s

system to become established for all time.

Du Bos bows to the authority of Boileau ;
he refers re
~
spectfully to the work of de Piles (p. 285) ;
but he depre
and in
"

cates (p. 5) the title of a

"

legislator in esthetics ;

spite of his adoption of most of the laws or rules which the

two preceding centuries had codified, he made the first timid
beginnings of a new kind of speculation on the basis of per
sonal experience. His second volume is largely taken up
with a definition of the nature and development of genius;
and he makes observations, which strike us as quite modern,
on the significance of ancestry, environment, and even cli
mate. In the first volume, he considers works of art from
the point of view of their effect on the spectator or hearer,
and so prepares the way for an impressionistic criticism for
which, in its final stages, laws and rules are no longer su
preme. As is evident from his Horatian motto, du Bos aims
rather at a general theory of esthetics, which shall include

1
Pp. 83 ff.
2 references are to the volume
My fiist of the sixth edition, Paris,

1755-
Ixiv INTRODUCTION.

both painting and poetry, than at a differentiation between

these arts. Nevertheless, he makes distinctions so nearly
like Lessing s that Lessing has even been accused of a sort
of plagiarism from du Bos ; and in at least one important
matter, the theory of artistic illusion, he was not only far in
advance of de Piles s nai ve enjoyment of deception, but also

equally in advance of Lessing, and near to the conception of

"

disinterested pleasure that

"

we find in Kant and Schiller.

du Bos, the motive that impels men to seek
According to
esthetic is the desire and the need of the mind to
enjoyment
be occupied with something (p. 6) and since in real life
;

scenes of suffering and calamity are so exciting as to have

been sought in some forms, like gladiatorial combats and bull
fights, for the purposes of amusement, it is not surprising that
calamitous and tragic subjects have been preferred in art.

They furnish the mind with the occupation that it requires ;

and the pleasure that they give is a pure

pleasure (p. 29),
because the mind is aware that the action represented is not
serious, the emotion is not accompanied by any of the dis

agreeable effects that follow the indulgence in real violent

emotions the cause, in brief, being only a copy of reality,
;

the resulting passionis, so to speak, but a copy of the real

passion which we should experience in the presence of the

real event (p. 27). Both poetry and painting seek to arouse
such artificial passions ; and their imitations will affect us in

the degree in which we should be affected by the objects

imitated. In painting, to be sure, we may admire the skill of
execution displayed upon a subject to which in nature we
should give no attention for painting is a difficult art, and
;

any sort of achievement appeals to us (pp. 52, 69, 71) ; but

mechanical excellence of execution gives a poem no great
value (p. 73). Poetry, seeking above all to rouse our emo
tions (p. 299), must have a suitable subject, and cannot
 INTRODUCTION. Ixv

produce its than by the propriety and con

effect otherwise

tinuity of the images and pictures that its verses present

301 cf. pp. 291
(p. ; ff.).

There are differences between painting and poetry paint :

ing makes use of natural signs, or symbols of expression

(shapes and colors; p. 415), whereas the signs or symbols
of poetry, words, are artificial or conventional (ibid.}. Paint

ing represents only a single instant (p. 238), its signs are
coexistent (p. 417) ; poetry produces its effect by degrees,
in a succession of instants (p. 417). There are also certain
differences as to the kind of subject appropriate for poetry
and painting differences which du Bos explains to the

length of a chapter (XIII, pp. 84 ff.) of his book. Here

something of the reasoning of Varchi reappears phenomena :

of the soul are out of range of the painter s art unless they
alter the visible aspect of the body so is a complex passion
;

which cannot be fully revealed by any action that the

painter can represent. For the painter is bound to treat
subjects in which the effects are due to comparatively simple
causes. Furthermore, a poet can treat an unfamiliar subject,
he can convey unlimited information about it, and develop
its moments according to the relations of cause and effect.

But the painter subject must be known, or at least recog

s

nizable, and its meaning must reveal itself at a glance. On

the other hand, the painter can include a great number and

variety of figures in his picture this would be tedious if not

impossible in a poem and a picture is more affecting than a

because it needs no more
poem (pp. 415 ff.), interpretation
than nature herself, and seeing is believing.

Poetry and painting are both arts of imitation, but neither

is an imitator of reality. The art of the poet consists in
well representing what might veritably have taken place, and
in ornamenting his representation with graceful and elegant
Ixvi INTRODUCTION.

images (p. 229). The painter, who is sometimes thought to

copy nature, has to copy nature without seeing her for in ;

the model before him there cannot possibly be found all the
varieties and degrees of passion and expression which he

wishes, or may wish, to put into his picture (p. 222\

Invention and imagination distinguish the poet from the
historian (p. 221) invention and poetry are of the essence
;

of painting (p. 220). The arts of both poet and painter are
arts of expression, and both have the right to use fantastic

symbols and allegories for this purpose ;

but a more fertile

imagination is required by the artist who restricts himself to

such traits as nature herself furnishes for the expression of
passions, than by the artist who has recourse to allegory
(p. 221) there can be no objection to the discreet employ
;

ment of ancient and authentic allegories, but modern hyper-

fantastic ones are obscure and unstimulating (pp. 193 ff.) ;

and Rubens ought not to have mingled allegorical figures

with historical personages even if, following the example of
Corneille, we may assume as the scene of their action a lieu

pittoresque corresponding to his lieu theatral. By such

mingling, the painter, so to speak, enlarges his vocabulary,
and can thus express more but he runs the risk of trying to
;

express too much ; and the best of Rubens s pictures on the

subject of the life of Marie de Me dicis are the purely histori
cal ones (pp. 208-214).
Besides dividing allegories into ancient and modern, du
Bos classifies them as perfect and imperfect. The former,
he says, are personifications of abstract qualities, such as
and wisdom the latter, existent beings, like
victory, glory, ;

woods, and animals, to which the poet attributes

rivers,
human sentiments and language. These last allegorical
personages are the greatest ornament of poetry, which is
never so grand as when it animates all nature and makes it
 INTRODUCTION. Ixvii

vocal (p. 224). Neither in poetry nor in painting ought

perfect allegories to play an important part in the action, but
ought rather to be a chorus of spectators like that of the

Greek tragedy (p. 225). 1

From du Bos to Batteux is a step backward
for du Bos, ;

in spite of his intended orthodoxy, unhampered by the

is

and shows here and there in his

"

exigencies of a
"

system
frankly individual reflections how attention to one s own
feelings may lead to insight into the secrets of poetic and

pictorial art. If du Bos had given still freer rein to his

empiricism, he would not indeed have made Laokoon super

fluous, but he would have made his anticipations of it more

conspicuous. Batteux is ultra-orthodox. Given the Aris

totelian "imitation," the aphorism of Simonides, and the
Horatian Ut pictura poesis, and he has no difficulty in
reducing the arts to a single principle, or in showing in
all

three pages (256-258) that there is no difference in prin

ciple between poetry and painting. Imitation, however,

does not mean, in his vocabulary, anything like copying
external nature ;
it means expression of an ideal, imitation
de la belle nature, as Batteux calls it and though he does ;

not hesitate to say that the poet paints,"

he does not, after
"

the manner du Bos, extol poetic language for the abun

of
dance of its and descriptions. In fact, his principle
pictures
of imitation gives no encouragement to descriptive poetry."
"

In the same way that du Bos tries, though not very reso
lutely, to apply the test of emotional reaction to all the fine

1
Du Bos s work was well known to Lessing. In 1755 he trans
lated its third volume in the third part of his Theatralische Biblio-
thek. There is a useful monograph by Marcel Braunschvig entitled
L Abbt du Bos, rfnovateur de la critique au XVIIfc sihle Paris, t

1904; and another by A. Lombard, La querelle des anciens et des

modernts ; Vabbt du Bos, Neuchatel, 1908.
Ixviii INTRODUCTION.

arts, Batteux insists upon the cultivation of good taste as the

ultimate test of art and goal of culture without, it is true,
satisfactorily defining taste otherwise than as a demand for

la belle nature (p. 81). But except for this insistence, there
ishardly anything in his book which would justify our dwell
ing upon it, if it had not enjoyed in Germany as well as in
France an undeserved repute before and even after Lessing s
1
time. It was translated in 1751 by Johann Adolf Schlegel,

in 1758 by Ramler in 1754 Gottsched published an Aus-

;

zug aus Batteux schonen Kunstcn aus dem einzigen Grund-

satze dcr Nachahmung hergeleitet. Mendelssohn, who in
1758 reviewed Ramler s translation," and said that Batteux s
book, in spite of errors, was benitoil) ba bcftc Vcfyrbud) in ben
fdjonen 9SM|fenfd)Often, bae Uur (jabcn, had already the year
before demonstrated the insufficiency of Batteux s sole prin
8
ciple of imitation.
An
equally convincing demonstration of this same propo
had, however, been made before in France.
sition In 1751
Denis Diderot addressed to Batteux, though without calling
him by name, a Lettre sur les sourds et muets a Pusage de
ceux qui entendent
et qui par lent* Diderot flouts the notion
as of any use to either artist or amateur he
"

of "

imitation ;

asks, What is la belle nature? How is it that in nature some

things seem beautiful to some people and indifferent to
others? Why is it that a painter who should imitate Virgil s

description of Neptune (^neid, I, 124 ff.) as the god

1 Cf. M. Schenker, Charles Batteux und seine Nachahmungstheorie
in Deutschlnnd, Leipzig. 1909.
2
IVerH-e, Leipzig. 1843 ff , TV, i, pp. 361 ff.

8
Betrachtungen Verbindungen der schonen
ilbt r die Q/iellen und die
Kiinste und published later under the title Uber die
\Vissensch<iften,

Hiiuf tgrunJsatze der schonen Kiinste und Wissenschaften, IVetke, I,

pp. 281 ff.

4
(Euvres, ed. J. Assezat, Paris, 1875, I, pp. 343 ff.
 INTRODUCTION. Ixix

emerges from the waves, would produce the ridiculous pic

ture of a decapitated man
belle nature, then, one
? Is not la
and the same thing poet and the painter? No
for the each ;

art has its hieroglyphs, its own principle, and its own sym

bols and to learn about the arts, we should see how one
;

and the same subject is treated in different arts. Diderot

thereupon illustrates how the subject of a dying woman
would be treated in poetry, music, and painting.
This is the line of inquiry followed by Lessing in Laokoon.
It is uncertain how much, if anything, Lessing owed to the
1
example of Diderot. But with Diderot the time of "paral
is passed ; and Caylus s book is almost an anachro
"

lels

nism. The Count s motive, however, was altogether com

mendable, and his method was by no means so antiquated
as it seems from the criticism of Lessing (pp. 8j ff.). Cay-
lus is one of the most respectable figures in the history of
2
archeology, and one of the most influential in the history of
Lessing reviewed the Lettre in Das Neneste aus dem Reiche des
1

Witzes Alonat Jnnius, 1751, but said nothing about the "dying
t

woman." When
Lessing was working on Laokoon, Diderot published
(1765) an Essai sur peinture ((Euvres, X, pp. 461 ff.) which contains
l<i

some significant passages. Thus, he insists upon the concentration

of the action in a picture upon a single moment (p. 497) he shows ;

how sculptors may fire their imaginations by reading the poets, but
do not translate into marble forms the ideas of the poets (p. 490) ;

he objects to the mingling of human beings and allegorical person

ages, and criticises the obscurity of Rubens (p. 500) he objects to a ;

smiling portrait on the ground that a smile is transitory and referable

only to a particular occasion (p. 510) he praises the group of Lao-
;

cobn, as the most beautiful piece of sculpture known (p. 510), and
says that Laocoon suffering with an anguish that makes his body
writhe from top to toe, bears his pain without any grimace, arouses
profound sympathy, but does not inspire horror (p. 488).
2 His chief work in this field was a Recueil d
Antiquites tgyp-
tiennes, etrttsques, grecques, romaines et gauloises, 7 vols., Paris, 1752-
1767.
1XX INTRODUCTION.

French art the man, in fact, under whose leadership the

science of archeology was in France first brought to the
reen force men t of creative artists.
1
The artists of the seven
teenth century professed great respect for the models of

antiquity, but they knew very few of them. Barock and

Rokoko art got farther and farther away from the ancient
simplicityand repose, and the art fostered by the French
Academy degenerated more and more into an uninspired
and unoriginal routine. Caylus sought to revive the zeal
which had inspired the great Italian artists of the Renais
sance to emulation of the great artists of antiquity and ;

especially he sought, as du Fresnoy, whom he calls sublime,

had done before him, to strengthen talent with knowledge,
and to open up new sources of ideas for the skillful painter.
This was the purpose of his book Nouveaux sujcts de pcinture
(1755), which bore a motto from du Fresnoy,
ef itc sculpture

and of the Tableaux tires d* Home re et de Virgile (i 757).

From Lessing s quotation from the Tableaux (p. 97), and
from his discussion of several of the pictures
suggested by
Caylus it would seem as if this book were a
" "

parallel of
the most undiscriminating sort. But this is not the case.
The tendency from beginning to end is rather, by describing
subjects for the painter, to point out how poetic
" "

pictures
differ from pictures on canvas ;
and so to guide the painter
to the correct use of suggestions that he may derive from

poets. It was not necessary for

Lessing to acknowledge
indebtedness to Caylus for ideas that were in the air long
before the time of either but we ought not to overlook the
;

fact that Caylus had these ideas ;

and we can understand
how French the following passage an almost
critics see in

complete anticipation of the conclusions resulting from Les-

1
Cf. the admirable Essai sur le Comtt de Caylus by S. Rocheblave,
Paris, 1889.
 INTRODUCTION. Ixxi

sing s reasoning in Laokoon La poesie, plus

:
"

ancienne
que la peinture, a de grands avantages sur elle. Un choix
heureux et juste de peu de mots pour rendre les
lui suffit

plus grandes et les plus vastes idees, pour les Her a celles
qui les precedent et qui les suivent, et les faire sentir claire-
ment et sans aucune e quivoque. Elle fait plus elle peint :

la succession des temps ;

elle
exprime le mouvement, les
nuances passageres, et l enchainement des actions. La pein
ture, plus borne e dans ses moyens, plus lente dans ses opera-
tions, plus gene dans ses ressources, ne peut presenter aux

yeux que 1 instant heureux d une nature frappante, en re"-

unissant tout ce qui peut concourir a la rendre claire a 1 esprit

et capable de produire sur 1 ame 1 impression la plus forte et

le sentiment le plus vif. La Fontaine, dans le conte du

Tableau, me fournit deux vers qui renferment, ce me
semble,
tout ce que je pourrais dire sur 1
esprit avec lequel on doit
lire les recueils de ces compositions :

Les mots et les couleurs ne sont choses pareilles,

Ni les yeux ne sont les oreilles.
"
*

field of critical and speculative work on the art of

In the

poetry, the English follow closely upon the heels of the

2
Italians and the French ; and the theory of the art of
painting is also represented even as early as 1598 by a
translation from the Italian. 8 On the problem of the rela-

1
Tableaux, pp. xxxiii f. Quoted by Rocheblave, /. c., p. 218.
8 An account of English critical work may be found in G. Saints-
bury s History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe, Edinburgh,
1900 ff., vol. II and the more important documents themselves, down
;

to Dryden, have been edited by J. E. Spingarn in Critical Essays of the

Seventeenth Century, Oxford, 1908.
8 Richard
Haydock s Tract containing the arts of curious Painting,
Carving, and Building, translated from Paolo Lomazzo and printed
at Oxford.
Ixxii INTRODUCTION.

lion of thearts, however, the first noteworthy treatise is

Dryden Parallel
s of 1695, and the first works to attain inter
national reputation date from the eighteenth But
century.
of these, many were known to Lcssing, and not a few antici

pate the doctrines of Laokoon, although the majority do not

seek to distinguish, as Lessing does, and are therefore, like

Caylus, made to serve him as examples of a faulty method.

Dryden s Parallel is, as the name suggests, an endeavor
to show wherein painting and poetry are alike, not wherein

they are different. Lessing was acquainted with the work,

but protested, apropos of it, against the transference of the
1
ideal cf painting into the theory of poetry.
With equal reason Lessing protested (68, 20) against the
lack of discriminationshown by Joseph Addison (1672-
1719). In 1721 Addison s executor, Tickell, published his

Dialogues upon the usefulness of ancient medals especially in

relation to the Latin and Greek poets? a semi-humorous
and semi-learned exposition of the manner in which ancient
coins and medals may be used to illustrate passages in poetry

that refer to details of dress, or ornament, or equipment, or

other matters which the ancient poet would assume to be
familiar to the reader of his own time and hence not describe

fully enough to be altogether clear to a modern reader.

There is no question about the usefulness of ancient
"

medals" for these purposes but Addison looks everywhere

;

for too close a correspondence between the figure on the

coin and the picture" painted by the poet; quoting
Simon ides in Latin Poema est pictura loquax he says

(p. 20), "poetry being in some respects an art of designing

as well as painting or sculpture, they may serve as comments
on each other a metaphor may be the same in verses as
"

p. 399; L-M XIV, p. 412.

1
Nachlass A, Bliimner,
2
Works, ed. Tickell, London, 1804, vol. V, pp. 3 ff.
 INTRODUCTION. Ixxiii

on a medal, "with this distinction only, that the one is in

words and the other in and with respect

"

figures (p. 48) ;

to a passage in Claudius, think, says Philander, there

"I

is no question but the poet has copied out in his descrip

tion the figure that Africa made in ancient sculpture and

painting" (p. 83).

Lessing objects in the same place (68, 20) to Addison s

1
Remarks on several parts of Italy because, although these
remarks are, like Goethe s Itahenische Rcise, little more than
an account of the poet s travels and of the things that he saw,
Addison quotes all the Latin verses that he can remember to
have been written about the many places that he visits, and
so gives implicit approval and encouragement to
"

descriptive
poetry."
He gives explicit encouragement in another work
to which Lessing does not refer, though he knew it. Suc
cessive numbers of the Spectator, beginning June 2r, 1712,
*
contain a little treatise on esthetics that takes its start from
vision, and discusses the means by which the various arts

stimulate the
imagination. The presentation of images,
whether to the eye or through the medium of the fancy, is,
Addison declares, the end of all artistic endeavor ;
for it

is the sense of sight that furnishes us with all our ideas, and
if the understanding take cognizance of truth, it is the vision
which perceives beauty. Natural scenes, gardens, buildings,
statues, and paintings make their appeal directly to the eye ;

3
but verbal descriptions, when the words are understood,

produce similar effects on the inward eye ;

and there may
be something like description even in music 376). But (p.
"

I shall here confine myself to those pleasures of the imagina-

1
Published in 1705 Works, vol. V, pp. 141 ff.
;

Works, vol. II, pp. 354 ff. cf. L-M XIV, p. 386.
2
;

8 Colors speak all languages, but words are understood only by

"

such a people or nation" (p. 375).

Ixxiv INTRODUCTION.

tion which proceed from ideas raised by words, because

most of the observations that agree with descriptions are
equally applicable to painting and statuary. Words, when
well chosen, have so great a force in them that a description
often gives us more than the sight of the things
lively ideas
themselves. The reader finds a scene drawn in stronger
colors and painted more to the life in his imagination by the
help of words than by an actual survey of the scene which
they describe. In this case the poet seems to get the better
of nature ;
he takes, indeed, the landscape after her, but

gives it more vigorous touches, heightens its beauty, and so

enlivens the whole piece that the images which flow from the

objects themselves appear weak and faint in comparison of

those that come from the expressions. The reason probably
may be because in the survey of any object we have only so
much of it painted on the imagination as comes in at the
eye ; but in its description the poet gives us as free a view
of it as he pleases, and discovers to us several parts that
either we did not attend to, or that lay out of our sight when
we first beheld it"
(p. 377). Given a good imagination and
close attention, and there is, no end of satisfaction
therefore,
to be derived from a verbal description (p. 378). Even
what is disagreeable, when looked upon, pleases in an apt
description for we take pleasure in the aptness, if not in
;

1
the image (p. 383) and passions which would be painful if
;

real give us delight when stirred up by words, because we

are secure in our sense of their unreality (pp. 384 f.). But
the greatest privilege of the poet consists in mending and
"

perfecting nature where he describes a reality; and add . . .

ing greater beauties than are put together in nature, where

he describes a fiction" (p.
386). Pure fiction, indeed,
may quite lose sight of nature and entertain the reader s
1 Cf. Aristotle, Poetics, IV, 3.
 INTRODUCTION. Ixxv

imagination with witches, magicians, demons, and

"

fairies,

387), or with personifications which

"

departed spirits (p.

give visible form to invisible substances allegories, when

"

well chosen, are like so many tracks of light in a dis

course, that make everything about them clear and beauti-

ful"
(p. 395)-
It is clear that Addison, consummate artist in words as he

was, considerably exaggerates the possibilities of pictorial ex

pression in poetry, and does not at all inquire whether poetry
may not perhaps have a higher function than the production
of images. Had he compared the poet s images with the
painter s, he must have observed certain differences between
them but he remained one-sided for leaving painting out of
;

account. In the very next year (1713), however, Anthony

Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713), approached

the problem from the side of painting, and in Notion of A
the Historical Draught or Tab!at ure of the Judgment of Her
cules^ not only anticipated Diderot and Lessing in discussing

the treatment of one and the same subject in literary and

pictorial art, but also determined, as in force for the painter,
a number of rules that both Diderot and Lessing laid
down.
The problem
that Shaftesbury discusses is how to represent
ina picture the story told by Socrates after Prodicus in the
Memorabilia of Xenophon (II, i, 21) of the choice which
Hercules made between pleasure and virtue ; and the frontis
piece to the treatise illustrates the author s idea in a picture
by Paolo de Matteis. Without anywhere referring to the
French theorists of the preceding century, Shaftesbury con
fesses to views like theirs in respect to the poetic qualities of

painting that is, in painting of the highest type ; for still life,
;

animal pieces and landscape, being mere arts of representa-

1
Characteristics, London, 1723, III, pp. 345 ff.
Ixxvi INTRODUCTION.

tion,
"

it would be a fault to
any aim at the expression of
real beauty 378); whereas in history-
in this kind"
(p.

painting, the treatment of the manners and passions of men,

the object is beauty, which is also poetic truth. Painting of
the highest type is an art of expression, the carrying out of
a design according to the rules of poetic art (p. 349). By
Shaftesbury means what has heretofore been called
"
"

design
"

more exactly, the objectivation of invention

invention," or,
in expressivegroups and forms he is not concerned with the ;

technique of drawing, and he speaks of coloring, the tradi

tional third part of painting, only to say that color alone can
give but a false relish to the senses, and that the true art of
coloring ought by subserviency to design to make this part
of painting contribute to the sole worthy end of painting, the
satisfaction of the mind (p. 390). What measures, then,
"

does the painter take to produce the poetic

"

effect at

which he aims? He is limited to a single action, in a given

place, and at a single moment (p. 387); his composition
must have unity (p. 349), consistency (p. 354), and harmony
(p. 374) and it must be unequivocal in meaning (p. 378).
;

It is for the painter by some emblem or sym

indeed possible
bol to suggest the future (p. 353), or by means of relics of

preceding action to recall the past (p. 355) but his prime ;

concern with the present, and he must needs consider

is

which of the successive moments of an action to be repre

sented is best adapted to his purpose. In the subject of the
choice of Hercules there are three, or perhaps four, possible
moments to select from: "This fable or history may be va
riously represented, according to the order of time, either in
when the two goddesses, Virtue and Pleasure, accost
the instant
Hercules or when they are entered on their dispute
;
or ;

when their dispute is already far advanced and Virtue seems

to gain her cause. According to the first notion, Hercules
 INTRODUCTION. Ixxvii

must of necessity seem surprised on the first appearance of

such miraculous forms. admires, contemplates, but He lie

isnot yet engaged or interested. According to the second

notion, he is interested, divided, and in doubt. According
to the third, he is wrought, agitated, and torn by contrary
passions. T is the last effort of the vicious one, striving for

possession over him. He agonizes, and with all his strength

of reason endeavors to overcome himself:

Et prttnitiir rations an inuts, vinciqim laborat,

"

Of these different periods of time, the latter has been

chosen as being the only one of the three which can serve to
express the grand event, or consequent resolution of Hercu
les,and the choice he actually made of a life full of toil and
hardship, under the conduct of Virtue, for the deliverance of
mankind from tyranny and oppression. And tis to such a
piece or tablature as represents this issue of the balance in
our pondering hero that we may justly give the title of the

Decision or Judgment of Hercules.

The same history may be represented yet according to a
"

fourth date or period, as at the time when Hercules is en

tirely won by Virtue. But then the signs of this resolute

determination reigning absolutely in the attitude and air of
our young hero, there would be no room left to represent
his agony or inward conflict, which indeed makes the princi

pal action here, as it would do in a poem, were this subject

to be treated by a good poet" (pp. 350 ff.).
This passage is the fullest treatment of the fruitful mo
"

ment" before Lessing (cf. 37). The idea that "painting"

is restricted to a single moment is as old as the time of Dio

Chrysostomus ;
it is found in Leonardo, in du Bos, and
Caylus ;
but Shaftesbury first considers the pictorial value of
the various moments in the course of which an action takes
 Ixxviil INTRODUCTION.

place. In other respects also he led the way for Lessing. 1

Believing, with Lessing, that painting is an art of imitation
389), Shaftesbury describes it as a
"

(p. completely imitative

and illusive art, . whose character . . it is to employ in her

works the united force of different colors, and who, surpass

ing by so many degrees and in so many privileges all other
human fiction, or imitative art, aspires in a directer manner
towards deceit, and a command over our very sense"; for
her chief province is "the specious appearance of the objects
she represents and
"

(p. 381). Accordingly, "emblems at

tributes," such as we should

example, see, for in the helmet
or globe upon which Virtue, as triumphant, is sometimes
little

represented as setting her foot (p. 365), or in the fortress or

palace of Virtue with which unskillful painters are wont to
crown the steep and rugged mountain that Hercules chooses
to climb (p. 382), all such "

appendices" are "

machine-
work" (p. 384), which distract attention, destroy illusion,
"

and confound the judgment of the more intelligent specta

There an emblematic and
"

tors (p. 385). is allegorical kind

of painting (p. 382), but this should not be confounded with
the historical or poetic kind (p. 384). In the latter the painter
endeavors by natural means to bring out the essential content
of his subject. Truth is for him no copy of reality (p. 375),
he is
"

governed not so much by reality as by probability

or plausible 372) ; and appearance is not
appearance" (p.
mere form, but form indicative of character and passion ;
for where a real character is marked, and the inward form
"

peculiarly described, t is necessary the outward should give

Lessing studied Shaftesbury with Mendelssohn; he refers to

1

Shaftesbury at the end of the twelfth Literaturbrief (25. Jan., 1759).

A translation of the Judgment of Hercules was published in the Bib-
liothek derschonen Wissenschaften und der freien Kunste, II, Leipzig,

1757-
 INTRODUCTION. Ixxix

place" (p. 367).

Human beings acting furnish the subjects
of both painting and poetry. But as the moral part is dif
"

ferently treated in a poem from what it is in a history or in a

philosophical work, so must it of right in painting be far
differently treated from what it naturally is either in the
history or poem" (p. 380).
We shall presently have occasion to render an account of
several speculative works in English which stand in more or
less close relation to Shaftesbury s philosophy ; but it will be
convenient first to speak of three men who were not by pro
fession philosophers, and who wrote about painting or poetry,
or both, from the point of view of the painter, the connois

seur, and the enthusiast. These men are Jonathan Richard

son (1665-1745), Joseph Spence (1699-1768), and Daniel
Webb (c. 1719-1798).
Richardson was a portrait painter of considerable repute
his pupil and son-in-law, Thomas Hudson, was the teacher of

Sir Joshua Reynolds an intimate friend of Pope and other

literary men, the author of two volumes of poems (1745,
1776), of Explanatory Notes and Remarks on "Paradise
(1734), and of four works on the formative arts: an
Lost"

Essay on the Theory of Painting (1715), An Essay on the

whole art of Criticism in relation to Painting (1719), An
Argument in behalf of the Science of the Contwisseur (1719),
and An Account of the Statues, Bas-reliefs, Drawings, and
Pictures in Italy, France, etc. (1722), compiled and edited,
with remarks, from the diary of a trip to those countries made
1
by his son. The Theory of Painting was long a standard
work on this subject in England, and is worthy of respect if
for no other reason than that it inspired the youthful Reynolds
1 These four works on the formative arts appeared in a French
translation at Amsterdam in 1728, three vols. Lessing knew this
version ; cf.jtf, 28 ; 6/, 27 ;
and L-M XIV, pp. 392-397.
1XXX INTRODUCTION.

with the desire to become a painter ;

but it is not very origi
1
nal, and in its endeavor to make out a case for painting as

a fine art and a suitable accomplishment for a gentleman, it

includes so much in this art that we have difficulty in per

ceiving just where painting begins and poetry, for instance,

ends. Richardson did as little as anybody before Lessing to
separate one from the other. Thus he says painting
"

is

another language, which completes the whole art of commun

2
unambiguous, whereas
"

icating our thoughts (p. 6) it is ;

words paint to the imagination, but every man forms the

"

thing to himself in his own way

"

(p. 6) he that paints a ;

"

history well must be able to write it"

(p. n) ;
"as to paint a

history a man ought main qualities of a good

to have the

historian, and something more, he must yet go higher and

have the talents requisite to a good poet ; the rules for the
conduct of a picture being much the same with those to be
observed in writing a poem" (p. 12);
"

methinks it would
not be amiss a painter, before he made the least drawing
if

of his intended picture, would take the pains to write the

story, and give it all the beauty of description, with an ac

count of what is said, and whatever else he would require,
were he only to make a written history or if he would ;

describe the picture he designed as if it were already done

"

(p. 32). But, on the other hand, Richardson recognizes that

painting can have only a single moment of time he warns ;

against including two separate moments in one scene ;

and in

a passage which it is hard to suppose independent of Shaftes-

bury, he discusses the four moments possible for the painter

in the story of the woman taken in adultery (p. 27). As he
here anticipates Lessing in respect to the
"

fruitful moment,"

It owes much to du Fresnoy, cle Piles, Dryclen, and the sources

1

from which they drew.

2 I
quote from The Works ofJonathan Richardson, London, 1792.
 INTRODUCTION. Ixxxi

so a few pages farther on he makes still another point to

which Lessing attached considerable importance (j/, 9 ff.),
so far should the painter be from inserting anything
"

saying :

superfluous, that he ought to leave something to the imagi

nation. He must not say all he can on his subject, and so
seem to distrust his reader and discover he thought no
(!),

farther himself" (p. 31). Similarly, Richardson declares that

having read Milton, one sees nature with better eyes

"

after

than before ; beauties appear which else had been unre

garded" (p. 9); a sentence which Lessing quotes with

approval, and the comment: Unb btcfctf ift and) bcr cin^e
l
uwljre Mufcett, au$ ben Dtdjtcru $icljen follten
bcit bie itiinftlcr

and in the Connoisseur Richardson (this time with close

dependence upon de Piles) exclaims, as Lessing might have
done, what a tedious thing it would be to describe by words
"

the view of a country, that from Greenwich Hill for instance,

and how imperfect an idea must we receive from hence No !

words can give you an idea of the face and person of one you
have never seen (p. 178) and finally (this time in advance
"

of both de Piles and Lessing), it is little to the honor of

"

painting, or of the masters of whom the stories are told that

2
the birds have been cheated by a painted bunch of grapes ;
8
or men by a fly, or a curtain, or such like ; these are little

things in comparison of what we

are to expect from the art
"

(p. 187). That Richardson defends Rubens s pictures in the

Luxembourg gallery (p. 48) is in no wise remarkable ; for he
shows no comprehension of the real question involved.

There is little to detain us in the Account of Statues.

Richardson includes in this volume a chapter Of Painting
and Sculpttire a catalogue, with brief remarks.
; the rest is

We observe, however, among the obiter dicta a few proposi-

1 L-M XIV, p. 392.
8 Parrhasius.
2
Apelles.
Ixxxii INTRODUCTION.

tions which, if not new, are important. Richardson speaks of

theatrical representations as a sort of moving, speaking pic
l
tures (p. 90) ;
he insists that the painter s purpose is to
communicate ideas (p. 93) ;
that "the most considerable
circumstance in a picture is the thought" (p. 271) ;
and he
has an interesting page or two on Laocoon. He correctly re
ports (p. 276) that the statue was "made, it seems, to stand
as it does, against a wall,"
that is, to be viewed from the
he says tis certainly much more ancient
"

front ; 278),
(p.
and he does not believe Virgil had this statue
"

than Virgil ;

2
in mind when he wrote the second book of his ALneid ;
"

for besides other circumstances in which they differ, the

way of thinking is very unlike. The poet not only is rather

more particular in the images of the serpents than of the priest
and his son, but he makes Laocoon roar out hideously. . . .

The sculptors, on the contrary, have fixed their point of time

to that when his strength was in a great measure exhausted,
and he ready to sink under the weight of his vast calamity.
His mouth is opened but little, and he looks up as imploring
pity and succor from the gods, without any appearance, how
ever, of hope, but seeming in great pain" (p. 279). As to
the criticism that the sculptors have departed from propriety
in representing the priest naked in the act of solemn sacrifice

to the gods,
"

who sees not that had this been regarded, as it

could not but be foreseen, instead of the finest piece of

sculpture in the world we must have had a very indifferent
8
one, or none at all?"
(p. 280).
The Notes on Milton are more significant. Richardson
writes them as a commentator with whose enthusiasm we can
sympathize, but especially as a painter, who sees in Milton a
kindred spirit, and in the poem a series of pictures that invoke
1 I
quote from the second edition, London, 1754.
2 Cf. Lessing, 8 Cf. Lessing, 56, 4.
jo ff.
 INTRODUCTION. Ixxxiii

the brush of Raphael, Titian, and Correggio (f. g., p. 378).

More than this, he gives at the end of his book (p. 544) a list
of forty-four Miltonic
"

pictures,"
all of which he may be
conceived as describing in the terms appliedjo one Here :
"

is a picture which, should all the great names we know in

whatever age concur in painting, imagination must supply

what colors cannot. And happy is that imagination that can,
or that even can attain to form such a picture as some one of
those great masters could make
"

(p. 413).
Richardson did with Paradise Lost what Caylus did twenty-
three years later with the Iliad and the Odyssey ; and Les-
l
sing protested against both on the same grounds : he says
that Milton has few
"

progressive
"

pictures when compared

with Homer, but some very beautiful ones, of which he
still
2
enumerates ten and that not a few of the pictures men
;

8
tioned by Richardson are unsuited for treatment on canvas.
The attention given to Milton in Laokoon (98), and the close

inspection of his pictures which Lessing s preliminary

" "

studies and drafts show him to have made, justify us in at

tributing to the comparison of Homer and Milton greater

importance in the clarification of his ideas than has generally

been assumed ;
and Richardson rises with Milton, though as
a negative factor, in the settlement of the problem.

Similarly, we must accord to Spence a greater signifi

cance than Laokoon and the commentators seem to warrant-
of many counsels, crafty, shrewd
"

Spence s Poly metis ("

an epithet frequently applied by Homer to Odysseus) de

scribed (6s), assailed (65 ff.), and not unfairly characterized

by the sentence quoted from it (77) in Laokoon, gave Lessing

occasion for many notes and queries, 4 but does not quite so

1 Cf. 98, 9. Entwurf No. I.

2 L-M XIV, p. 406.

8
Ibid., p. 407.
* L-M XIV, pp. 338 ff. ; BlUmner, Nachlass D, pp. 462 ft
 INTRODUCTION.

fully identify painting and poetry as might be thought from

these references. Indeed, Spence, for ten years Professor of
Poetry at Oxford and the friend of Pope, had too much of the
spirit of modern scholarship to permit our unquestioning ac

ceptance of Lessing s excerpts as representative of all there

is in his book. Like the late Professor Heyne l of Gottingen,
Spence maintained that poets ought to be studied with an
eye to the realities of life with which they were surrounded,
and by which their works may be most vividly illustrated ;
and that the commentators of his own time as Heyne said
of our contemporaries showed their erudition at every point,
but did not show the way to the comprehension of what their
author had in mind to say.
"

These absurdities of the com

2
they are generally so absurd
"

mentators," Spence avers, if

as I fear they are, will go a great way toward supporting a

paradox which will
; be found the less strange to you from me
because you have heard me mention it, I believe, more than
once that the greatest
:
difficulty I meet with in understand
ing the classics now arises from my having read and studied
them too much at Spence undoubtedly goes too
school."

far in his realistic interpretations he not only expects to ;

prove every poetic description to have been based upon this

or that statue, picture, or medal, but is surprised at every
deviation of the poet from his putative model. When you "

look on the old pictures or sculptures, you look on the works

of men who thought in much the same train with the old

poets. There was generally the greatest union in their de

signs and where they are engaged on the same subjects
;

they must be the best explainers of one another (p. 3).

"
"

think, therefore, there can be no room to doubt that some of

1
Fiinf Biicher deutscher Ilausaltertiimer, Leipzig, 1899, i,Vorwort.
2 P. 286 of the second edition, of 1755, which does not differ in

pagination from the first, of 1747.

 INTRODUCTION. IxXXV

the best comments we could have on the ancient poets might

be drawn from the works of the artists who were their con
temporaries, and whose remains often present to our eyes the
very things which the others have delivered down to us only
words Nevertheless, the poet has power to do
"

in (p. 285).
one thing beyond the power of the artist precisely the thing
vindicated for him by Lessing ( j/, 4.0) the power to imi
tate the transitoriness of motion. Read Spence on the eyes
and look of Venus 67) (p. : "the
poets are fuller as to the
former than any statue can be. They had the painters to
copy from as well as the statuaries, and could draw several
ideas from the life which are not to be expressed in marble.
The sculptor can only give you the proportions of things and
one single attitude of a person in any statue or relievo. The
painter can do the same, and add the natural colors as they
appear on the surfaces of things and by the management ;

of lights and shades may fling them into their proper distances.
The poet can describe all that either of the others expresses

by shape or colors, and can farther put the figure into a succes
sion of different motions in the same description. So that of
the three sister arts of imitation, poetry (in this at least) has
the advantage over both the others, as it has more power and
can take a larger compass than either of them. This must
give the poets an advantage in describing the quick and un
certain motions of Venus s eyes, and occasions our meeting
with some expressions in them which cannot be explained
either from statues or paintings. Such is that epithet of
paeta in particular which the Roman writers give to Venus,
and which refers perhaps to a certain turn of her eye and her
catching it
away again the moment she is observed."

Spence represents himself (p. iii) as having explored a field

that none before him save Addison had entered. He refers,
however, to contemporary and older literature on poetry and,
1XXXV1 INTRODUCTION.

to some on painting ; mentions Shaftesbury (p. 117);

extent,
and prints a poem, The Choice of Hercules, which is a kind of
translation of Shaftesbury s ideas into stanzas. Apart from
what he says about ancient poetry and art, the most note

worthy pages of book are those (pp. 292 ff.) devoted to

his

a discussion of allegory. As propriety and simplicity are

"

the distinguishing character of the ancient artists in their

allegorical figures, so multiplicity and impropriety may al

most be looked upon as the distinguishing character of the

modern (p. 292). The ancients employed well defined and
"

well authenticated attributes which everybody understands ;

the moderns have become absurd and ridiculous for not having
been willing to study and follow the ancients (ibid.}. Rubens,
among others, has misrepresented the allegorical personages
of the ancients, and has invented allegorical personages of his
own which are improper or confusing (p. 296), especially in
the Luxembourg (p. 298). Modern poets have erred in the
same fashion. Indeed allegory is on a worse footing with
"

our poets than it is with our artists. For, to say the truth,
our poets seem as yet to have formed no settled scheme at
all for their allegories, and therefore either to take up with
the broken ideas that occur to their minds from what they
have read in the ancients, or else form some irregular phan
toms of their own, just as chance or fancy leads them. Hence
is jumble of Christianity and heathenism which makes us
that
sometimes meet with a pagan deity in one line and an angel
in the next. The poet generally sits down wholly undeter
mined whether furies or devils are to be the executioners he
will make
use of; and brings in either the one or the other

just as the humor takes, or as the verse demands. If two

syllables are wanting, it is Satan but if four, you are sure;

"

of meeting with Tisiphone (p. 300). Thereupon Spence

criticises Spenser (pp. 302-308) for mixing Christianity and
 INTRODUCTION. Ixxxvii

paganism, for misrepresenting the allegories of the ancients,

and for creating allegories of his own that are too complicated
and overdone; and Dryden (pp. 309-320) for violation of
the simplicity and propriety of the ancients in his translation
of Virgil. Spence has no quarrel with the use of allegory, but
only with the unauthorized use, or the abuse of it. How
much attention Lessing gave to this discussion of Spence s

is uncertain.
As the author of still another work, Spence deserves, but
has not generally received, honorable mention in the history
of esthetics. This is Crito a Dialogue on Beauty, published
,

over the pseudonym Sir Harry Beaumont (London, 1 752).

"
"

It is a charming little treatise, closely connected with the

Italian and French tradition in esthetics, with Shaftesbury
and Burke, but distinguished from all its predecessors for the

earliest adequate treatment of the delicate subject of grace.

Lessing says (/jj, 25), 9tei$ ift <2d)tinl)eit

in Stoucgung, imb
ebcn barum bem 9)?aler lueniger bcqucm al bent IMrijter.

Spence makes clear in the passage about Venus s eyes

quoted from Polymetis that quick motion, represented by the
graceful twinkling of the eyes of the goddess, defies the art
of the painter ; in the Crito he does not thus contrast the

powers of painter and poet, but he defines grace as a quality

I am apt to think," he says,
1
of motion. "

that everything
"

belonging to beauty (by which I need not repeat to you at

every turn that I mean real personal beauty) would fall under
one or other of these four heads color, form, expression,
:

and grace ;
the two former of which I should look upon as
the body, and the two latter as the soul of beauty."
"

The

P. 1 1 of the reprint in Bibliotheca Curiosa, ed. Edmund Goldsmid,

1

privately printed, Edinburgh, 1885. Cf. my article, Reiz ist Schb nheit
in Bcwegung in the Publications of the Mod. Lang. Assn., XXIV, pp.

286-293.
IxXXViii INTRODUCTION.

last finishing and noblest part of beauty is grace, which

everybody is accustomed to speak of as a thing inexplicable,
and in a great measure, I believe, it is so. We know that
the soul is, but we know what
every judge of
scarce it is ;

beauty can point out grace, but no one that I know of has

ever yet fixed upon a definition for it. Grace often depends
on some very little incidents in a fine face and in actions, ;

it consists more in the manner of

doing things than in the
things themselves. It is perpetually varying its appearances,

and is therefore much more difficult to be considered than

anything fixed and steady" (p. 33). "Though grace is so
difficult to be accounted for in general, yet I have observed
two particular things which, I think, hold universally in rela
tion to it. The is no grace without motion ;
first is that there

by which mean, Iwithout some genteel or pleasing motion,

either of the whole body or of some limb, or at least of some
feature. . . . The second observation is that there can be no
grace with impropriety or, in other words, that nothing can be
;

graceful that is not adapted to the characters of the person"

(pp. 40 ff.). Grace has nothing to do with the lowest part
"

of beauty, or color, very little with shape, and very much

with the passions for it is she who gives the highest zest
;

and the most delicious part of their pleasingness to the ex

pressions of each of them. All the other parts of beauty

are pleasing in some degree, but grace is pleasingness itself"

(p. 44).
In 1760 Daniel dedicated to Spence An Inquiry
Webb
into the Beauties of Painting and into the Merits of the most
telebrated Painters, ancient atid modern; and in 1762 he
continued his speculations with Remarks on the Beauties of

Poetry. Webb was an Oxford man, a good classical scholar,

who evidently knew the ancients and their literature much

better than the moderns and their paintings, and who judges
 INTRODUCTION. Ixxxix

works of art according to the canons of ancient authority.

He acquainted with such modern writers as de Piles

is

and du Fresnoy ; his dedication makes it inevitable that he

should have adopted the characteristic ideas of Spence ; his
whole book has an academic air, and smells of the library
rather than of the atelier. Nevertheless, his observations do
not lack justice, nor his reasoning cogency, in spite of his

unqualified tendency to regard painting as a form of poetry.

One can hardly go farther in this direction than Webb goes.
"

Of all the arts,"

he says, 1 "

poetry and painting are the

most congenial ;
and we may observe that as the former
never appears more lovely than when she dresses herself, in
the beauties of painting ;
so the latter is never so transporting
as when she emulates and catches the images of the flights

poetry."
And again, the Greek painters caught their ideas "

from historians and poets, and translated the beauties of

eloquence into paint" (p. 150). And finally, "hence it is
that we can with justness transfer from one to the other the
terms proper to each ; and as poetry is often but the coloring
of words, so painting may be styled the eloquence of colors.
. Was I to observe that there were grace and beauty in the
. .

persons, justness in the sentiments, warmth and spirit in the

passions, I at once describe a good poem, or a good picture
"

(p. 198). But, on the other hand, the noblest end of painting
being
"

to strike home on the passions (p. 187), and poetry "

and music moving the passions by a quick and growing

"

succession of impressions, this progress is just inverted . . .

in painting; the whole production is at once before us, our

attention is immediately fixed on the most interesting expres

sion ;
when we have studied and felt the powers of this, we

then, and not till then, descend to the examination of the

inferior movements "

(p. 188). These qualifications are, to

1
Inquiry, 3d edition, London, 1769, p. 130.
 XC INTRODUCTION.

be sure, neither new, original, nor very well formulated.

They are as important as Webb s declaration, after
little

there is no grace without motion

"

(p. 55), or
"

Spence, that
his opinion, formed in the spirit of Polymctis, that when
Virgil wrote verses 590 ff. in the first book of the ALneid,
the poet must have had in his eye some celebrated picture
"

in this style
"

(p. 107). Webb s importance is rather to be

sought in his division of paintings into the expressive and

the picturesque (p. 138), his insistence that in composition
the grand point is expression (p. 197); and his explicit
association of history painting with the drama. He says
(p. 136), "History painting is the representation of a mo
mentary drama ";
he speaks (p. 144), like Philostratus, of
"the drama of the painter"; and (p. 152) of the artist s

dramatis persona, thus specifically corroborating the conclu

sions that we have drawn from the vaguer statements of the
1
Italian and French writers looking in this direction. That
Webb holds ancienthave been superior to
painting to
modern 2 is a sign of his greater respect for the evidence of
books than for the evidence of his senses. But he is not
unaware that there are other senses than that of sight, and
that they belong the resources of poetry.
among Painting
"

can never transport the imagination or stimulate the sense

so powerfully as poetry or music ; for, though it has greatly
the advantage of either in the impression of the instant, as it
unites more circumstances in that one point of time, yet it
falls short of both in the quickness and power of repeating its

ideas. ... In poetry, ideas are successive, and (which

. . .

proves the advantage of painting) the more quickly they

succeed, the more perfect is the description. I may add to

this, that grace and beauty strike more warmly on the sense
in their actual appearance than by any images formed of
i 2
Supra, p. Ivi. Pp. 84, 167, 183.
 INTRODUCTION. XC1

them by words so that by as much as the real appearance

;

would be superior to paint, by so much is paint in this par

ticular superior to poetry. But the poet has ample amends.
He can renew and vary those impressions at will; he can
lengthen out his action by a chain of the most interesting
circumstances. He can do more He can call all the senses
!

to his aid. and improve his picture of beauty by a voice tuned

1
to a heavenly sweetness, or air breathing divine fragrance."

These judicious observations find some amplification in

the Remarks on the Beauties of Poetry ; but the Remarks are

hardly more than supplementary, and do not call for detailed

examination here.
On the sixth of August, 1766, the poet Johann Georg
Scheffner protested in a letter to Herder that Lessing ought
in his Laokoon to have acknowledged his indebtedness to
du Bos and Webb, since he had made use of both, and had
derived from them many of his finest observations. There
is no doubt about Lessing s acquaintance with du Bos but ;

it is very doubtful that he knew anything about Webb. A

translation of the Inquiry was printed at Zurich in 1766, too
late tobe of any use to Lessing, even though we should
assume that the original contained matter that he could have
used, which is hardly the case. Silence in Laokoon is in

deed no proof of ignorance we inferred as much in the

;

2
case of Dio Chrysostomus the inference becomes a con
;

viction when we observe the absence of all reference to

the works of two Englishmen to whom we now proceed. I

am inclined to more was suggested to Lessing

think that

by James Harris (1709-1780) and by Edmund Burke (1729-

1797) than by any other of his predecessors.

Harris, a nephew of Shaftesbury, and the father of the

first Earl of Malmesbury, was an excellent representative
1 2
Pp. 190 f.
Supra, p. xxvi.
XC11 INTRODUCTION.

of the cultivated Englishman of the eighteenth century, a

classical scholar, philosopher, literary critic, and statesman.
He published at London in i
744 Three Treatises, the first
concerning Art, the second concerning Music, Painting, and
Poetry, the third concerning Happiness^ of which the first,

a dialogue, was dedicated to Shaftesbury. A German ver

sion of all three was printed at Danzig in 1756, and must
have been known to Lessing.
In the dialogue, Harris reaches by a Socratic method of

development the following definition: "Art is an habitual

power in man of becoming the cause of some effect, ac

cording to a system of various and well-approved precepts.

If it be asked of us, on what subject art operates, we can
answer, on a contingent which is within the reach of the
human powers to influence. If it be asked us, for what
reason, for the sake of what, art operates, we may reply,
for the sake of some absent good relative to human life
and attainable by man, but superior to his natural and un-
instructed faculties. Lastly, if it be asked, where t is, the
operations of art end, we may say, either in some energy,
or in some work." 1 In less technical language, art may
be called a way that man has acquired of supplementing
and adorning his natural lifeby the production of things of
value to his higher self. Harris s definition is elaborated
from sundry precepts of the ancients, which he appends
and comments upon in a series of notes. Aristotle is his
chief authority and the works of Aristotle from which he
;

oftenest quotes are the Nicomachean Ethics.

The last sentence in Harris s definition contains the
meat of his matter, and his distinction between energy and
work is based upon a passage at the beginning of Aris
2
totle s Ethics. In a note Harris writes : "In the begin-
1
P. 43- 2 P. 277-
 INTRODUCTION. XC111

ning of the above-cited Ethics, after the author has told

us that every art andhuman action tend to some good or
end, he adds . . . But there appears a difference in ends ;

for some are energies, some, over and above the energies,
1
Harris s text to which this note ap
"

are certain works.

plies sets forth :

2 "

When the production of any art is an

energy, then the perfection of the art can be only perceived

during that energy. For instance, the perfection of a mu
sician is only known
while he continues playing. But when
the production of any art is a work, then is not the perfec
tion visible during the energy, but only after it. Thus the
perfection of the statuary is not seen during his energies as
a statuary, but when his energies are over, when no stroke
of the chisel is wanting, but the statue is left, as the result
of This is a difference between the arts upon which
all."

important conclusions may be based and Harris formu ;

lated another aspect of the same difference in the usual

terms when he said that in a statue the parts are coex

istent, alltogether at one individual instant,
subsisting
whereas tune or dance the parts or elements compos
in a

ing the whole are successive, and ever passing away (p. 32).
This observation he justifies (p. 276) likewise by a refer
ence to Aristotle (Physics, lib. Ill, cap. 8).
The second treatise, dividing arts into the usual two
classes, useful and fine arts, assumes that the fine arts of

music, painting, and poetry are arts of imitation, and under-

1
Cf. The Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle [I, i, 2], transl. R. W.

Browne, London, 1875. Aristotle spoke of human action, not of art,

when he distinguished between work and energy in his opinion all ;

art had for its end and aim pleasurable mental activity which he
called energy (tvtpy(ia). Cf. S. II. Butcher, Aristotle s Theory of

Poetry and Fine Art, London, 1895, p. 195.

8 P. 34-
XC1V INTRODUCTION.

takes to determine wherein they are alike, and which is to

be preferred to the others. The media of their imitation,
which differs from nature
in being able to affect only two

of the senses, sight and hearing, are motion, sound, color,

and figure (p. 56). Painting, always motionless, can imitate
only by means of color and figure ; music, only by means of
sound and motion ; poetry, so far as its means of imitation
are natural, can go no farther in imitating than may be
"

performed by sound and motion. But then, as these its

sounds stand by compact for various ideas with which the
mind is fraught, it is enabled by this means to imitate as

far as language can express ;

and that, t is evident, will in
a manner include
"

all things (p. 57). In a picture, only

an instant of time can be represented motions and even ;

sounds can be indicated when accompanied by configura "

tions which are obvious and remarkable" (p. 62) actions,

too, which are known may be justly questioned
"

for it ;

whether the most celebrated subjects borrowed by painting

from history would have been any of them intelligible
through the medium of painting only, supposing history to
have been silent, and to have given no additional informa
Musical imitation pretends at most to no
" "

tion (p. 65).

more than the
"

raising of ideas similar to nature painting ;

aspires to raise ideas the very same

"
"

as the natural objects

painted (p. 69). Poetic imitation includes "

everything in
it which is performed either by picture-imitation or musical ;
for its materials are words, and words are symbols by com
pact of all ideas"
(p. 70). "The
subjects of poetry to
which the genius of painting is not adapted are all actions :

whose whole is of so lengthened a duration that no point

of time in any part of that whole can be given fit for paint

ing, also all subjects so framed as to lay open the

. . .

internal constitution of man, and give us an insight into

 INTRODUCTION. XCV

characters, manners, passions, and sentiments. Sentiments

are discoverable in things which are the proper
all those
business and end of speech or discourse
"

(pp. 83 ff.).
Not only therefore language is an adequate medium of
"

imitation, but in sentiments it is the only medium and in ;

manners and passions there is no other which can exhibit

them to us after that clear, precise, and definite way as they
in nature stand allotted to the various sorts of men, and are
found to constitute the several characters of each
"

(p. 80).
A conception of character can be gath
perfectly accurate
"

ered only from a succession of various and yet consistent

actions, a succession enabling us to conjecture what the
person of the drama will do in the future from what already
he has done in the past. Now to such imitation poetry

only is equal; because it is not bounded, like painting, to

short and, as it were, instant events, but may imitate sub

jects of any duration whatever" (p.

91).
It is easy to see that Harris s expositions are characterized

by clear definition, logical development, and reasonable con

clusions, penetration and precision.
but lack Compared
with Herder (242, 264), he makes little enough of his dis
tinction between work and energy. Compared with Lessing,
he seems hardly to distinguish at all, because of his inability
to depart from the old-fashioned habit of comparing the arts,

and seeking the grounds upon which one should be preferred

to the other. Compared with Burke, he is pedantic and
unoriginal, to the same degree that his results, compared
with Burke s, are commonplace and unsuggestive. Though
agreeing in many respects with the traditional doctrine, he
at least vindicated for poetry a greater power to express

passions and sentiments, and to represent actions. It re

mained for Burke to question whether painting has any
considerable power at all over the passions ;
and to demon-
XCV1 INTRODUCTION.

strata for poetry that its power resides not, as Harris said, in
its greater clearness and definiteness, but in its capacity to
rouse the emotions through its very obscurity.
Burke wrote his Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of
our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (London, 1757;
second edition, considerably enlarged, 1759) as a very young
man, and in almost complete independence of the prevailing
doctrines about painting and poetry. 1 Lessing, who obtained
a copy of the book shortly after its appearance, wrote about
itin 1757 and 1758 to Mendelssohn and Nicolai," planned

even to translate it, 3 and left Bcmcrkungcn on various points

in it.
4
He must have been impressed, one would think, by
what Burke said about Homer s lines in the Iliad (III, 156-
is said of Helen
158; cf. Laokoon, 132, 24 ff.): "What by
Priam and the old men of his council is generally thought to

give us the highest possible idea of that fatal beauty. . . .

Here is not one word said of the particulars of her beauty ;

nothing which can in the least help us to any precise idea

of her person ; but yet we are much more touched by this
manner of mentioning her than by these long and labored
descriptions of Helen, whether handed down by tradition or
formed by fancy, which are to be met with in some authors." 6
And Lessing must have read with appreciative sympathy the
words, In reality, poetry and rhetoric do not succeed in
"

exact description so well as painting does their business is ;

to affect rather by sympathy than imitation; to display

rather the effect of things on the mind of the speaker or of

1 Cf. W. G. Howard, Bitrke among the Forerunners of Lessing, in

Publications of ihe Modern Language Association, XXII, pp. 608 ff.

* L-M XVII. pp. 128, 134, 137, MS-
8
Ibid., pp. 134, 137, 269.
4 L-M XIV, pp. 220 ff.
6 ff of the sixth edition, London, 1770.
Pp. 330 .
 INTRODUCTION. Xcvil

others than to present a clear idea of the things them

1
although indeed Lessing did not abandon Aris
"

selves ;

as Burke did when he asserted that

poetry cannot
"

totle

propriety be called an art of imitation

"

with strict
(p. 333).
Like Lessing after him, Burke bases his idea of the dif
ference between poetry and painting upon the difference in
their symbols. A painting, he says,
presents a very clear
"

idea"
(p. 101) of a palace, a temple, or a landscape, "im

ages, exactly similar to those in nature" (p. 107); but he

cannot see that paintings have much effect upon the emo
tions or passions (p.104) whereas words, generally failing
;

to present images or raise ideas of objects (pp. 320 ff.),

are
nevertheless capable of stirring the emotions and filling the
mind with affecting, if obscure, conceptions. And I think "

there are reasons in nature why the obscure idea, when

properly conveyed, should be more affecting than the clear.

It is our ignorance of things that causes all our admiration

and chiefly excites our passions. Knowledge and acquaint

ance makes the most striking causes affect but little. It is

thus with the vulgar, and all men are as the vulgar in what

they do not understand" (p. 105). Painting reigns in the

realm of the beautiful but the realm of poetry is the sub
;

lime. Imitation in words may be imitation of words; poetry

may represent to us the manners and passions of men in

action (p. 333) ; but it does not undertake to depict for us
the appearance of things as the eye sees them. Milton s
~
and in what
"

portrait of Satan a very noble picture is ;

does consist? In images of a tower,

this poetical picture

an archangel, the sun rising through mists, or an eclipse,

the ruin of monarchs, and the revolutions of kingdoms.
The mind is hurried out of itself by a crowd of great and
1
P. 332 ;
cf. Laokooti, /jj, 14.
3 Paradise Lost, I, 589-599.
XCV111 INTRODUCTION.

confused images, which affect because they are crowded and

confused. For separate them, and you lose much of the

greatness ; and join them, and you infallibly lose the clear
ness. The images raised by poetry are always of this ob
scure kind ; though in general the effects of poetry are by
no means to be attributed to the images it raises." l u The
truth is, all verbal description, merely as naked description,

though never so exact, conveys so poor and insufficient an

idea of the thing described that it could scarcely have the
smallest effect, if the speaker did not call in to his aid those
modes of speech that mark a strong and lively feeling in
himself" (p. 339). There is no mistaking this warning
against die Schilderungssucht in der Poesie.

If, after this survey of esthetic theorizing in Italy, France,

and England, we now turn our eyes towards Germany, we

find Lessing s immediate predecessors beginning, in the
second quarter of the eighteenth century a violent debate
on the nature, functions, and form of poetry, and deriving
their principal inspiration respectively from France and Eng
land. Speculative interest in the art of painting did not
manifest itself in Germany until the middle of the century ;

but both sides in the controversy about poetry agreed in

regarding it as a species of painting. Actual production of
verses was meanwhile, as we have observed above, for the

most part in the hands of court poets who sought their

models in France, while the one really original and truly

2
impulsive poetic soul of this time, Johann Christian Giinther
(1695-1723), ,,U)iij}tc fid) itidjt $u jcUjmcu, unb fo ^crranu ifjm
fein ebett luic fcin Tidjtcn." French influence reached its
culmination in Johann Christoph Gottsched (1700-1766);
1
P. 106; cf. Richardson, Notes and Remarks on Milton, p. 39.
2 Ed. L. Fulda, DNL
XXXVIII.
 INTRODUCTION. XC1X

and his opponents, the Swiss critics Johann Jakob Bodmer

(1698-1783) and Johann Jakob Breitinger (1701-1776),

though they owed much to the theories of du Bos, upheld
in their combat with Gottsched the ideals of English poetry.

Gottsched, never more than a compiler and adapter of

other men s including those of his Swiss adversaries
ideas

performed nevertheless a useful function in the emphasis

which as a self constituted literary dictator he was able to
give to various ideas that were just then wholesome and salu
tary for the Germans. In spite of his immediate dependence

upon IJoileau and many other Frenchmen he was not

ignorant, either, of Shaftesbury, Addison, Steele, and other

Englishmen Gottsched managed to give to his eclectic

doctrines a certain national character, and undoubtedly
sought a kind of national organization in the German literary
world, of which organization he was himself perfectly willing
to be the head. The standard of usage in matters of lan
guage, which he advocated, was a necessary corrective of
dialectic uncertainty and confusion. His insistence upon
nature and common sense in poetry was a continuation, by
no means superfluous, of the critical warfare that Wernicke
had waged against Lohenstein and Hofmannswaldau. And
1
his interest in the drama, though it was, as Lessing said,
in a Frenchified drama, held up a rational ideal, and set
bounds that fellow-countrymen needed to observe, if
his

their plays were to become works of art, and were not to

remain mere theatrical monstrosities. Furthermore, Gott

sched proved that the hundred years which separated him
from Opitz, his predecessor, had not passed in vain ; for the art
of poetry which throughout this century had been commonly

regarded and practiced as the manipulation of a mechanical

toy, or the trick of versifying, received at his hands its proper
1
17. LiteratHrbrief (\b. Feb., 1759).
C INTRODUCTION.

definition as an art of expression, however limited might be

the substance of that which he held proper for the art.
German popular interest in criticism and esthetic discus
sion first manifested itself in the vogue of the so-called
"

moral modeled
weeklies
"

after the Tatler, Spectator,

and Guardian (1709-1713). In 1713 Dcr Verniinftler

appeared in Hamburg. From 1721 to 1723 Bodmer and
Breitinger published in Zurich Diskurse der Maler. In
1724 Der Hamburgische Patriot followed in Hamburg, and
continued until 1726. In Leipzig, Gottsched edited, and
for themost part wrote, in 1725 and 1726 Die verniinftigen
Tadlerinnen, and from 1727 to 1729, Der Biedermann. Of
these papers, the Diskurse are by far the most important,
and will soon engage our serious attention Gottsched s ;

Tadlerinnen are much indebted to them, and have much

less to say than they about poetry the Biedermann is ;

chiefly concerned with the errors of superstition and the

vagaries of fancy. lltUV bcr the Biedermann says, ^ol>c(,

fdjlcppt fid) nod) mit >.

JyauftSimb anbcnt bcrajetdjen
Mid)crn l)crum, bie man iljm abcr mit ber 3cit and) an ben

Apiinbcn linncjeu wirb (II, 43).

We may pass over the casual remarks about poetry in the
Tadlerinnen in order the sooner to reach the compendium
of Gottsched published in the fall of
s critical opinions
1729 (but with the date 1730) under the title Versuch einer
Critischcn Dichtkunst vor die Dcutschen; darinnen erstlich
die allgtmcinen Regeln der Poesie, hernach alle besondere
Gattungen der Gedichtc, abgehandelt mid mit Exempcln
werden :
crliiutert it berall aber gezeiget wird, dass das innet e
Wesen der Poesie in einer* Nachahmung der Natur besteh e.
The work is adorned with a frontispiece illustrating the
Horatian verse (A. P., 309),
Scribendi recte sapere est et principium et
"

fons."
 INTRODUCTION. Cl

Good sense, as inculcated by Horace and Boileau, is the

beginning and source of correct writing. As to Horace, atle3
uw$ er fagt ift l)bd)ft ocrnunftig, unb man fann fid) Don fcinen
33orfd)riften t ein aar brcit cntfcrnen, oljne gugfcid) oon bcr
Oiatur intb gcfunbcn >cnumft ob^uweidjen (p. 5) ;
SHoljrfyeit,
and in the same way that Horace revered the Greeks and
theirexamples (cf.A.P.,26Sf.) Gottsched looks to the t

French for guidance UHlS bci ben Oibnicnt bic (^ricd)CU

:

unireii, fitr nus jefct

bos finb bie STan^ofcii (p. 33). The
title book shows Gottsched s adherence to the tradi
of the
tional doctrine of imitation. The dedication seems to in
dicate a tacit agreement with Simonides and Opitz ; for
s x
Gottsched declares, 93Jo$ bie l\ a(ertuuft tut 5(bfcl)cn ouf
ben ftbrper bciucrfftcllt, ba ocrrtd)tct bie T)id)tfunft, a(^

cine iDeit uoKfomincnerc ID^aterci, and) tm 9(bfcl)cn nuf bie

(Sigcnfdjaftcn bc^ (^cifte^ unb (^ciniitc^. Elsewhere, too, we
find the same assimilation. Thus (p. 118), Die s
Ji\ld)al)HUUU]
bcr 3iatur, bavin, uric obcn gciutcfcn tuorbcn, ba^ ^cfcn bcr

ganjcn ^oefic bcftcljt, fann auf breierlet 5lrt gcfdjeljcn. T^te

erfte ift cine blofec SBefcfjretbung obcr fcljr (ebljafte Sdjitberci

Don ctner natitrtid)cn ead)c, btc man nod) alien iljrcn (Sigen*
fdjoftcn, Sd)bnl)citen, Sctjlern, S5oOfomincnl)citcn unb Unuo((=
fojnmenl)citcn fcinen Vefern !(or nnb
beutlid) uor bie 9lngcn

molt, nnb gtcidjfom nut Icbcubigen garbcn entim rft, ba|l c

foft ebcn fo Did ift, a(* ob fie wirt lid) sugcgcn unirc. !Dicfctf

nun nut rcdjtcr (^cfd)icflid)fcit 311 Derrid)ten, ift cine gar fcinc

OVibc, nnb man l)at c3 bcm omcr 311 grojscm Vobc angc^
mcrf t, ba cin bcriifymtcr gricd)ifd)cr 9Jio(cr, ber cine 9ttincruo

gu frijilbcrn widens tt?ar, jn bcm Gnbc crft in ber 3(ia btc

53cfd)rcibungcn biefcr ^btttn nodjgcfdjlogcn, burc^gelcfcn, unb

fid) babitrd) eine lebljofte 9lbbilbung Don t()r geiuodjt. 8o(d)c
SDJolcrci eine^ ^octen nnn crftrcrft fid) nod) Diet lueitcr al^
bie gemeine SUiolerfunft. T^icfc fann nur fitr bie 2Utgcn
Cll INTRODUCTION.

inalcn, bcr ^oet (jergegcn Faun fitr aftc Sinnc <Sd)t(bcrctcn

nmd)cn. r iwrft in bie Crinbtlbnngtffraft ;

imb bicfe bring!
atlcr cmpfinblidjcn Tinge 33egrtffc cbcn fo lcid)t ait

Jviflurcn imb garbcu Ijcroor. 3a er fann enbltd) and)

fldftlidjc Tinge, afo ba finb inncrlidjc ^ciucgnngcn be$
)cr$cns unb bic ucrborgenftcn C^cbanfcn bc|d)icibcn imb
abiualcn.

Dod) btcfc ?(rt bcr pocttfdjen ^adjaljinung ift bet adcr

il)rer ^ortrcfflidjfcit uiir bie cjcringftc ; iuciJiuci]cn fie and)
Ajoras tin ^Infaiirtc fctncr Tidjtfimft fitr un.mlanglid) crflart,
ctncn tr>al)vcn ^
octcn madjcn. &*enn id) bic bcftcn AlUlbcr
>u

Don bcr ilBelt in mcincn (53cbtd)tcn ntad)cit fonntc, luitrbc id)

bod) nur cin mittetnidgiger obcr gar nur cin t tctncr^oct ^u

ncrbicncn, uienn id) ntd)t3 ^cffcrc^ ^it
l)cij^cu iuad)cit un ifUc.

Indeed, Gottsched, with his predilection for the drama, the

fable, and the epic that is, for poems distinguished for
s
plot goes so fur as to say, (Jriu ^oct illjmt l)aitptfad)lid)
s
bie A^anblnncjcn bcr JJicufd)cn nad), bic uon ilircin frctcn SiMUcn
imb uichnal^ an^ ben ocrfd)icbcnen ^icigungcn bc
I)crritl)rcn,
(McmittS nnb Ijeftigcn xMffcftcn i()rcn Uripruug Ijabcn (p. 90).
He does not, however, go enough farther to say that in
such imitation of action the poet s means are superior to
the painter s. In general, his differentiation among the
imitators of nature does not get beyond a summary of
well-established views, such as those from which Lessing
started the discussion in Laokoon. Gottsched defines :

s
3d) jagc alfo crftlid), cin ^oct fct cin gefdjicftcr ^adjaljmcr
alter natiirlid)en Tinge, imb bicfc3 l)at er mit ben SDJalcrn,

Diitftfuerftanbigcn nnb anbcrcn mcljr gcmcin. CIT ift aber

gum anbcrn Don iljncn untcrfdjtcben, burd) bie 5lrt fetncr

Diad)al)innng, nnb bie IVittcl, iroburd) cr fie DoU$iel)t.

2)?aler a()int fie burd) ^tnfct unb garben nad) ;
bcr iDi

burd) ben aft unb bie >annonie ;

ber poet aber bnrd)
 INTRODUCTION. Clll

einc taftmajjig abgemeffcttc, ober fonft n)o[)(cmgevid)tete 9icbe

(p. 82). There is no prophecy in this definition.

Bodmer and s Diskurse der Malerf which ap
Breitinger
peared periodically from May, 1721, to December, 1722,
and in book form (four parts) successively in 1721, 1722,
and 1723, were confessedly an imitation of the English

Spectator. The part was dedicated to the Erlauchter

first

Zuschauer Etiglischer Nation; and on the eighteenth of

October, 1721, Bodmer and Breitinger addressed in French
a flattering letter to Richard Steele, in which they frankly
declared their purpose to walk in his footsteps. Both the
idea of a club of contributors, and the substance of some of
the most important contributions were derived from the Spec

tator, though through the medium of a French translation.

That the Swiss constituted themselves a club of painters was
not because of their interest in pictorial art, but because they

regarded literary exposition as a form of painting on the

tabula rasa of the imagination their purpose was to give
:

pictures of life as they saw it, to discuss moral and ethical

questions, and to inspire their readers with an interest in

poetry. The papers dealing significantly with poetry are all

in the first of the four parts, are mostly the work of Bodmer,
and stand in relations of closer dependence than any others
to Addison s papers in the Spectator. Thus, the sixth dis
course speaks of the conventional character of words, as
Addison does, and du Bos also, whose Reflexions Bodmer
seems already to have become acquainted with. Discourses
19 and 20 were immediately inspired by Addison s papers on

1 The first
part reprinted by Theodor Vetter in Bibliothek alterer
Schriftwerke der deutschen Schweiz, Frauenfeld, 1891. Cf. Theod.
Vetter, Der Spectator als Quclle der Disctirse der Maler, Frauenfeld,
1887 ;
and J. J. Bodmer mid die englische Literatur in Denkschrift zuni
CC. Geburtstag Bodmers, Zurich, 1900, pp. 3i6ff.
CIV INTRODUCTION.

the imagination, in the Spectator beginning June 21, 1712.

Discourse 20 is headed Ut pictura poesis and quotes Opitz s
verses to the painter Strobel as itbcrcmS arttij. These latter
discourses contain in the germ the Swiss esthetics, in contra
distinction to the Gottschedian but we can more profitably
;

study these esthetics in their developed form, and need only

note in passing that although Bodmer follows Addison in

treating the poet as a painter who appeals to the imagination,
who gives pleasure even when the objects of his description
are in themselves unpleasant, and has at his command a

greater range of subjects than the painter or sculptor such

as this composite character of Catiline :
(9e|d)icft ttOtt cib,

gctftretd), laftcrljaft, vaubbcgierig, derfdjwenbertfdj, blutburftig,

ijart, uncnnitbet, oenuegen, bcvfcfjlagen, bcrcbt, umuiffcnb
he agrees with du Bos in holding that the impression made

by a statue or picture is more immediate and stronger than

the impression made by a poem.

Poetry, according to the Swiss critics, is a kind of painting

they habitually speak of it as pOCtifd)C Sttalcrct which
appeals to the imagination, and produces on the mind the
same kind of effect that a painting produces ; but with this
difference a painting produces its effect through the medium
:

of the eye, and a poem is not restricted to effects produced

through the medium

of the sense of sight, but by means of
words can give the mind a sensuous experience of hearing,
touch, smell, and taste, as well as of sight. To the under
standing as exalted by Gottsched, Bodmer and Breitinger
opposed the imagination as they had been encouraged to es
teem it by Addison. Beyond the realm of the natural, to
which Gottsched restricted poetry, they saw possibilities of
poetic effects in the realm of the supernatural. Alongside
of the intellect, which ruled over the poetry advocated by

Gottsched, they, following du Bos, postulated the emotions

 INTRODUCTION. CV

as a source of poetic enthusiasm and appreciation. And in

stead of an objective determination of what poetry was, they

sought for a comprehension of the subjective effect of poetry

upon their own sensitive souls.

Both Bodmer and Breitinger were as eclectic as Gottsched ;

and they made excerpts largely from the same authorities. But
they earlybecame conscious of the difference of their point of
view from his, and in course of time a bitter quarrel arose be

tween Zurich and Leipzig. Bodmer and Breitinger were them

selves united in the closest friendship ; many of their works
were joint products ; and each man had the habit of writing
a preface to the books published under the other s name.
The very titles of these books are a sufficient indication of
the ground upon which the authors stood. The principal
theoretical works of Von dem Einfluss und
Bodmer were :

Gcbrauche dcr Einbildungskraft (1727); Critische Abhand-

lung von dem Wunderbarcn in der Poesie und dcssen Ver-
bindung mit dem Wahrscheinlichen, in einer Verteidigung des
Gedichtes Joh. Miltons von dem verlorenen Paradiese ; der

beigefuget ist Joseph Addisons Abhandlung von den Schon-

heiten in demselben Gedichte (1740); Critische Betrach-
tungen iiber die poctischen Gemiilde der Dichter (1741).

Breitinger wrote in direct emulation of Gottsched a Critische

Dichtkunst, worinnen die poetische Malerei in Absicht auf die
Erfindiing im Grunde untcrsuchet und mit Beispielen aus
den benihmtesten Alien und Neuern erliiutert wird (1740);
Fortsetzung der Critischen Dichtkunst, worinnen die poetische
Malerei in Absicht auf den Ausdruck und die Farben abge-
handelt wird (1741) ; further, a Critische Abhandlung von der
Natur, den Absichten und dem Gebrauche der Gleichnisse
(1740) and finally, a Verteidigung der schweizerischen Muse
;

Dr. Albr. Nailers (1744).

Bodmer s book on the Einbildungskraft was dedicated to
CV1 INTRODUCTION.

the philosopher Christian Wolf (1679-1754), and, inspired

by Addison, was a kind of adaptation of the philosophy of

Locke, Leibniz, and Wolf to the fundamental problem of
poetry. The same matter was, however, more fully treated
in Die poetischen Gemiilde; the treatise Von dem Wundcrbaren
is a
special application of Bodmer s general definition of
the substance and the range of poetic imitation. Bodmer s
system may be summarized in a few words. All knowledge,

he says, comes to man through the senses, and every increase

of knowledge is accompanied by a certain pleasure. So far
as this pleasure consists in the recognition of truth, it is an
attribute of science as well as of art : the perception of the
truths of mathematics or of history is an agreeable function
of the mind ; but art provides not only such pleasure as
this of the intellect or judgment, but also the manifold

pleasures of the emotions as stimulated through the senses.

A work of art gives no pleasure except as it is perceived
to be a fitting imitation of a natural model :
painting presents
images which the eye can compare with the objects seen in
nature sculpture produces figures of still greater verisimilitude,
;

for in these the sense of touch may reenforce the impressions of

sight but poetry, working through the imagination on the im

;

agination, creates pictures that seem real if only the mind can
conceive them as possible. Poetry has no other function
than to paint pictures on the canvas of the imagination its ;

pictures are as sensuous as those made with brush and

colors ;
and the perfection of poetry, or any other artistic

imitation, consists in producing the same effect with its imi

tations that would be produced by the things imitated. Bod-
mer
"

defines a <(

poetic picture as follows : amtt id) foldjco

ui3 fur^e jufaimnenfaffe, fo tft citt pocttfdjcs (^cmdlbc nirf)ts
s s
aubcr, als etne fwtftDoffc j?ad)al)immfj bcr j?atur, ivddje
barinncu bcftcljt, bag man nuttdft dues gcfdjtcftcn
 INTRODUCTION. Cvii

ber 3l*orte uitb bcr SHcbcn&irtcn cbcn fo (cbfyafte imb cnt-

gitcfcubc $itbcr in bie ^Ijautafic ber$orcr obcr I cfer fdjilbcru

fann, ate btejenia,eu ftnb, luclcfjc bic tttatur fcibft mittclft bcr

Stiuien in biefelbc brina.t, tnbem fie bic Urbilbcr bicfcn in iljrc

cgcmuart fiiljrt ;
wit bent (Srfolge, bag bicfc ^tadjaljmuua,,
lucun fie a,cfd)irft autfijcfitljrt uwbcn, burd) bic Sljnltdrfcit cin
1
fd)ftb(irc$ Crra,ot5Clt ijcbicvt. Like the painter, the poet fills

his mind with the facts of observable in nature, and by

life

collecting her scattered beauties perfects her in his new

creations. Unlike the historian, he does not content him
selfwith the representation of things merely as they are or
have been, but shows them as they may or ought to be. A
poem is not merely a representation, but also an expression,
and a more perfect expression than a painting even of the
is

things of sight for the poet not only vies with the painter
;

in the vividness with which he makes objects seen, but

presents these objects in the aspects which suit his im

mediate purpose, and adds to the impression of sight the
impressions of the other senses, and a revelation of inner
qualities and values which the painter can at most only
suggest to a mind already familiar with the qualities and
values suggested.The imagination has no higher function
than to conceive bodies; it "bodies forth" its conceits;
the very magic of poetry consists in sensualizing even the
abstract and intellectual the poet is not content with ex
;

ternal appearances ;
and by just so much as he penetrates
below the surface, his picture excels any that can be painted
in colors. But even an exhaustive, accurate description of
the external appearance of natural objects regardless of
their emotional value or symbolical significance may be no
less poetic than agreeable and instructive. 2
The second chapter of Bodmer s Poetische Gemdlde has
1 2
Poet. Gemdlde, p. 52. Ibid.
Cviii INTRODUCTION.

the rubric Von der Gleichheit zwischender eigentlichen

Malerei und der poetischen. It has been clear from the

beginning of our discussion that the tendency of the Swiss

writers was in the opposite direction to Lessing s, and that
their metaphorical terminology was a serious impediment to
progress towards distinctions which had been made before
their time,and which they might otherwise have been keen
enough to make
themselves. If, however, on the one hand,

they constitute themselves warm partisans of Haller, and

approve even the encyclopedic tediousness of Brockes ;
if

allpoetry is to them poctifdjc HUaliTCt they do not, on the ;

other hand, regard descriptive poetry as the only, or even

Bodmer, who prefers the
1
the highest form of poetic art.

description of a beaker given by Ovid (Metam., XIII, 680 rT.)

to the work of silversmith or engraver, makes this prefer
ence on the ground that the poet s description better brings
out the meaning of the depicted figures in cause, effect, and
sentiments ; and though he concedes to the poet power over
2
the realms of heaven, humanity, and matter, he says that

poetry pflcgt oorncl)iultd) ba un, bic (gtttcit unb bic e=

baufcu bctf Dfenfdjcn, ba3 ift, bie SBaljrljettcn bc# initttcrn

WcidjcS, 311111 3ttl)a(t iljrcr 2crfe $u ncljmcn
and these are
subjects long since recognized as more proper for the poet
than for the painter.
Breitinger s Critische Dichtkunst makes clearer distinctions
between painting and poetry than any work of Bodmer s.
Breitinger, to be sure, refers to poetry as the Muftracjimg unb
8 4
9Jii|d)img bcr poettfdjen Sarbcn, he twice cites the
pseudo-
Horatian Ut pictura poesis, he says that poetry can be
all
5
called cine bcftcinbige itnb ireitlduftige SJ^aferci, that the Iliad

1 Poet. 4
Gcmdlde, pp. 44 ff. I, p. 13 ; II, p. 406.
2 5
Op. cit., p. 57. I, p. 13.
8
II, P. 5-
 INTRODUCTION. C1X

1
and the Odyssey are two rctd)(id) tterfeljene -SSttberfcite, and
his firstchapter is a SBergletdjung ber SJtolerfunft uub bcr
j)idjthtnft. In this very chapter, however, certain points of
contrast are brought out the painter s range of expression
:

is limited to what can be seen at one glance, and from one

side the painter can reveal the invisible only so far as it
;

makes itself visible in contortions of the body, nub Cd lUQltgett

feinen fimfttidjen 33ilbcrn atleinal an bcr ;!3en)cguttg, roeldjc bad
2
s
cin$ige jj}erfmal bed Vebcnd ift. The
poet, on the contrary,
appeals by means of words to all the senses in fcinctl (denial
;

ben ift ailed uoU Vcbciinnb uwljrer 43cu)cgung, feme ^erfoncn

nnb <Sad)cu
a nbcrn itjren Stanb nnb ifjre 3tcttimg in cittern

^ugcnblicfe, fobalb ed i!)m beltcbt, nnb er gibt fie nnd gnnj

8
nnb Don alien 2eken
511 fefjcn. poet s Furthermore, the
words, being conventional symbols, pass to the mind through
the sense of hearing indeed, but, as conventional, convey a

meaning to the mind more directly and immediately than

natural symbols, which grossly affect the senses and then
need a translation into the terms of consciousness. Poetic

pictures, therefore, are finer, clearer, and more significant

than pictures on canvas : and such a poem as Holler s Alpen
is preferable to a series of pictures of the Alps for the ideas
it
conveys, for the emotions it rouses, the instruction it gives,
for the unpaintablc elements of sound, motion, and thought,
and for the suggested sublimity of such an expression as bad
4 S
3(uge bcr Sdt, meaning the sun. (fyfd)icftc 3(usbnufe are
5
the garbenber poetifdjcu iWatcrei. ^oefie ift ein be f tan*
ie

MgeS ($enuilbc, bcnn bcr ^oct

ift foii)o()( lucnn cr ben Vauf nnb

3nfaminen()ani3 bcr 33cgcbcn()cttcn cr^iljtt, a(d tucnn er fid)

teru)cttt, bad i>eninmbcrfainc in ben egenftanben nnb .fSanb-
(ungen andfitl)r(td) ,^n bcfcfjreiben, immcr bemiifyt, btc ^3t(ber,
1
i, p- 35-
3
i, p- 19-
5 n . P- 5-
2 18 4
I, p- I, p. 23.
CX INTRODUCTION.

bte U)tn fcinc gfiict(id)c ^fjantafie fcfynt, mit fo(d)cm

unb $farf)ctt, fo(d)er tfcbljaftigfcit unb (hnpfinblidjfctt
ftcllen, ba ba# C^cniiitc babitrd) eben fo ftarf entjitcft unrb,
at burd) bie fidjtbare ilSorftcIIung eincS lebfyaften (55emti(bc3.
"Die
poeti|d)eit d)tlbcrcicn cmpfangcn iljr red)tc$ Vid)t unb
crforbcrlid)cn ^adjbrucf baljcr, uienn bie g(itcfltd) gciudl)(tcn
C^cbanfeu uub ^Bcgriffc bc^ ^octcn nad) it)rcn tutdjttiiftcn,

crl)abcnftcn unb bnncijlidjftcn Umftanben/ untcr angcncljincit

frembcn ^3i(bcrn unb gigitrcn uorcjcftcdt, unb babitrd) ganj

ftdjtbar unb fiunlidj gcniadjt njcrbcn. :)Jun ritljrcn allc bicfe

frembcn ^3ilbcr unb fiunlidjcn Jyigurcn Don bcr ilraft bcr

^idjtnng ()er, unb gcljiircn folgltrf) ber ^ocfte cigcntitut*

1
lid) ju.
There can be no question that the Swiss critics had much
more poetry in their souls than Gottsched had in his. They
prepared the way for Klopstock, Wieland, the Sturm nnd
Drang, and even Herder and romanticism. In many respects
Lessing could not but sympathize with their propaganda.
Nevertheless, as a critic and esthetic philosopher, Lessing
stands much closer to Gottsched, in spite of his contempt
for the Leipzig dictator. Lessing admired Shakespeare and
Milton he profited more than the Swiss did from English
;

esthetics ; but his Laokoon, like Gottsched s Critische Dicht-

kunst, is
preeminently a work of common sense and reason ;

and in it he considers painting and poetry in their most objec

tive aspect, that is, the difference in the means of poetic and
pictorial imitation, and he is
very little concerned with the
effect of either art upon the imagination. Most of Lessing s

contemporaries, however, and especially those whose work

marked progress in the history of esthetics, stood much
closer to Bodmer and Breitinger than to Gottsched. This
was the case with Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten (1714-
1 ff-
I, PP- 31
 INTRODUCTION. CXI

1762), the father of the science of esthetics, and with

Moses
Mendelssohn, the most generous and helpful of Lessing s

friends.

As an adherent of the philosophy of Gottfried Wilhelm

Leibniz (1646-1716) in the systematized form which it had
received at the hands of Christian Wolf, Baumgarten first

applied the term sEsthctica to that part of the Leibniz-

Wolfian doctrine which dealt with the lower powers of the
soul, with the less distinct perceptions, and he developed on
this basis a new science under a new name. He expounded
his views in the works, Meditationes philosophies de nonnul-
lis ad pocma pertinentibiis (1735), sEsthetica (1750), and
jEstheticorum pars altera (1758). The views were elab

orately set forth by his pupil Georg Friedrich Meier in

Anfangsgriinde a Her schonen Wissenschaften (1754-1759)

Baumgarten s definition of a poem as oratio perfecta sensitiva

.(cf. Herder, -V.?, 8) is permanent contribution to

his only

esthetic terminology, besides the term esthetics itself, and the

psychology upon which he based his system has of course long
since been superseded but it was the psychology of the
;

eighteenth century until the time of Kant, and was rather

refined than modified by Mendelssohn. It behooves us,

therefore, to define briefly the phenomena which Baumgarten

regarded as esthetic, and to account for the manner in which
he conceived them to affect the soul of man. 1
One of the most difficult of philosophical problems is the
definition of mind and matter, and the explanation of the
process by which events in the material world are reflected
in the mind in the form of consc ousness. Leibniz sought ;

to solve this problem by postulating as the constituent ele-

For the following summary I have drawn largely upon Erich

1

Prieger, Anregung nnd metaphysische Grundlagen der Asthetik von

A. G. Battmgarten, I crliii, 1875.
CXli INTRODUCTION.

ments of matter indivisible, indestructible, incessantly active

units called The monad is a metaphysical concep
monads.
tion, a mathematical point, having no extension, but con
sisting wholly of primitive energy, and being impelled by
this energy to ceaseless activity in accordance with its

nature. This activity, however, consists in nothing but per

ception, the formation of ideas (Vorstfllungcn)* If, then, all

matter is mind, what are those forms of matter commonly

called bodies, and how they constituted of elements
are
which have ne-ther length, breadth, nor thickness? The
answer to this question is given in metaphysical terms cor
responding to the definition of the monad. The monad is
not subject to influences from without itself; but its activity
has a limit according to the amount of its original energy ;

this limit presents itself to the monad as resistance, and the

two elements, motion and resistance, activity and passivity,
are equally essential to the definition of the monad. Leibniz
calls resistance materia prima, the first constituent of matter.

The materia secunda, which we call a body, is an aspect of

the materia prima. The activity of the monad consists in
reflecting as in a living mirror its own perceptions and the

perceptions of all other monads : the monad is a mirror of

the universe, original power, and
but each according to its

some more clearly and more perfectly than others. If many

monads are together, the one of greatest power and the
greatest capacity for clearness assumes a kind of monarchical
relation towards the others, seems to be the soul of a complex
which as it is reflected in other monads appears as a kind of

body, just as a rainbow appears to be a real thing, though in

thebody nothing is real but the monads, and in the rainbow
thereis no reality but the refracted light. All constituent

monads of the body are active and perceiving elements

"
"

but the lower the degree of their activity, the greater appears
 INTRODUCTION. CX111

the degree of resistance with respect to them, the more their

activity takes on a passive aspect ; and in the same measure,

the less clear and distinct the perceptions, which are other
names for this activity. Compared with the monarchical
monad, therefore, the subordinate monads seem inert or

inanimate, seem like the body as distinguished from the

soul and they do constitute a body for the complex in
;

which the most active monad is the soul, although the differ
ence between body and soul is a difference in degree of
activity, not a difference in kind.
The activity of every monad is original and independent of
that of every other monacT^Tts perceptions are not a replica
of the consciousness of anything outside itself, but are, ac

cording to the degree of its power, a picture of the universe

which the Creator has made, by a preestablished harmony
between all things, to conform to the facts of the universe.

Thus two watches keep time together not because of any

mutual influence, but because they were made to keep
equally perfect time. All the monads of a body perceive the
facts of the universe, and have no other function than to
perceive them ;
but in most of the monads the harmonious
agreement with these facts is indistinct for the very multiplic
ity of the perceptions, and only
in the higher, or the highest,

does perception become distinct these having the ability,

through their greater activity, to separate from the confused

mass of the product the factors, elements, and units that go
to make it up. For example, there may be perception of the
total effect of a concert of voices, with or without the capac

ity to analyze the harmonious and recognize the individ

total

ual voices that compose it. Similarly, a mixture of blue and

yellow pigment corresponds to a vague perception of green ;

under the microscope, however, the two elements are separa
ble, and a distinct perception of the fact of mixture becomes
CX1V . INTRODUCTION.

possible. In general, the perceptions which we attach to the

evidence of the senses are indistinct and vague, whereas
intellectual perception, as of .the truths of mathematics and
geometry, is distinct and clear. Conversely, where percep
tion is indistinct and vague we think of senses and a body,
we regard the soul as relatively passive, abandoning itself to

fet /ittgs. But feelings are forms of consciousness which differ

from the intellectual forms only in not being distinct, ana

lyzed, and reduced to their lowest terms. Thus the sensuous
pleasure of music consists in the confused perception of har
monious relations which to the intellect are capable of mathe
matical determination and definition.

Primarily a mathematician, and always a rationalist, Wolf

concerned himself less with Leibniz s poetical conception of

monads, than with the principles of continuity and harmony

which, by means of the doctrine of monads, Leibniz had
tried to establish as operative in the universe. Postulating
God, human souls, and bodies as the three things of which
every mind is conscious, he undertook to demonstrate for
every phenomenon of the universe an adequate reason for
existence (emeu $lircul)cnJ>eu (Ml lint)), and denned philosophy
as cine &Mffcnfrf)aft after mo cjlidjen TMncic, U)ic uiib uuir.uiu fie

inoijlid) ftnb. Wolfs categories, definitions, and proofs lent

themselves readily to popularization and since he wrote

;

compendiums in German as well as in. the prevailing Latin,

his system attained general currency and authority in

Germany. In the history of esthetics its importance lies

in the fact that it

pointed still more conspicuously than
Leibniz had done to the realm of indistinct perceptions
as the field for esthetic speculation.
proper As a meta
physician and ethical philosopher with a mathematical
method, Wolf had no special interest in the fine arts and ;

it was as if to fill a gap in Wolf s system that Baumgarten

 INTRODUCTION. CXV

applied his methods to the problem of beauty and esthetic

pleasure.
One of the earliest of Baumgarten s panegyrists, Herder,
l
declared that his system, in contrast to Aristotle s and to all

systems that started from the conception of imitation," had

"

the merit of the discovery of a new continent ; it turned

attention from the outer world to the soul of man, and
instead of inquiring what a poem should be made to re

semble, defined the qualities that a poem should have in order

to affect the soul, as a demonstration, or an oration, or any
other expression in words could not do. It was the psychol

ogy of poetry instead of the descriptive science of poems ;

and its definitions were illuminating and fruitful because sug

gestive and stimulating to thought. Nor is this praise unde
served. Baumgarten was not the first to direct attention to
the sensuous elements in poetry Milton in his Tractate of
Education (1644) had contrasted poetry with rhetoric "as

being less subtle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and
but Baumgarten once for all put an end to
"

passionate
the notion that poetry consisted in rhymes, forms of words,
or the unaffecting clearness of intellectual exposition ;
for

him, as for Milton, poetry was perfect sensuous language, a

form of expression that stirs the soul with a multitude of per
ceptions belonging to the realm of objective realities which
are felt, enjoyed, sought, or feared. His system was a logic
of the lower powers of the soul, of the powers, that is,

through the exercise of which man comes into closest con

tact with his environment.
The Meditationes define a poem, treat of invention, dis
position, and elocution in poetry, compare Baumgarten s
definition with that of Aristotle, Gottsched, and others, and
1 Von Baumgartetis Denkart in seinen Schriften; Wtrkc, ed.
Suphan, XXXII, pp. 178 ff.
CXV1 INTRODUCTION.

announce the new science of esthetics. They have a section

inwhich poetry and painting are compared on the basis of the
traditional Ut pictura poesis, and a section on description,
equally little at variance with the usual view of this method of

composition. Baumgarten has nothing to say about imita

tion ; -but he holds that the closer a poem comes to reproduc

ing reality and to producing the effect of reality the better it

is and this amounts to the same thing. But the perfec
tion of poetic style consists in so accumulating the indistinct

perceptions of the lower or sensuous man as to give them an

extensive clearness inferior in origin but not in effect to
the intensive perceptions of the higher or intellectual man ;
and the greater the number of sensuously perceptible ele
ments the more perfect the poem. In other words, poetry
aims at the concrete, the individual, the objective ;
and the
philosophy of poetry is the logic of sensuous perception.
The sEstJictica, though Baumgarten intended it to develop
a complete philosophy of the fine arts, was never carried to

completion and beyond a definition of beauty and the

;

sense of beauty it contains little about any other art than

poetry, while poetry itself gains from the author s indefati

gable analysis and classification of elements nothing compa
rable in importance to the definition given in the Meditationes.

Beauty, according to Baumgarten, is perfection of sensuous

perception and the sense of beauty, or the capacity for
;

esthetic reactions, is such a disposition of the mind nat

ural,but capable of cultivation as tends to enhance the

keenness of its lower powers. In the perception of beauty,

however, the higher powers of the mind are not idle ; beauty
has an intellectual element as well as sensuous elements ;
otherwise animals, with their keen senses, would excel men
in the perception of it. And so Baumgarten defines three
aspects of the phenomenon 2& pulchritude rerum et cogitatio-
 INTRODUCTION. CXV11

num, pulchritude ordinis, pulchritudo significationis, that is

to say, sensuously perceptible co-operation of parts to make

a whole with respect to idea, order, and expression ; in

other words, aharmony of the parts among themselves, and

between the parts of the object and the perceiving mind.
But the perception of harmony is a function of the intellect ;
and though Baumgarten especially aims at the cultivation of
the lower powers of the soul to perform their function, his
ultimate goal is cultivation of the whole soul for thinking in

beautiful forms (animcc totius ad pulchre cogitatidiim).

On the thirteenth of March, 1760, Mendelssohn wrote to
1
Lessing, te iw ffcn, baft Vctbni^ 2i>olf
unb Baumgarten
mem tagltdjcr Umgang ftnb, unb baft id) bie cf)rc Don ben

Donabcn
s
fitr bie dentimfttgfte A^tjpottjcfe in bcr 3J?ctapl)i)fif

fyalte.His philosophical position is clearly indicated in

these words ; and if we add Shaftesbury as the particular
model for his earliest attempts at philosophical exposition,

we are prepared to find in his works a readable and graceful

treatment of the problems of metaphysics, ethics, and esthet
ics which the names of his predecessors suggest. It was

Lessing who first encouraged Mendelssohn to philosophical

writing ;
and we are concerned with his treatises only in so
far as they were immediately antecedent to Laokoon. In
many cases, however, ideas and definitions which, developed
in close personal relations, may be regarded as the common

property of the two men, received their first formulation at

the hands of Mendelssohn and passed then directly into Les-

sing s essay on the limits of painting and poetry.

For our purposes two of Mendelssohn s papers are of par

2
ticular importance Briefe tiberdie Empfindungen (i755), to
:

1
90. Literaturbrief ; Mendelssohn s Schriften, Leipzig, 1843, IV
ii, p. 36.
2
if.
Schriften, I, pp. 107
CXV111 INTRODUCTION.

which, later, Anmerkungen were added, and (1761) a Rhap-

*
sodie oder Zusdtze zu den Briefen liber die Empftndungen
came as a supplement ;
and an investigation Betrachtungen
uber die Qucllen und die Verbindungen der sch onen Kiinste
und Wissenschaften (1757), reprinted in 1761 under the title
Uber die Hauptgrundsatze der sch onen Kiinste und Wissen

schaften? As appears from the titles, the first of these works

has to do with the psychology of sensation and the sources
of pleasure ;
the second, with the principles of art. The latter,

therefore, stands nearer to the subject of Laokoon; but the

former furnishes a speculative basis for the principles applied
to esthetic problems by both Mendelssohn and Lessing.
Mendelssohn s general aim in the Briefe may be said to
be a rationalization and moralization of pleasure, and an at
tempt to distinguish between beauty and perfection as sources
of it. He takes the definition of Baumgarten-Wolf : )ie

krufyt in bcr imbcutltrfjcn ^orftcttung eincr

d)bttl)dt

fomnicnl)cit (p. 114), and the definition of Descartes: ^

fomnicnl)cit . . . cine SDlannigfaltigfeit, bie itbcrctnfttimncnb ift,

bie fid) auf cine ($tnl)dt be$tcl)t, or, (Jinfyctt tin SJJanntQfattigctt

(p. 121), and makes important modifications of both. The

sense of beauty, he says, is incompatible with complete ob

scurity ; and though sensuous pleasure, the agreeable effect

of a total impression, vanishes when the whole and its parts
are lifted to the plane of distinct intellectual perception, the

previous intellectual perception of the parts of the whole

cannot but make an object of greater worth and interest to
us; and so must contribute to our sensuous pleasure when
we finally give ourselves up to the sensations that it produces
as a whole. Our psychic limitations prevent our having dis
tinct intellectual perceptions of all of that unity in variety
which constitutes perfection; it is only an external super-
1 a ff.
Ibid., pp. 235 ff. Ibid., pp. 279
 INTRODUCTION. CX1X

ficial totality of effect appealing to the senses that we can

enjoy ;
and this is beauty. But below the surface, and co
operating in a unity of function perceptible only to the intel
lect, there is a perfection which can be no source of sensuous

pleasure, but is the source of a pleasure of comprehension

belonging to the higher powers of the soul. Thus a trimmed
hedge presents an esthetic object to the eye;
a higher intel

ligence necessary to perceive the essential unity in the

is

bewildering complexity of a natural tree. Pleasure, how

ever, to continue the argument, is a positive attribute ; its
source must the positive powers of the soul, and not be
lie in

due to a limitation the soul would rather be filled with an

:

idea of perfection than not be filled with itand conversely

with imperfection and this "rather" a sign of positive
is

pleasure in intellectual perception. Similarly, the lowest of

pleasures, the pleasures of the body, are accompanied by the
consciousness of bodily perfection ; while they last, they give
a feeling of betterment in one s physical state, just as physical

pain gives an immediate consciousness of bodily imperfection.

Furthermore, in consequence of the reciprocal relations of
soul and body, if every sensuous pleasure is accompanied by
an indistinct idea of perfection, every indistinct idea or sensu
ous perception of perfection must be followed by a kind of
sensuous pleasure. During a long and painfully exact inves
tigation or demonstration, a mathematician is conscious of
distinct ideas, but experiences no pleasure. Once his prob
lem solved and his result stands as a whole before his eyes,
is

the details fade into indistinctness and he contemplates the

whole with a sensuous enjoyment the very element of which
is perfection
indistinctly perceived. There is therefore in

perfection a threefold source of pleasure. In Mendelssohn s

l
words :

1
Schriften, I, p. 148.
CXX INTRODUCTION.

1. )a8 Crtncrki hn 90?amugfa(ticjcn, obcr bic (Sdjonfjeit,

2. )ie CruifyeUigfctt beS Sttannigfalttcjctt, ober bte Der*

ftanbltdje $o(lfommcnf)eit,

3. T)er tterbeffertc 3uftanb unfercr 2ctbc8bcfd)affenf)dt,

obcr bic fmnlidjc Suft.

The art of music is capable of giving pleasure of all three

kinds.
l
In a review of these Briefc, Lessing commends Mendels
sohn having shown why allc augencfymcu unb ituangc-
for

neljmcn Crmpfmbungcn nur au$ bimtten 33cgriffcn cntftcljcn,

and for distinguishing by means of the difference between
(Sincrlet and (Jin^cdigfctt beauty from perfection. But his
praise is excessive. Mendelssohn showed how rather than
why sensations are connected with indistinct perceptions ;

and did not himself in his later works maintain the differ
ence between ba$ (5merlet what I have called the totality
of effect and ($mf)enigtett, or unity. In spite of many ju
dicious observations, the tendency of his exposition was in
the direction of a confusion of the intellectual and the sensu
ous. Lessing s approval of course significant for an under
is

standing of Lessing s psychology, and we find a number

of echoes of this work in Laokoon. Thus, Mendelssohn s
2
theory of gradual comprehension mcin SBaljIfpntrf) tft:
unil)(c,cmpfinbc, iibcrbcnfc unb gcnicfcc passes in his own
later formulation into Lessing s theory of perception (108)
Mendelssohn defines grace as bic (^d)b ut)Ctt bcr luafyren ober
8
aitfcfjcmenbcn ^Bcmegung (cf. Laokoon, 133, 25) ; Lessing s

definitions of beauty (124, 21) and ugliness (140 f.) are those
of his friend the latter adduced directly from the Rhap-
sodie. There is one other passage in the Rhapsodic to be
1 8 L.
Vossische Zeitung, 4. Sept., 1755. c., I, p. 150.
2
Schriften, I, p. 119.
 INTRODUCTION. CXX1

mentioned ; Lessing seems not to have fully appreciated it.

The difference between the so called natural symbols of paint

ing and the artificial or conventional symbols of poetry would

perhaps not have seemed so considerable to the theorists of the
eighteenth century, if they had not expected from paintings a
degree of illusion which the French did not hesitate to call
tromper and the Germans taitfdjctt (cf. 23, 5). Mendelssohn
distinguished the symbols in the same terms as his predeces
sors, but he had a much more delicate sense than most of them
1
of the nature of artistic illusion. In the Rhapsodic he wrote :

(v$ tft u>at)r,

bie fumlidje Crrfenntmtf unb bie
23egcl)nmg^
frafte bcr <ecle merben biird) bie $uuft getaufdjt, unb bie
(SinbtlbungSfraft fo ntit fortgcriffcn, bag u>ir
jurocilen alter
3eid)cn bcr "Dtodjaljnumg uergeffcn, unb
$u bie uwljre 9totur

fcljeu tna ljncn. ^aiibcr baucrt fo langc a(

Villein biefcr
nb ttg ift, nnfcnn 33cgriffc uon bent (tygcnftaubc ba gcl)8rigc
^cbcn unb gcucr ju gebciu 5lMr tyabcn un$ gctuoljnt, ju
unfcnn grogcvn il$crgnitgcn bie 2lufmerffamfett uon adein,
nja^ bte Xaufdjuug ftdrcn foimte, ab^nlenfcn unb nur anf
baS ^u rid)teu, inoburd) fie untcrljaltcn nn rb. vgobalb abcr
bie $e$tef)ttng auf ben egenftanb unangene^m 311 luerbcn
anfdngt, fo crinncrn un# taufcnb in bte ^Uigcn fallcnbe Urn-

ftcinbc, bag
S
lutr cine btofec 3iad)al)inung uor nn^ feljen. And
2
again : r)a bie Unglcidjljcit bcr 3)?atcric bcr ^adjaljmuna,
s
Don bcr JJiateric bcr iftatur, ber 9J?anuor, bte Vctniuanb, bie
ftnnltd)ften 93?crfma(e ftnb, bie, otjne ber ^lunft ^n fdjabcn,
bte 5lufnierffamfcit, fo oft e$ ndtig ift, ^uriicfrufcn, fo ftel)t

man and), nmruni bcntalte 33tlbfa ulcn bcfto unangcneljnicr

ftnb, jc natjer fie bcr ^atur fommcn. 3d) glaitbe, bte fd)dnftc

^Bilbfdule, Don bent gro&ten ^imftter bentalt, njitrbe ntd)t

otjne (itel betradjtct roerbcn fdnnen. Qn 3^ad)^ getriebene

in ^cbcn^grdge unb natitrtid)er leibung ntadjcn
1 2
Ibid., p. 244. Ibid., p. 245.
CXX11 INTRODUCTION.

etncn fcfyr njibrigen Crinbrttcf. !a un$ fcin jmnfirfjeS S

mat itbcrfitljrt, bap tnir cine Mope Sftadjafymung nor 11118

fjabcn, fo ncnniffcn unr mtt SBibertinflen bad $cnn$eid)cn

bc$ ScbenS, bic SBetDepng.
Mendelssohn s essay Von (fen Hauptgrundsatzen der sch o-
ncn Kitnste und IVissenschaftcn begins with the words,
1
ic

fdjoncn ftiinfte unb ^iffeufdjnftcu finb fiir ben inrtuofcu cine

^cfduiftigung, fiir ben Vicbljabcr einc
bc5 ^Bergnitgcn^Cucdc
unb fiir ben ^Bettlueifen cine3cf)it(c bc^ ltnterrid)t^. Les-

sing s Laokoon begins with reference to a similar triumvirate;

and the presumption of similarity raised by this resemblance
isborne out by a comparison of the two treatises as wholes.
Indeed, Mendelssohn at the end of his essay breaks off the
discussion and refers his readers to the fuller treatment to be

expected from Lessing. The latter part of the essay, it is

true, points in the opposite direction from Laokoon.

The document Von den Hauptgrundsatzen is a systematic
The first part deals with the sources
treatise in three parts.

of esthetic pleasure; the second, with the different kinds of

arts that produce this pleasure ; and the third, with the
question how far different arts may be combined and made
to co-operate. The first two of these parts demand close
scrutiny.
I. The science of esthetics
is a psychological discipline,

which has for

object the
its determination of the effects of

beauty on the soul of man. The effects are manifold, but

the soul is one ; all our feelings are either pleasurable or the

opposite ;
there must be some one source of the pleasure
caused by the arts, the producers of beauty. Batteux sought
this source in the principle of imitation of nature. But
what is the source of the pleasure produced by original,
unimitated nature herself? The explanation must be found
1
Schriften, I, p. 281.
 INTRODUCTION. CXX111

in the constitution of the soul every idea of perfection,

:

of conformity, and of the faultless, is preferred by the soul to

the faulty, the imperfect, and the incongruous ; and if the

perception of this perfection is sensuous, it is called beauty.

Subjectively considered, beauty is sensuous perception of

is
perfection ; objectively, beauty sensuously perceptible per
fection ;
ami batf icfcit bcr fdjoitctt tSti uiftc uub ivMffcHs

I djaftcn bcftdjt in ciucr fi mftlidjcu ftunltd) Dottfommencu

obcr in ciucr burd) bic ftunft oor^eftdltcn finn*
il>orftduwcj,

Urfjcn ^o(lfommc:i[)Ctt (p. 285). The distinction in the last

sentence is not otiose ; for art can give a sensuously perfect

perception of an object which in itself is neither perfect, nor

beautiful,nor good. The subjective experience of percep
tion may beagreeable, even though the object represented
a shipwreck) is disagreeable.
(e. g., Furthermore, there is a
kind of perfection in the very imitation we are pleased :

with the similarity of the copy to the original, and we admire

the skill of the artist in itself a kind of perfection. From
the same point of view we may explain the beauty of nature
as a manifestation of the perfection of God, the great artist.

The human may take as his subject any object, agree

artist

able or disagreeable, in nature but not an object to which

;

we are indifferent; for then the only effect of his copy would
be a cold appreciation of its qualities as an imitation. The
artist scopy, on the other hand, must possess all the quali
ties of a beautiful object; and these are: number and
variety of elements, sensuously perceptible co-operation of
parts to make a whole, and well-defined limits of extent;
and the subject represented must be worthy of
finally, con
sideration, new, extraordinary, suggestive, and the like. The
artist s sole purpose being to represent beauty, he will easily

rise above the direct reproduction of actual nature to the

representation of nature as she would have been if the pro-
CXX1V INTRODUCTION.

duction of things of beauty had been her sole object. The

ancient marbles illustrate this kind of treatment of nature ;
bcncn affo, bic nictjt ($enie gcnug rjabcn, ba$ ibeale (Sdjbne
s
ans ben SBcrfcn ber jfatnr 311 abftraljicren, fann bie flcigige

3cobad)tung ber 3lutitcu nit^lidjcr fcin, ate bic 23ctrad)tnng

1
ber ^tatur.
II. The arts are classified according to the means that
*
they employ. Die 3 c id)cn, wmittclft lueldjer ein

ftanb aitsgcbrurft iwrb, fbnnen cutiucbcr natitrtid) ober

S
fitrltd) 3catitrltd) finb fie, lucnn bte ^crbtnbuncj be^
fetn.

^ctdjeu^ mit ber be^ctdjnctcn ^adjc in ben (^tgcnidjaftcn be^

^3c^etd)neteu fclbft begrilnbet ift. . . .
ingccjen iuerbcn bie-
S
jenifleu ^cidjcn untltitrlid) c^enannt, bic ucrmocjc tljrcr 3tatur
mit ber bejcidjnctcn ^ad)e nidjt$ i]entctn Ijabcn, aber boc^
nrillfurlid) bafitr angcnommcn iDorbcn finb. btcfer 5(rt il>on

finb bic artifulicrtcn Xbnc alter Spradjcu, bic ^itd)ftabcn, bte

*

l)teroi]ll)pl)tfd)cn 3 c ^) cn ^ Cl Wten nnb cinigc atktjorifd^en

^3ilbcr, bic man mit ftcdjt 311 ben ^icrocjtypljcn jciljlcn

fann.
^(n btcfer 33crrad)tnnfl fticfet bie erftc gmupteinteilung bed
finn(id)eu 5(ubvucf<, in fdjbne ilimfte unb 31>tffcn|d)aften

(beaux arts et belles lettrcs). ^Tte fdjbncn ^Mffenfc^aften,

iuorunter man gciuciuigtid) bic ^idjtfunft unb Screbtfamfett

Dcrfteljt, britcfen bte cflcnfta nbe burd) unllfitrlid)e ^ctdjen,

burd) ocrnct)nt(td)e Xbne unb 23ud)ftabcn au^. Da nnn eine

rjernimftigc 3ufammenl e feun 9 ^ lc ^ er ^orte cine 9tcbe ge=

nannt n)trb, fo gcratcn tutr ganj nngcjiunngen anf bte

bcfanntc ^3annu]artcn fd)c (irftarung : cm ebid)t fet eine

fiunlid) uollfommenc ^?ebe, fo n)te nn bicfe Grflarung 5(n=

lag gegeben fyat, ba 3Kcfen ber fd)bnen ftiinftc iibcrljaupt in
bie fitnftlid)e finntid) doUfommene ^orfteflung ju fctjen. Die
Didjthtnft nnterfd)etbct fid) ton ber ^Bcrcbtfainfcit burd) ben
2
1
P. 2%g ;
cf. Winckelmann. Pp. 290 ff.
 INTRODUCTION. CXXV

)cr auptcnb$iuccf bcr Dicfythtnft tft, burd) eine

finnlid) rjottfommcnc 9tebe gu gefaften, ber SBerebtfamfeit aber,
s
burd) eine finnlid) rjodfommene Jtebe ju itbcrreben.
JJfrtte(, etne 9?cbe finn(id) gu madjen, befteljt in ber
s

s
foldjcr 3ludbritcfc, bie etne JD2enge Don D^crfma(en auf s

einntat in batf ebdd)tni^ jitritcfbrtngen, urn unS ba^ ^c=

geid)itetc Icb^aftcr entpfinben ^it laffcn, al^ ba<J
,3eid)en.

^icrbnrd) ivivb unfcrc IfrfcnntniS anfd)aucnb. T)ie (^cgcn*

ftanbc lucrbcn unfent <3inncn luie nmnittclbar oorgcftetlt,
unb bic untcrn Scelcnfrdftc lucrbcu gctaufdjt, inbcnt fie oftcrd
bcr 3 c id)cu uergeffcn unb bcr 3cid)e felbft anfidjttg 311 lucrbeit

gtauben. 3(ud bicfer oUgenicincn D^a^iutc mnfe ber Bert ber

poettfdjcn 5Jilbcr, (9(cid)iuffe unb ^Bcfc^rcibuugcn, unb fogar
ber ein^cdten poetifc^en SBorte bcurtetlt tvcrbcn.
3U(c ntot](id)cn unb roirfttdjcu 1)tngc fbnncit burd) unUfur-
(id)c 3 c ^) cn ciu<Jgcbriicft tuerbcn, fobalb luir cincn Karen ^3c-
griff Don iljncit I)abcn. ^al)cr erftrccft fid) ba$ G^ebiet bcr
fd)bncn S^tffcnfdjaftcn auf adc nur crftnnlirijen (^egcnftcinbc.
. . ^cr
.
egenftanb bcr fd)bncit ^liinftc ift eingcfc^ranftcr.
jDtcfe bcbtcncn fid) oorncl)tnlid) bcr natitrlidjen ^cidjcn. . . .

!Dal)er ntuB fid) cine jebe ^iimft mit bent Xci(c bcr natitrlid)cn
^eid)cn bcgniigen, ben fie finnltd) autfbrnrfcn faun. 1)ie

9)?ufif, bercn 3hwbritcf burd) nentci)nilid)e Xbuc gefd)iel)t,

Fanu unmb gtid) ben 53egriff einer 9Jofc, cinc<5

^appelbauin^
n.f.ni. an$eigcn, fo tnie e^ bcr 9J?alcrei unnibglid) fd Ut, un^
eincu mufifattfdjen 5ltforb Dorjuftcdcn.
1
Secondly, natural symbols differ according to the senses
to which they appeal, and according to the manner of their
appeal. There are only two senses affected by the fine arts :

hearing and sight and the only art appealing to the sense
;

of hearing so far as its symbols are inarticulate tones

is the art of music. The appeal of the symbols of music
1 P. 292.
CXXV1 INTRODUCTION.

is both simultaneous (harmony) and successive (melody).

The arts affecting the sense of sight are restricted to one
manner of appeal by means of their symbols: cntiucbci* itt

ber 8 olgeewf einanber obcr ncbcn einanbcr bad fycipt, . . .

fie fbnnen cntmebcr bic <d)bnl)dt burd) 33ctt)egung ober burd)

jyormcn audbritcfcn. uc Xantfunft tut ed rjerniittctft ber

$5etuegUUg. Theof form, with symbols existing mo

arts

tionless side by side, make use of lines, figures, and bodies :

painting, of lines and figures on a surface; sculpture and

architecture, of bodies in space. Confining our attention
l
to the painter and the sculptor, we find : bic 3d)bnl)eitCU,

bic Don biefcn Slimftlcrn andgebriirft lucrbcn fbnncn, finb : bad

C^cuie itub bic (Mcbanfen in ber (Srfinbuug uub ,giifammen*
fcteung, bic i lbcrcinftimmuug in ber 9(norbnnng, bie 9fad)=
al) mung ber fdjbncn ^)catur in ber 3c^nun9 cine rcid)e

3)^anntgfaltigfeit uou fd)bncn Vinicn nnb Jyifluren, bie Vcb-

Ijaftiflfett ber Votalfavbcn, bic Apannonie tljrcr <2djattienmt3,

unb bie ^at)r()cit nnb (Sintjcit in ber 2(utetUmg be^ Vid;td
S
nnb (5djattcniJ, ber 9lii$brucf ber iucnfd)tid)cn 3icigungen nnb
VtMbcufd)aften, bie gcfdjicftcftcn (Stcltnngcn bc^ mcnfdjlidjen
s
f{brpci% nnb cnb(id) bic Jiad)al)ininui ber natiirlidjcn nnb
fiiuftlidjcnTwinge iibcrljanpt, bie burd) fid)tbave 53i(bcr in
bad (^cbad)tni\5 juriicfgebrad)t luerbeu fbimcn. But
T^a ber Whiter imb ^3t(bl)ancr bic Sd)bnl)citcu in ber
ncben einanbcr auSbriicfen, fo niitffcn fie ben ^(ngcnblid
len, ber iljrcr 5lbfid)t am giiuftigftcn ift. ^ie miiffcn bic

gan^c ^anblung in cinent ein^igcn ^cfid)t^pnnft Dcrfantmcin

unb mit indent ^erftanbe audtcilcn. Allied inufe in biefciu

5lugcnblicfc gcbanfcurcid) unb fo uoller ^3ebeutnng fcin, bajj

etn jcbcr ^icbcnbcgriff ju ber ucrlangten 53ebeutung bad
3cimgc bcitrage. 3^cnn un r ein foldjcd emalbe mit gc-
l)brigcr 5lufmerffanifett anfdjauen, fo lucrben unfere
1
P. 294.
 INTRODUCTION. CXXV11

ciuf ciunial begctftert ;

a(le gcifyigt eitcn imfercr Seefe lucrbnt
plofclid) rcge, nub bie (iinbtibuugSfraft f anu an3 bem cgcu*
luiirtigcn ba$ S&ergaugene crratcn, unb ba3 ,3itfimfticje ni ^
1
3uucridf|"igfeit uorfycr afyrtcn.
This is Mendelssohn s theory of esthetic reactions, his
classification of the arts, and delimitation of their respective
fields on the basis of their symbols of expression. There is
not much in his discussion that is absolutely new. Baum-
garten furnishes the psychological basis for a treatment of
the emotional effect of art that was observed and demanded

by every writer on the subject from Leonardo da Vinci on ;

Leonardo distinguishes between coexistence and succession

no less clearly than du Bos or Harris du Bos defines ;

esthetic symbols as natural and artificial Burke and Diderot ;

demonstrate the inadequacy of imitation as an esthetic

principle ; grace associated with motion by Shaftesbury

is

and Spence ;
ideal beauty superior to actuality is defined by
de Piles, and found in Greek sculpture by the French and
by Winckelmann before Mendelssohn and even the "fruit
;

ful moment" (cf. Laokoon^ 36 ft")

is a conception familiar
since the Renaissance. Mendelssohn s work is tentative,
cautious, confessedly fragmentary ;
he had none of the in
stincts of an iconoclast ;
his reason claimed no eminent
domain over the realm of his sensibilities he accepted ;

things as he found them so long as he found them good ;

and comparison and integration rather than differentiation

was the prevailing tendency of his time. He displays no
inclination to restrict the range of poetry. He is almost
equally magnanimous in towards painting (3
his attitude :

ift auSgemadjt, ba fid) bic sJD?alcrei ntd)t bloft mtt fofdjcn

(Stegenftftnbett bcfdjciftiflt, bic an unb fiir fid) fclbft fidjtbar

finb. 5lud) bie aKerfitbtilftcn (Mebanfcn, bie abftraftcftcn 33e=

1
p. 294.
CXXV111 INTRODUCTION.

griffc tonnen anf ber einttanb anSgebriirft, unb burdj fidjtbare

1
3cid)cu in baS (^ebd djtniS snriicfyebradjt tocrbcn. Allegory
2
is a device bic cbanfcn 311 maten to be sure, the artist
must remain within the limits of the sensuous. And after

all,there are certain considerations of appropriateness of

8
subject in the different arts ^Illtard) crgiif)lt, 9)torcellu3
:

Ij/ibe $iuci Xempei, ben cincn fitr bic Xitgenb unb bcu anbcrn

fitr bic Ortyrc, bergcftalt an cinanber baucu laffcn, baj$ man

burrfj ben empcl ber Xugcnb cjefjcn mngte, nut in ben

Xciupel bcr (Sljrc jn lommcn. X ie 53cbeutimg ift offcnbar,
ailcin bic Unteniel)nunu] fdbft fdjcint all^n fc^r Don bem
(^eiftc bcr SBaufunft cntfcrnt p fcin. !Dte ^Sefdjrctbung
cincd fotdjen ^cbdnbed madjt ben 2 inn bcr SUIcgoric tuett

anfd)au(id)cr, alv5 ba^ (^cbdnbc felbft; ctn untritgiidjc^ ^lenn^

Scidjcn, bag bcr (Sinfa(( mcljr jur Tldjtfuuft al<5

jur ^Baufunft
get)drt.
In short, Mendelssohn represents the supreme moment of
a stage of transition. He came nearer than his predecessors
even Diderot to a systematic separation of the arts on
the basis of their symbols of expression. His experiment
challenged the pursuit of his method to its last analysis by a
more enterprising anil judicially disinterested logician. Such
a man was his friend Lessing, and the Laokoon for which
4
Mendelssohn graciously gave way realized an expectation

1
P. 295. 2 8
Ibid. Cf. p. 298.

original form (Betraehtungen iiber die Quellen und die

4 In its

Verbindungen^ 1757) this essay concluded with the paragraph: lln;

s
fere JJtatcric ift nod) unacmcin frudjtbnr; twr broken hier abcr ob,
unb finb ,}ufrteben, tucnn unfcrc $ttad^tun0en bicitcn fbnncu, toils ba
!2&cfcn unb bic Ubcrcinftimmung bcv fd)oncn iiUitftc unb ilUjjcnjrfjajtcn
naijer ju crlciutcrn, teilS bie unbefonncncn Urtetle in iljrer ^lo^e bars
311110(1011, iDoinit fuv^fiiijttfle ^oute bio fdjonon .(liinfto foiuofyl al5 i()rc

SBerbinbun^en au^ufed)ten pflo^on, boron Sdjonhciton fie fo toeing

bourloilon fonnon, oly fie biefelben ju cmpftnbcn gcfdjirft finb. The
 INTRODUCTION. CXX1X

which he more than anybody else had made possible for the
author. Moreover, he suggested the very examples with
which Lessing begins his discussion, and at the same time
first called Lessing s attention to the epoch-making work in
which these examples were used in support of an opinion
with which Lessing could take issue. In December, 1756,
Mendelssohn wrote to Lessing 3d) QCl)C mit 3l)iien in bte
:

(d)iile ber altcn Didjter; alleiu u>enn tuir fie uertaffen, fo

fommcn @tc mit mir in bic (^djitfe bcr altcn SBUbljaner. Qd)
fyabe il)rc $imftfti ufe nidjt gcfcfycn, abcr SSMncfclmann (in
feincr Dortreffttdjen Slbljanbhmg Don ber 9tod)af)munQ ber
Sfikrfe ber ried)en), bem id) ctnen feinen efdjmacf gn-
trane, fagt, ib,re ^3ilbl)aucr Ijdttcn ib,re otter unb c(ben
mentals toon ciner au^gelaffenen ^eibenfc^aft bal)tnrcien
V
faffen. 9)?an fiinbe bet i()nen attc^ett bic 3iatur in

(u)ic cr e^ ucnnt) nnb bic Vetbcnfd)aftcn ton eincr g

emitt3mt)c bc^lcitet, baburd) bte fdjinergtidje (S-mpftnbuncj

be^ sD^it(ctb^ glctdjfam oon eincm Sirniffc uon ^3ett)unbenmg
uub (iljrfurdjt itbcr.jogcn luirb. Cfr f iiftrt ben Vaofoon 3. ^3. an,
ben SMrgU poctifd) cntiuorfcn unb ein gricd)ifdjcr ^i mftler in
D?armor cjcljaucn Ijat. Qtncic britcft ben vSdjmcrj uortrefflid)
s

au^, btcfcr l)ini]ccjcn (a ftf i()itbcu Sdjmcrj geroiffcrmagen be-

ftcgen nnb iibertrifft ben idjtcr urn befto mc^r, je me()r ba^

revised form (Uber die Hauptgrnndsatze, published in Philosophised

Schriften, 1761)ended with the paragraph: 3Reine ^iatcric ift norf)

ungemein frudjtbnr; attcin id) bin in bic chcimniffe bcr JfUnfte nid)t
etn^emeiht mid) ohnc Qfcfafyr ticfcr in iljr ^cilifltuin ju tuaflcn.
flcnufl,

%ti) bred)e alfo ab unb eriuartc, mit mcincn Kefern ^itfllctd), ben lln
=

tcrvic^t ciucS iBcltn)cifcn bcr mit ben iiUnftcn uertraut nenitfl ift ihrc
r r

(3cf)cimmjje mit pt)ilofophifd)cn ilurtcn ,^u bctrad)tcn unb ber ilBelt, tuie

er langft t)crfprod)en, bcfannt jju madjcn. The change in this para

graph would seem to indicate that between 1757 and 1761 Lessing
had given Mendelssohn to understand that he contemplated a work
on the limits of the different arts.
CXXX INTRODUCTION.

biofce mttfeibige efit()( cincm nut 33cU)unbcnmg unb &)\ --

furd)t untermcngtcn
s
JJtttletben nad)}it[ct;cn ift. The refer
ence is to Gedanken iiber die Nachahmung der griechischen
Werke in der Malcrci und Bildhauerkunst (1755), tne ^ rst
publication of Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1717-1768).

Winckelmann is
rightly held to be the father of the science
of classical archeology, the earliest competent historian of
ancient art, the first modern German who thought, felt, and
saw like a Greek. He had predecessors, as we have seen,
in Italy, France, and England, even Germany. But
in

what they excogitated in their philosophy, or deduced

from their reading, or dimly perceived with their untrained
and wondering eyes, or if they were artists what they
observed, valued, and computed, Winckelmann experienced
with the zest of one whose whole soul responds to artistic

expressions in which it divines a universe of truth concen

trated in the fictions of an all-encompassing personality.

He was no mere sentimental enthusiast. During the first

forty years of his life, he amassed, in spite of difficulties and
discouragements, a knowledge of history and literature re
markable even in the land of indefatigable accumulative
industry he was distinguished for his acquaintance with
;

Greek time when the tide was only beginning

literature at a

to turn from the lowest ebb in Greek studies ; more than

this, he read Greek in the spirit of an Athenian, Homer was

his Bible, Plato his guide, philosopher, and friend, the tra

gedians companions of his solitude ; and in the course of this

reading he became aware, more vividly than any man had
become before him, of what life meant to the Greeks, and
of how, in the works that they have transmitted to us, this
lifepulsates serene and immortal. It was not Winckelmann

who discovered the beautiful naturalness of Greek life, or

 INTRODUCTION. CXXX1

the unsurpassable excellence of ideal forms in Greek art ;

but it was he who first gave a vital

meaning to these dis
coveries, who taught the moderns that to be like the Greeks
was to be wholesome and perfect, and that to appreciate
their achievements was to dignify all the powers of our

common humanity. Winckelmann s proclamation of the

Greek ideal was a gospel of beauty which he preached as
one who had a divine commission, and which so far pre
vailed during the second half of the eighteenth century that
classicism and Winckelmann s doctrine were held to be one
and the same thing.
As we have Winckelmann reached his goal by no
said,

royal road. He
was gifted with extraordinary powers of in
tuition and divination but he worked his way through
;

nearly all the literature that we have mentioned and much

thatwe have not mentioned and was nearly forty years of
age before he saw any Greek sculptures, or realized in the
remotest degree that his calling was to be an interpreter of
Greek plastic art. An admirer of Leibniz, he had little taste

for the rationalism of Wolf. At Halle he heard the lectures

of Baumgarten on logic and metaphysics, but not on esthetics.

Montaigne was his master in the art of living, Montesquieu

his guide in the interpretation of history, Shaftesbury his
favorite esthetic and moral philosopher. But he found no
profit in abstract speculation ;
from esthetic systems he ex
pected no results but words ;
he shunned them to get face
to face with the objects themselves. To him a statue was
not the illustration of a theory, but a self revealing fact.
In the fall of 1754, after having served six years as libra
rian of Count Biinau in Nothnitz, near Dresden, and having
become well known to some of the most influential members
of the Saxon court, Winckelmann settled in Dresden to await

developments that he expected would establish him as a

CXXX11 INTRODUCTION.

librarian or secretary to a learned cardinal in Rome. This

was the decisive year of not only because it marked
his life,

the end of his career in Germany, but because it signalized

his passage from the world of letters into the world of art.

We have already alluded to the importance of Dresden as

a center of artistic interests in those days. Winckelmann
haunted the gallery, he sought out the collection of ancient
sculptures, he took lessons in drawing, he associated with
artists and amateurs of
art in fact, for nine months he spent
;

his days and nights exploring the new field that had now
in

opened up before his eyes. With the Barock and Rokoko

styles then fashionable in Dresden we should not expect him
to sympathize ;
nor did his associates sympathize with them ;

for there had gathered splendid and somewhat vain

in this

glorious capital a small group of men who held to other than

the fashionable views, and were making propaganda for less

gaudy and ostentatious styles of painting, sculpture, and build

ing. leader of this group was Adam Friedrich Oeser
The
(1717-1799), later Director of the Leipzig Academy of
l
Arts ;
the most cultivated was Christian Ludxvig von Hage-
dorn (1713-1780), later Director General of all the Saxon
2
Academies of Art ;
and finally, there was the greatest living
connoisseur of ancient gems, Philipp Daniel Lippert (1702-

1785). Oeser was Winckelmann s teacher of drawing, his

counselor in the study of pictures, his mentor in the theory
of the formative arts. And when, in 1755, Winckelmann
Goethe Dichtung und IVahrheit, VIII.
1
Cf. s

Ilagedorn was
- the author of Betrachtungen
Ibid. iiber die

Malcrci (1762), a book which Lessing carefully studied and which

gives the best conspectus of intelligent German opinion about the
arts in themiddle of the century. Hageclorn not only had a wide
acquaintance with painting but also was familiar with nearly all the
literature on the subject. His book is full of citations from clu Fres-

noy, de Piles, du Bos, Batteux; he approves the proposals of Cay his,

 INTRODUCTION. CXXX111

with the impetuosity of a neophyte undertook to shatter

the idols of Rokoko worship, his Gedanken tiber die Nach-

ahmung der griechischen Wcrke teemed with Oeser s ideas

and were even distorted with Oeser s crotchets And enmities.
Winckelmann s Gedanken have been called a Barock docu
ment written to put an end to the domination of Barock and
Rokoko art. In this first impulsive utterance there is con
tained the essence of his gospel of Greek simplicity and

repose, but also the toll which even the greatest man has to
pay to contemporary error and to human fallibility. The
little work has, however, the convincing self-evidence belong

ing to the words of a real seer and prophet, and without

being in any notable respect new, it had the effect of a reve
lation. Shortly after it was
published, Winckelmann wrote
an ironical criticism in the form of a fictitious open letter to

himself, and then, after his settlement in Rome (November,

1755), he wrote an answer to Mis letter and some notes
to the Gedanken. The Gcdanken, the letter, and the
notes were then printed together in Dresden in 1756.
Lessing knew this volume and lie knew a series of essays
;

that Winckelmann wrote in the following years and pub

lished in Germany. Upon these works all of which

Winckelmann regarded as preliminary to his great under

taking of a history of ancient art we may base whatever
we need to observe of Winckelmann as a predecessor of
1
Lessing.
and wishes for a translation of Spence. Since he quotes Ut pictura
poesis (p. 4), and in general adopts the traditional habit of both defin
ing and treating painting as cine ftlimme 4JocftC, he was not in a way s

to make a useful distinction between the arts. Tic (Scfet;e bcr tcf)t^

furtft, he says, finb bcinafye fo Diet cl)rfcit ,c fiir ben JJialer, unb bcr
s

fd)tlbcrnbc unb bcr ftrcnjje Xcfprcaur Ijabcn fiir ben Mnftlcr,

>ova,}

one fiir ben Xtcfyter, Qcfdjricbcn (p. 34).

1
I
quote the Gedanken in the reprint, DLD 20; the other
CXXX1V INTRODUCTION.

In a private letter to his friend Berendis, Winckelmann

V
elucidated his Gedanken as follows ^Tcr 4.ikrt bicfcr 3d)rift :

ift oorndjmlid) :
(i) T>ie
juerft cmfs Apodjftc gctricbenc Saljr*
v
)rf)ctulicf)f ctt Don ben 93oqngltd)fetteit bcr Jiatnr untcr ben
(^rtcd)cn. (2) Tic 3LMcbcrleflimfl betf Bernini. (3) IMc
;ncrft ins Virfjt flcfcjjtc ^or$nijlid)fcit ber 3(ntit cn nub bctf

ben nod) nicmanb bteljcr (jcfannt l)at. (4) Die

cv<
^d)atK^ uon ^liitit cn [in TteSbcu].
^e^, in ^D?annor yt l)aitcn. The
s
(5) X^er none Krlau-
terungen give a somewhat different analysis JD?ctne :
s

N
uon bcr Jiad)al)uutiui ber griccfytfdjen i^crfc in ber ^
nub ^ilbljnncrfimft betreffen incr A;)auptpnnfte :
(i)
bcr ooUfommcncn s
Jintur bcr (^ricd)cn. (2) ilnm bcm
il)rcr ^crfc. (3) $>on ber Oiadjaljimtng bcrfclbcn. (4) 35ott
bcr 0)ricd)cu tljrcr 5lrt 511 benfcn iu Scrfcn bcr i iunft, fonbcr-
lid) Uon bcr Wlecjovic. To eliminate the points in the first

list which do not appear in the second, it suffices

to say that
the refutation of Bernini was equivalent to a condemnation of
Barock sculpture the Sistine Madonna of Raphael (brought
;

to Dresden in 1753) seemed to Winckelmann to represent

the same sort of idealism as was to be found in Greek
work the collection of Greek statues in Dresden was so
;

little esteemed that the best pieces were packed like herring
into a wooden shed, where they could be seen but could
not be studied.The new way of carving was an impossible
method based upon a misconception. It appears, then, that
Winckelmann wished to achieve the particular object of
calling the attention of the Dresden amateurs to the fact
that they had some specimens of the highest forms of art
within their gates, and the general objects of showing that
the highest form of art was Greek, why the Greeks were

works from Winckclmanns sdmtlichc Werke, ed. Jos. Eiselein,

Donaueschingen, 1825, vol. I.
 INTRODUCTION. CXXXV

able to attain this form, what the characteristics of the

form were, and especially how the form was a means for

expressing thought.
There is nothing novel in Winckelmann s exposition of the
favorable conditions of Greek life as to climate, athletic

habits, freedom from restrictive clothing or from disfiguring

diseases the Erlauterungcn he himself refers to ancient

: in

authorities for all these statements ; and the same observa

tions had been made by Lebrun 1

(though Winckelmann had

no means of knowing this fact), furthermore, that Greek
works represented an ideal humanity was known and pro
claimed in the Renaissance ;
and that Greek forms were
expressions of thought, poetic or allegorical, was a concep
tion equally familiar since the Renaissance. Next to his
epigrammatic formulation of these ideas, Winckelmann s
greatest innovation was the conclusion which he drew from
premises postulated in common by his predecessors and
himself. For, he said, good taste not only had its origin]
in Greece, but it never spread outside of Greece without

degenerating in proportion to the distance from its source ;

the formative arts are indeed arts of imitation, but the

Greek artists did not copy nature, they represented an ideal

exceeding the bounds of any objects to be found in nature:

this ideal is beauty, the sole end of artistic endeavor and ;

this beauty is more easily discoverable in Greek work than

in nature herself wherefore modern artists ought rather to

study and imitate the Greeks than to study nature after :

they have cultivated their instincts by studying the Greeks,

they can imitate nature as the Greeks did. The moderns have"
striven, like Bernini, for the effects of overwhelming force, or
have tickled their senses with scrolls and filigree {Rokokd} :

ba3 dfflcmcine uoqiuiltrfjc ^enn^cicfycn bcr gricdjifcfyen

1
Cf. su/>ra, p. lix.
CXXXV1 INTRODUCTION.

ftitcfe tft . . . cine ebfc Crtnfatt unb cine ftitte rofce,

in ber (Stelhmg ate im 3lu$brucf l ;
bic cMe Crmfatt unb ftille
ri>j$e
ber griedjtfdjen tatucu ift jngleid) ba$ roaljre $enn=
$cid)en ber gricdjifrfjcn ^djrifteu an$ ben beften ,3eitcn, ber
<d)riftcn antf ocratcd d)ulc, unb bicfc iSigcnfdjaften finb
e$, tucldje bic uorjiiglidjc (9roj$e dues ^apljad martjcn, 511
S 2
luelf^cr cr burd) 3tad)al)ntung ber xHltcn gclangt ift.
It is often said that esthetics is the science of the beautiful,
and the predicate beautiful is the commonest that we apply
to a work of art that satisfies our esthetic sense. A little

reflection suffices,however, to show not only that this term

is extremely hard to define, but also that it includes a
great
variety of qualities. If one of Murillo s pictures ot street
urchins may be called beautiful, it is so in a different sense
from that in which we call one of his madonnas beautiful ;
a
landscape by Claude Lorrain or Corot presents to us a dif
ferent kind of beauty from that of the Hermes of Praxiteles ;
and a Dutch tavern may be the scene of a carouse or a
brawl certainly not beautiful in itself but made into a beauti
fulpicture by Teniers or Terborch. It has been a common
place since Aristotle that the imitation by art even of a
hideous object of nature may be beautiful ; and there have
always been artists who found (to use Lessing s language,
j6, 12) in truth and expression a worthier aim than the
representation of fictitious and unreal ideals. From the time
of the Renaissance, the statues of the Greeks have been
generally held to be models of beauty, the canonical author
ity of whose ideal few were inclined to dispute and if ;

sculptors and painters nevertheless departed from the Greek

ways, they did so in order to make their works more expres
sive. For it is obvious that an ideal is an abstraction, and
that a figure which, let us say, represents a typical man
*
Gedanken>
DLD 2O, p. 24.
2
Ibid., p. 26.
 INTRODUCTION. CXXXV11

may have no more esthetic value than an anatomical

diagram.
Winckelmann was emphatic in declaring beauty to be the
principal object of art ;
*
he said, 2 )cr l)i)d)ftc ^oriUM f bcr
s
$imft bcnt cnbe JJcitfd)cn ift bcr Dtenfd), ober nur bcffcu
fitr

dlt^erc Sladjc; he affirmed (p. 210) that he had seen more

beautiful persons than the best of Raphael, but that Greek
statues were more beautiful than they : itfer bie beften SBerfc

be3 lUItcrtitmS nidjt Ijat fcnucn lerneu, glaubc md)t, 311 toiffcii,
UHlS U)al)i1)afticj fdjcin ift (p. 211). He was of the opinion
that butf odjbnc in bcr ftunft mcljr auf feincn 3iimcu nub auf
etncm gclautcrtcn (tycfcfymacf ats auf ctneiu tiefcn 9tad)bcnfcn
bcruljt (p. 121 ) he philosophized modestly on the basis of
;

Baumgarten s system, but most of all, he trusted his taste

and his senses and since he accepted the Greek taste, and
;

had before his eyes hardly any other Greek works than
plastic representations of human beings, his observations

concerning art were based almost exclusively upon statuary

art,and hold only for this art. In other words, there was
an unmistakable one-sidedness to Winckelmann s doctrine,
which became ominous when this doctrine was taken, as it

was by Mendelssohn, Lessing, Herder, and Goethe, to be of

universal applicability.

Beauty, in Winckelmann s definition, was first of all beauty

of outline, of contour. He had little appreciation of the
pictorial beauties of light, shade, and color. But it would
not be correct to assume that he appreciated only beauty of
form. Over against the Barock exhibitions of passion he
sets the repose of the Greek statues but this repose is the
;

very opposite of expressionlessness it is the expression of

greatness of soul, a kind of expression that far excels the

representation of beautiful nature (cf. Laok., 26 f.).
1 2
Werke, p. 203. /&</.,
p. 207.
CXXXV111 INTRODUCTION.

finnlidjc Crmpfmbungen . . .
gcljcn nnr bi8 an bie Apaut, uiib

iwrfen luenig in ben 33crftanb.

1
The understanding de
mands, however, that there shall be in the form represented
to it a content worth representing and we shall do no ;

violence to Winckelmann s way of thinking or to his termi

nology, if we call this content poetic. At this point, there

fore, we see where Lessing diverged from Winckelmann s

doctrine, and why Winckelmann, though a predecessor, was

no guide to Lessing in the making of distinctions between
painting and poetry. Winckelmann did not distinguish
between them. On the contrary, his whole tendency was
in the other direction : the beauty which he had seen_jn
Greek poetry he found also in Greek statues they were two
different modes of expression for the same thing. Laocoon
suffers, but he suffers like the Philoctetes of Sophocles. 2
9htbcnS l)at narf) ber imerfdjopfltdjen Jynuljtbarfcit fcincs
iwc Bonier gcbid)tet; cr ift void) bitf jttr SBcrfdjiucn*
etfteS

bnng; cr Ijat ba SBunbcrbarc line jcncr gcfudjt, foiuoljt nbcr-

Ijaupt, U)ie ein bidjtcdfdjcr uiib allgemciucr 3J?nlcr, aid and)
in^bcfonbcre, uw3
^oinpofttion unb Vidjt unb edjatten be*
8
trifft. (S^ fdjcint ntdjt unberfprcdjenb, bajj bic yjialcrci cben

fo incite (^rcnjcii nt<s bic Ttditfniift [jabcn tonne, unb baft c3

fotg(td) bent Stater mogtid) fci, bent T^idjtev >n fofgcn, foiuic
e bic SDJufif tmftanbc ift 311 tun. 9htn ift bie (^cfdjidjtc
bcr I)bd)fte ^onintrf, ben ctn Walcr uniljlcn faun; bic blof?c

97ad)al)miuig unrb fie ntdjt ^n beni v

^rabc crtycbcn, ben cine

Xragbbic obcr cin ^Ibengebto^t, ba^ in bcr )id)tfunft, ,s^>bd)ftc

"

l)Qt. w omcr Ijat au s

J)?cnfd)cn (hotter gcntad)t fagt (itccro; f

ba l)cigt, cr l)at bie 2Bal)d)cit ntd)t aKcin Ijbljcr gctriebcn,

fonbcrn er ^at, urn er^aben ju bid) ten, (icber ba Unmogltdjc,

1 3
L. f., p. 156. Werke, p. 145.
2 Cf Laok.,
.
^7, 10 ; 28, 4.
 INTRODUCTION. CXXX1X

nub 9(rtftotde3 fct?t Ijicrin ba3 Sefen bcr ^trf)tfimft, unb bc=
rtdjtct uti3, bag btc (Vcmdlbc bctf $cnici$ bicfe iSicjenfdjaft cjc*

Ijabt fyabcu.
1
We appear to be listening once more to de Piles,
or to Bodmer and Breitinger, who, as a matter of fact, exerted
a strong influence upon VVinckelmann. Historical painting

represents a plot, and this is called allegory (p. 155) ;

truth is more impressive when disguised in a fable, and ob

scurity incites the mind to penetrating curiosity (p. 158).

jDiFTDIafcrei crftrccft fid) and) nuf IMucjc, bic nid)t ftnnlii!)

finb; btcfc ftnb iljr I)ix1)ftetf $iel, unb bic (Sh icdjcit Ijabcn fid)

beinul)t, basfelbc }u crrctdjcu, tvic btc 3djrifteu bcr bitten be*

2
gcucjcn. !iDer grogc ^itbcnS ift bcr iior,iifllid)ftc untcr (jrofjcn
, bcr fid) auf ben unbctvcteneu ^cg bicfcr JJi alerct in

i^crfen altf cin crt)abcner Ttdjlcr fjciuaiit !Tte Vu^cui*

burflifdjc (Valerie, n(i5 fcin i]rciJ5tc^ ilu rf, ift bnrd) btc Jpanb bcr
8
^ttpfcrftcd)cr bcr tjan^eu il elt bcfannt luorben.
;
gcfdjicftcftcn
%
tc iliinftler Ijat cin 3^crf uonnotcn, UK (d)c\J au>J bcr
iDi l)tl)o(cH)tc, auS ben beftcn Tid)tevn alter unb ncitcrcr

au^ bcr gcfjeimcn 2Bcttiuei<sl)cit otclcr Golfer, au^ ben Tcnf^

miKcrn be^ xHltcrtumtf auf 3tctucn, SDJiin.^cn unb (Mcriitcn
btcjcnii]cn finntidjen J^ic^urcn unb AlMlbcr cntljalt, mobitrd)

atlgcuictuc ^ccjnffc bidjtcrifd) cjcbilbct luorben.

4
And so
forth. In the year in which Laokoon appeared, 1 766,
VVinckelmann published such a compendium as he had
described, giving it the title Vcrsttch cincr Allegoric, be-
sonders filr die Kunst. The length to which he went in
this work towards providing pictorial symbols for abstract

ideas is incredible. How far his recommendations might be

adopted a question that we do not need to debate here.
is

It is clear that in all such matters Winckelmann could have

served Lessing only by indirection ;
that is, by provoking
dispute.
1 3
Werke, p. 156. Ibid., p. 41.
2 4 Ibid.
Gedanken, p. 40.
Cxi INTRODUCTION.

VIII.

LESSING S LAOKOON.

Lessing s Laokoon was conceived and partly written in

Breslau. The years of his secretaryship to General Tauent-

zien were among the most active, and were altogether the
most serene and hopeful of his restless life. His correspond
ence with Berlin was somewhat irregular ; but we find him
debating philosophical problems with Mendelssohn, ordering
books through Nicolai, and promising articles for Nicolai s

publications ; we hear also that it was during his intention,

the years 1762 and 1763, to print a miscellaneous collection

of essays, investigations, and criticisms under the picturesque
title Herman. The preface to what was to have been the
first volume of this work throws an important light upon the
l
method adopted in Laokoon. Lessing explains :

)crmcia Ijicjjcn bet bcu rtcrfjeit allctf, tuaS nwn jufalligcr*

tocifc auf bcm 3cge fanb. ^cnn cnnc$ war itynen unter
anbcrn aud) bcr (Stott bcr 93?egc nnb bc3 ,3ufaHS.
$)ian bcnfc fid) cincn 2ftcnfd)cn Don unbcgrenstcr 9?eu-
gicrbe, ofyue >ang 311 cincr bcftinimtcn 2Biffcnfd)aft. Un=
fa I)U3, fcincm (^etftc cine fcftc 9ttd)timg 311 gcbcn, U)trb cr,

jcne ftit fdtttgen, bitrd) atlc Jclbcr ber clet)rfani!ctt Ijcrum*

fdjincifcn, ailed anftaimcn, aHc crfennen molten, unb aUcs

iibcrbriiffig iwerbcn. Q]t cr nidjt ganj oljnc ente, fo wtrb

cr uicl bcmcrfcn, abcr wcnig crgriinbcn; auf mand)cr(ci
3pnrcn gerateu, abcr fctnc ucrfotgcn ; mcljr fcltfaine a(^

niiyidjc (Jntbcctungcn madjen; 5(n^)td)tcn jcigcn, abcr in

($cgcnbcn, bie oft bed 3(nb(tcf5 fanm crt ftnb.

Hub btcfc fctnc 53cmcrfungcn, feine @purcn, feme Gnt*
bccfungen, fcine 5(n^fid)tcn, fcinc rillcn iDcnn cr fie ber
l L-M XIV, p. 290.
 INTRODUCTION. Cxli

g(eid)tt)ot)( Dorfcgctt ivoftte, unc fb nnte er fie beffer

nenncn, ate ermaa? Cr finb ftetdjtihner, Me ifjn etn
gUirflicfjer 3 u fa ^ au f *> em SBcge, ofter auf bem ^d)icid)*
ttecje, ate auf bcr eerftrajje finben toffen. SDenu auf ben
$eerftra$en fiub bcr Stnbcr auf bicfen 311 Diet, unb tuas man
anbre nor un$ fdjon gcfunben,
finbet, Ijatten gcmciiiitjlirf) ^cljn
uub fd)on uncbcr au^ ben ^a nbeu gciuorfcn.
@o uic( Don bcr 3lbfidjt bicfen ^crfd, Don fcincin SBcrfaffcr
unb bcm rcitfcdjaftcu Xitel, bcr etncn ucrlicbten 9{oinan t>cr

fprtdjt unb ntit ben Sanbcrfd)aftcu ciucd geleljrten

Into Laokoo?i Lessing presumably put a large part of the

material intended for the Hermiia; and he gave to his care
fully composed treatise the air of the chance observations of
an open-minded and open-eyed stroller through the fields of
1
literature. This fiction was deliberately chosen for reasons
set forth in the preface to Laokoon, and it accorded with
methods already employed by the author in his essays on
the fable ;
but the explanations of the preface must be
understood as applying to the finished product they do
not describe the route by which Lessing actually arrived at
the conclusions which form the philosophical basis of his
2
treatise. As was Lessing, before he left Bres-
said above,

lau, not only made

excerpts and noted ideas, but also put
into argumentative form his views on the difference between

painting and poetry. The number of these preliminary

manuscripts is considerable, and they can be only con-
jecturally dated no difference of opinion con
;
but there is

cerning the dates and the order of the most important, and
8
the sequence in which they are all printed by Muncker

probably represents the order in which they were written.

1
Cf. ^-, 23 ; 26, 6, 8 ; 124, 16.
8 L-M XIV, pp. 333-440-
2 P. xix.
Cxlii INTRODUCTION.

From the final paragraph of the essay Von (fen Haupt-

1
grundsdtztn, it would almost seem that Mendelssohn had
heard from Lessing before he left Berlin that he had in mind
to write a work on the and poetry and it
limits of painting ;

is certain that in the summer of 1761 Mendelssohn- re

minded Lessing of a work in which the limits of descriptive
poetry are very sharply drawn, namely, Burke, On the Sublime
aiiil Beautiful. At any rate, we find Lessing, in the first draft

that has come down to us, complaining, as he does in the

preface to Laokoon, of the evil effects of a failure to observe

just limits the SchUderungssucht and Allegoristerci of his

contemporaries declaring, as Mendelssohn had done, that

the range of the arts is conditioned by their symbols of

expression, concluding, essentially as in chapter XVI of

Laokoon, that the principal business of painting is to depict

bodies, and of poetry, to represent action, and illustrating

his beliefs by reference to the practice of Homer (cf. 702,
15 fT.).
At the end of the draft there are criticisms of a
passage in Caylus. The next document consists of excerpts
from Spence, accompanied by critical remarks. The third
isthe systematic brief or concept which we have printed as

Entwurf no. i in our text (pp. 281 fl). This is a careful

elaboration of the first-mentioneo! draft. Lessing took it
with him to Potsdam and Berlin, where he was in July and

August, 1763, discussed it with Mendelssohn and Nicolai,

and received it back from them with glosses which we have
also reprinted. Then there follow three short documents,
one a correction of portions of our no. i
;
the other two

having to do with Homer. After these comes our no. 2,

written apparently of 1763-1764, and immedi
in the winter

ately followed by our no. 3, probably written in the summer

of 1764, or perhaps in the fall of that year, after Lessing s
1
Supra, p. cxxviii.
~
L-M XX, p. 173.
 INTRODUCTION. Cxliii

recovery from a severe illness. This draft comes nearest to

being theimmediate preliminary sketch from which the
Laokoon was composed ; all the paragraphs of the first
Abschnitt, and nos. i, ii, v, vi of the second are crossed out
with oblique lines, as if to signify that their substance had
been made use of. In the spring of 1765 Lessing left
Breslau ;
in May he arrived at Berlin ;
and at Easter, 1
766,
Laokoon was published there.
The preliminary studies for Laokoon show not only that
the theoretical basis for the work was very carefully thought
out and the previous literature on the subject thoroughly
studied, but also that the form in which we have the book
was not chosen until after experiments had been made at

a totally different species of composition. Lessing s first

intention was to write an exposition deduced from first

principles. He purpose until the winter of

held to this

1763-1764, when suddenly (see our no. 2) we find him lay

ing out a different course, and starting, as Diderot had hoped
somebody would do, from the comparison of concrete ex

amples of the treatment of one and the same subject in two

different arts. His recent studies in Homer had recalled
Philoctetes (cf. //.,718, 725) to his mind; he remem
II,
bered his disagreement with Winckelmann s observations
about the stoicism of this suffering hero (cf. Laok., 27, n) ;

he saw how he could Kettung of Virgil (cf. 27, 6, 32)

effect a

on the ground of the difference between poetry and sculpture;

he planned to illustrate this difference by discussing the pos
the sculptors of Laocoon may have known Virgil s
sibility that

poem, and to establish the greater range of poetry, in that

it
may include the ugly, the ridiculous, and the disgusting,
whereas sculpture is restricted to the beautiful. The first

two Abschnitte of this draft were when written at a time

Lessing was expecting the appearance of Winckelmann s

Cxliv INTRODUCTION.

Geschichte dcr Kunst des Altertmns, the first part of which,

dated 1764, was on the market in December, 1763. Lessing
probably obtained a copy early in 1764; and he wrote
Abschnitte 3-6 after this copy was in his hands. He found
that in the Geschichte Winckelmann had made, about the
statue of Laocoon, some points which he had not made in
the Gedanken. In the Gedanken Winckelmann had em

phasized the greatness of soul manifested by the calm of the

hero in the midst of his woe, and had contrasted this calm,
as a Greek quality, with the Roman barbarism of Virgil.
In the Geschichte, on the contrary, Lessing found Winckel
mann saying what he himself believed, that the sculptor was
bound by rules of beauty which did not restrain the poet.
When, therefore, Lessing persisted, as appears from our
no. 3, in his resolution to start from the concrete example
of Laocoon (cf. 26, 6), he could not make use of the con
venient inadequacy of the Gedanken without maintaining the
fiction that the Geschichte did not reach him until the first

part of his work was already written. He could not deny

himself the advantage of this opportunity ; and if he were to
follow the plan so natural to him, and of such proved success
in the essays on the fable, he could not wish for better
adversaries than three such distinguished antiquarians as

Winckelmann, Spence, and Caylus. Refutation of their

theories was the strongest possible recommendation of his
own. It is clear, however, that Lessing s polemics were
aimed and not at persons, that the real
at false principles

objects of his attack were, as he says, Schilderungssucht and

1
Allegoristerei.

In the spring of 1765 Lessing and Winckelmann were both can

1

didates for the position of librarian of the Royal Library at Berlin,

and it has been thought that Lessing seized the opportunity of a
polemic \\ith Winckelmann so as to let his scholarship be measured
 INTRODUCTION. Cxlv

Lessing s Laokoon as we have it is a fragment. It was pub

Erster Theil of a compendious work calculated to
lished as
embrace three parts, and to discuss all the fine arts. A glance
even at the three Entwiirfe that we have reprinted shows a

number of ideas that did not find a place in the text of the
first part, and reminds us that the first part does not contain

all that the author had to say on several important matters.

"

Thus, the idea of (No. 3, Abschnitt 2,

collective actions
"

xv) was destined to yield significant modifications of the

rigid lines of demarcation in chapter XVI of Laokoon; the

propositions, T)ie $cid)cn ber ^atcrct finb tud)t ollc natitr*

ltd) (No. 3,
Abschnitt 3, i), and T)te 3ctd)en bcr ^ocfic ntdjt

(cbtfllid) U)t 11 till I id) (#/>/., iii) look in the same direction, and
are to be rememberedconnection with chapter XVII in

of Laokoon. Similarly, dancing ( vi) and music ( vii)

were reserved in this third Abschnitt for fuller treatment
than they could receive in the first part of Laokoon. Les-

sing made a new plan for the second part of Laokoon after
*
the first part was in its present form ;
as late as 1770
2
he was still
intending push to completion.to his work
There were various reasons why he had not done this before.
8
The public, he thought, had not fully digested the first part ;

he became involved in controversies on antiquarian subjects 4 ;

with Winckelmann s in Winckelmann s own field. This may be true

of chapters XXVI-XXIX
of Laokoon (which we have omitted), but I
do not think the idea of a polemic against Winckelmann in any degree
determined the form which Leasing gave to his treatise. In this
matter I dissent altogether from the views expressed by Adolf Frey

in his book, Die Kunstform des Lessingschen Laokoon, Stuttgart and

Berlin, 1905. Cf. the review by Hugo Spitzer in the Deutsche Litera-

turzeitung, 9. Dec., 1905, col. 3054 ff.

1 L-M XIV, pp. 411 ff.

2 L-M XVII, p. 312.
8 L-M XVII, p. 287.
* Adolf Klotz
Especially with Christian ; Antiquarische Briefe,
1768.
Cxlvi INTRODUCTION.

he turned his attention once more to his favorite field, the

drama l and his duties as librarian at Wolfenbiittel 2 brought

;

with them new obligations and new interests. But it is

probable that he never formally gave up his intention to
finish the work that he had left one-third done ; indeed, he
3
thought of revising the part already published.
Lessing s mind about his work and about one of the most
intelligent of his critics may be seen in the following passage
of a letter written to Nicolai May 26, lyGQ: 4
s
JJiit bcr 9ieccnfton mcmeS Vaotoon in bem le^ten Stitcfe
31)rcr ^ibliotljcf faun id) fdjr luob,! .$ufricbcn fein. Qdj
bcnfc, bajs id) ben Xiamen bc$ Jicccnfcutcn fd)on luctjs. 9lbcr
uw8 i3d)cn mid) 9tomcn an? Tic ^crfon lucrbc id) bod) nid)t
fcnnen lerncu. Scim cr bic gortfc^nua, mcincs ^3ud)c^ luirb
fldcfcu I)abeu f foil cr luoljl ftubeu, baj^ mid) fcinc (iiitumrfc
nid)t trcffcn. 3d) viiiunc iljm cin, ball ^erfd)tebenc^ bavin
nid)t bcftimnit cjcnun ift; abcv un c fann c^, ba id) nnr fanm
s
ben cincn llntcr|d)icb $iuifd)cn bcr ^oc[ie unb JJiatcrct ju
bctradjten nngefangen Ijnbc, iucld)cr autf bcm C^cbraud)c it)rer

3^id)cn eutfpringt, infofcrn bic cincn in bcr fyit, unb bie

anbcru int 9?aume cyifticrcu? Al^cibc tonncn cbcnfoiuol)! natiir-
lid) alc<
un(ltitrlid) fctn; folcjlid) inuj? c^5 notiucubicj cine bop-

pcttc
s
j)?alcrci unb cine boppcltc ^ocfic c^cbcn: lucntcjftcnd Don
S
bciben cine Ijbljerc unb cine nicbriflc (^attuniv Tic 3)?alcrei

braud)t entinebcr focytftierenbc 3 c ^) cn HKlri)e natitrltd) finb,

obcr iucld)c nn l(titrlid) fiub; unb cbcu bicfc ^crfd)icbenl)cit

finbct fid) and) bet ben fonfchitiucn 3cid)cn bcr ^ocfic. Tenn
1
Minna von Barnhclm, published at Easter, 1767 ; Lessing as
critical adviser at the theater in Hamburg, spring of1767 I/am- ;

burgische Dramaturgic, which has been appropriately called the second

part of Laokoon> 1767-1768.
2 From May, 1770.
8 Schluss des 38. antiquarischen Briefes.
*
L-MXVII, pp. 289 ff.
 INTRODUCTION. Cxlvii

cd ift ebenfotDcnig luafyr, bag bic 9)ia(crct fid) nur natitrfidjer

3eid)en bebiene, aid ed toaljr ift, bag bic %>oefie

nur nnflfiir*

lid)e 3 cn braudje.
e 2lbcr bad ift genng, bag jc mcljr
<d) fid)

bie sJJalerci Don ben natitrlidjcn 3cidjen cntfcrnt, ober bie

uatitrlidjen mit imHfiirlidjcn Dcrmifdjr, bcfto mcljr cntfcrnt

fie fid) uon Hjrcr SBoHfommenljctt: HH C Ijinnccjcn bie ^ocfie
fid) nm fo mcljr Ujrcr 25oUfommcnl)eit na ljcrt, jc iuc()r fie

iljre ii)t((titr(td)cn 3 *i^) cn

l ^ cn natitrlidjcn na ljcr brincjt. Soltj-
lid) ift bie Ijoljcrc iDMlcrci btc, iuctd)c nid)t^ aid natitvlidje

3cid)cn iut OJaumc braud)t, unb bic l)ol)crc ^ocfic bie, ujcldjc

utd)td aid uatiirlid)e 3 e ^) cn m ^ cr 3C^ braudjt. golcjltd)

faun and) tucber bic ljiftort|d)c nod) bie allcgorifd)c
s
D?alerci

3ur l)i)l)cnt Dialcrei cjcljiiren, aid tncld)e uur biird) bic ba.^u

fomincnbcn tnil(fiirlid)en 3 c id)cn ucrftiiuMid) ivcrben fdnncn.

3d) ncnue aber luillfuvlidje ^ctdjcu in bcr IDtalerci uid)t alleiu
ailed, luad juiu iloftitmc fldjort, fonbcrn and) cineu grogcit
bed fdrpcrlid)en ^ludbntcfd fclbft. mv finb bicfc

ctgcntltd) uid)t in bcr 9)i\i(crci tuillfitrlid), iljre 3 c ^) cn

finb in bcr 9)alcrci and) natitrlid)c 3id)cu; abcr ed finb bod)
natiirlid)e 3 c i^) en ^on luitlfiirUdjcn
f l^iugcu, mcldje
unmdglid) cbcn bad allgciuctue ^erftanbuid, cbcu bie gc-

fd)tuinbe nub fd)ucllc 5Mrhmg Ijabeit fdnncn, aid uatitrlid)c

3etd)eu Don natitrlidjcn Tingcn. 3Bcnn aber bet btefcn
(2d)dnl)cit bad Ijddjfte ^efctj ift, nub nieiu $Kcccnfcnt fclbft ^n-

gibt, bag bcr Dialer aldbaun and) in bcr at am niciftcn

dialer fci, fo finb urn* ja cinig, unb, mic gcfagt, fcin Crinnwrf

trifft mid) ntdjt. ^cun ailed mad id) nod) Don ber 9JWerei
gcfagt Ijabe, bctrifft nur bic ^Jtalerci nad) iljrcr l)dd)ftcn unb
eigcntninlid)ftcn ^irfung. 3d) fyabc uic geicngnct, bag fie

and), auger biefer, nod) 2^irfnngen gcnug Ijabcn fdnne; id) ^abe
1
nnr (eugnen mollcn, bag iljr aldbann bcr 9camc OJiaterci
jnfonimc. 3d) I)abe nie an ben ilMrfungcn ber l)ifto-
1
Read befyaupten.
Cxlviii INTRODUCTION.

rifdjen unb allcgorifdjen 3ftci(crct ge^lucifelt, nod) ttteniger fyabe

id) btefe attwtgen aits bcr &>e(t uerbatmen wollcn; id) fyabe
nur gcfagt, bajj in bicfcn ber 9)tolcr roentger
s
DMer ift, al3 in

^tittfen, roo bic d)b nl)cit fcinc einjige 5lbfid)t ift. Unb gibt
mtr ba$ ber Weccnfcnt nid)t 311?
9hm nod) cin i&ort Don bcr ^ocftc, batnit ic nid)t mi^ucr-
ftcljcn, tuav<
id) cbcu gcfagt Ijabc. T)ic ^ocfic mu fdjlcdjtcr*

binges iljrc uiilltitrltd)cn 3 c ^) cn S u natitrtid)cn jn crljcbcn

fiidjcu; unb nur baburd) untcrfd)cibct fie fid) Don bcr ^rofa,
unb luirb ^ocfic. Die Stfittcl, tnoburd) fie bicfcd tut, finb
ber Xon, bic Sortc, bie otcllung ber ^Bortc, ba^ 3i(benmajs,
Sigurcn unb Xropcn, (etdjntffe u.f.ti). 5(He bicfe !Dmge
bringcn bie n)il(fitrlid)en 3 e ^) cn ^ cn natitrlid)cn ndljcr; aber

fie niad)cn fie nid)t ju natitrlid)cn ,3cid)cn: fo^Iid) finb a((e

Wattungcn, bic fid) nur bicfer ^JQ^ttcl bcbicncn, at^ bie niebern

C^attungcn bcr ^ocftc ju bctrad)tcn; unb bic l)od)ftc (^attung

f

ber ^ocfte ift bie, wetdje bic un l(fitrltd)cn 3 e ^) en fl^fid) jn

natitrlidjen ^jctdicn niad)t. 3M# ift abcr bie brantatifd)c; bcnn
in bicfer Ijorcn bic Si^ortc auf, nii(lfiirlid)c 3 c ^ en S u fc w>

unb mcrbcn tiatiirtidjc 3 c ^) cn nnllfitrltrfjcr Dinge. Dafe bie

bramatifd)c ^ocftc bic t)b d)ftc, ia bic ein^igc ^pocfie ift, ^at
fd)on Slrtftotclctf gcfagt, unb er gibt bcr (Jpopoe nur infofcrn
bie jtoette 8te((e, a(^ fie groj^tentcil^
bramatifc^ ift, obcr fein
faun. 1)cr (^runb, ben er bation angtbt, ift jtnar nid)t ber

mcinigc; aber er Hij^t fid) auf nieinen rcbu^iercn, unb unrb

nur burd) btefc 9icbnction auf ineincn Dor aher fa(fd)en 5(n^

tocnbimg gcftd)ert.
Scnn @ic mit rn. 3D^ofe cine Ijatbe tunbe baritber
ptaubcrn no(Icn, fo mclbcn @ie mir bod), tuad cr baju fagt.
T)ie tvettcre 5ln^fit()rung baoon foil ben britten 2^ei( Tneine#
Saofoon au^mad)en.
The review to which Lessing here refers was that con
tributed by Christian Garve (1742-1798; then professor
 INTRODUCTION. Cxlix

of philosophy at Leipzig) to the ninth volume of Nicolai s

1
AUgemeine deutsche Bibliothek (1769). It contains an ad
mirable summary of Lessing s train of thought, and some
criticisms, which, as Lessing says, hold for the incomplete

part of his treatise, but do not touch him, the author who
first

has not yet said his last word on the subject.

The effect of Laokoon upon the students at Leipzig
and presumably elsewhere as well may be gathered from
the words of Goethe, who as an old man fondly recalled in
2
Dichtung und Wahrheit the enthusiastic days of his youth :

SDfaw mujs S ihtflltNfl fcin/ um fid) 3 U Dcrgegentocirttgcn, tocldjc

$iMrfung Vcffingd Vaofoou aitf und audubte, inbcm biefcd ^crf
nnd and ber Region ctncd fiimmcrlidjcn 3lnfd)atten8 in btc

freicrt (9cfilbe bed (9cbanfcnd Ijinrijj. Tad fo lana,c nupocr-

ftaubcnc Ut pictura poesis luar auf ctnmal bcfcitt(]t, bcr

Untcrfdjicb bcr btlbcnbcu unb ^Kcbcfiinftc ftar; btc Wipfct

bctbcr crfdjicncu nun gctrcnnt, line nat) i()re ^Bafen and) gu*
fauuucnftogcn modjtcn. Tcr bilbcnbc ^imftku folltc fid)
inncrljalb bcr Wrcn^c bc^ ^Sdjoucn Ijaltcn, lucnn bcm rcbcu-
ben, ber bic SBcbcutung jcbcr 5(rt nid)t cntbc()rcn faun, and)
baritbcr ^inau^ufdjtnetfen ucrgbnnt lucirc. 3ecr arbcttct

fitr ben (intern ^tnn, bcr nur biird) bad djimc bcfrtcbigt
luirb, bicfer fitr bie Sinbtlbuugdtraft, btc fid) tool) I nut bent
alid)cn nod) abftnbcn niacj. 2iUc nor cincm $3ltt,3 er(cud)*
tetett fid) unS allc Rolgcu bicfcd l)crrltd)cn (SJcbanfend; aHc
btdljerigc autcitcnbe unb urteilcubc itvitif toarb toic cin abgc^

tragcncr ^Roif toeijgctoorfcn; totr l)te(tcn und Don attcm ilbct

crloft unb glanbten mit cinigcm iDJitlctb auf bad fonft fo

Ijerrlidjc 3o^r^unbert Ijerabblicfcn ju bitrfcn, too

fcd)$el)ntc
man in bcutfdjcn ^IMIbtocrfen unb (9cbid)ten bad i ebcn nur
untcr ber %w\\\ cincd f^cttettbc^angenett barren, ben Xob
1 See the reprint in Blumner s Laokoon, pp. 683 ff.

2 II. Teil, 8. Buch.

Cl INTRODUCTION.

unter ber Unform eincS flappernbcn 65crippc$, fott)ie bie

notwenbigen uub jufttlttgen libel bcr 35>c(t unter bent 33ilbe

be$ fracnf)aftcn XenfclS 311 Dergegetut>artigen nwfctc. 9(m
mciftcn ent^itcfte im$ bie 3d)cinl)eit
!

jcncs (9cbanfcn$, baft bie

2Uten ben ob a(3 ben $rubcr betf <8d)laf3
ancrfannt unb
s
bcibc, tt>ie c$ JJ(enad)mcn gc$temt, $um ^cnr>ed)fe(u $\t\d)
.
pier foimten unr nun erft ben Xviumpl) bc\5

l)od)lid) feicrn nnb ba^ $ii6lid)e jcber 9(rt, ba c^ bod)

eintnal aiivj bcr 3Bclt nidjt ^u ncrtrcibcn ift, im 9icid)C bcr
ii imft nnr in ben niebrigcn itrci* betf Vdd)er(id)cn ncnucifcn.
In general, Lessing was little edified by his critics, however
favorable their judgments might be. Before he had seen
l S
Garve s article he wrote to Nicolai ^\\ fo Didc 3iarrcu jc^t :

iibcr ben Vaofoon ljcrfa((cn, fo bin id) nid)t itbcl undent mid)
cincn 3)?onat obcr Icincjcr in $affe( ober ottingcn anf mcincr
s x
9?cife ^u ucriDcttcn, inn
( il)it ^n uollcnbcn. ?t od) Ijat fid) fcincr,

and) nid)t cininal Berber, trciumcn laffcn, tuo id) l)inauv null.
?(bcr Berber n)i(( ja bie fritifd)cn 3i"a(bcr itidjt gcfd)ricbcn
Ijaben !
^agcn ^ie inir bod), ipic id) fcinc ^rotcftation be^
falts nel)men foil, ^er ^crfaffcr fct inbc^, n?cr cnuollc: fo

ift cr bod) bcr cin}igc, nut ben eS inir bie lDiiil)e loljnt, mit
ntcincm tome gan$ an ben Xag ,511
fonunen. The author
was Herder after all ;
and the more significant passages of
his criticism follow in our edition the reprint of what seems
permanently valuable in the work criticised.

IX.

HERDER.

Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) was one of those

impulsive, energetic, impatient men whose not altogether
happy fate it is to inspire others to achievements which
1
Letter of Apr. 13, 1769; L-M XVII, p. 287.
 INTRODUCTION. Cll

they themselves are temperamentally unable to accomplish.

German folklore, German history, certain developments in
German philosophy, and German literature of the classic and
romantic periods owe some of their most distinctive features
Herder he was the father of the
to the fruitful suggestions of :

Sturm nnd Drang, the guide of Romanticism, the founder

of the science of Kulturgeschichte. His knowledge was
prodigious, his sympathies broad and active, his powers of

appreciation and penetration capable of responding to every

thing beautiful and genuine in the poetry of the most diverse

peoples, his mind predisposed to seek the soul of nations

and of mankind in all forms of artistic expression, and filled

with the idea of writing a new philosophy of history in which

the records of the life of mankind might be made to reveal

the originand the development of the forces with which

human personality is endowed. He collected, translated,
composed, criticised, philosophized, wrote and rewrote he ;

was one of the most prolific of authors. He made compre

hensive plans, and followed out some of them to a point
somewhere near completion ;
but the most characteristic of
his works were fragments, teeming with ideas, and stimu
lating in the highest degree fragments of a great confession
and of a profound, if undeveloped, system.
Born of humble parentage at Mohrungen, a small town in

East Prussia, Herder was as a boy indifferent to the usual

amusements of youth, but fond cf dreamy solitude and was ;

an omnivorous reader of books. Good fortune enabled him

in 1762 to go to Konigsberg, where he was enrolled as a

student of theology at the University, and soon found means

of support as a teacher in a secondary school. To be a
preacher was one of his first ideals, and he was a pedagogue
by nature; but professional studies in theology interested him

less than studies in philosophy, history, literature, and natural

Clii INTRODUCTION.

science; and these he prosecuted with indefatigable zeal.

Even in these days the creative impulse stirred within him :

in his irregular way he accompanied his notes and excerpts

with far-reaching critical observations; he projected a history
of poetry, with special reference to lyric poetry, as the ear
liest and most direct form of emotional utterance ; and he

published poems, addresses, and reviews. By far the most

momentous consequence of his life in Konigsberg was, how
ever, the vital contact into which he came with the philoso
pher Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), and with the Magus im
"

Norden," Johann Georg Hamann (1730-1788).

In Kant and Hamann there were incorporated two an

tipodal tendencies. Kant, the quintessence of the spirit of
enlightenment, who turned the light of his reason upon all

things in heaven and earth and in the waters under the earth,

taught Herder not merely philosophy but the art of philoso

phizing, and with truly humane catholicity brought out for
his pupil the humanly rational value in logic, metaphysics,
ethics, mathematics, and physical geography, as well as in the

speculations of Leibniz, Baumgarten, and Hume, or the recent

paradoxes of Rousseau. Herder translated metaphysical ideas
of Kant s into verse, he was fascinated by the master s lectures
on subjects in natural science, he devoured such of Kant s
writings as had already appeared in print, placing Kant, by
virtue of his Beobachtungen iiber das Schone und Erhabene,
side by side with Burke, Mendelssohn, Sulzer, and Winckel-
mann asan authority in esthetics in general, Herder re

ceived from Kantapuwerful confirmation of his native impulse

to build up, upon the basis of fact, experience, and immediate
personal reaction unhampered by the constraints of system,
an encyclopedic philosophy of humanity.
Hamann opposed the philosophy of enlightenment as inade
quate to explain the mysteries which surround the highest con-
 INTRODUCTION. cliii

cerns of life. Instead of the intellect, the higher constituent

of the soul, he cultivated the lower powers, the feelings, sensi

bilities, intuitions. He looked with religious veneration upon

the spontaneous outpourings of genius, whether in an indi
vidual or in a race ; poetry was to him the original language
of mankind, primitive poetry the more human for being the
more natural ; mythology and superstition were in his eyes
venerable attempts to express and formulate the essentially

inexpressible and formless. His religion was a mystic cult

of the unconscious, inspired, irrational, unaccountable ; en
thusiasm for the transcendental value of the products of the
human spirit was his habitual state of mind ; and in every
product properly to be called great he saw the harmonious
co-operation of all the powers of the human soul. Herder
became united to Hamann in the bonds of the most ardent
and admiring friendship ; he studied English and read Shak-
spere, Milton, and other English poets with him he listened ;

with rapt attention to Hamann s oracular interpretations of

the poetry of the Bible, and was guided by Hamann to hidden
springs of beauty in widely scattered fields of European liter

ature, then little

explored. Hamann was greater as an ex
plorer and an inspirer of others than as a colonizer or builder
in any sense. One might almost call him an agitator. His
printed works were fragmentary, paradoxical, incoherent, and
obscure. He had all the esthetic qualities of genius except
the capacity for esthetic discipline ; and it was fortunate for
Herder when, as now happened, he undertook to make of
himself an apostle of the prophet, that he had already come
under the influence of the sane and rational Kant. Herder s
projected history of poetry was the result of the combined
influences of these two men.
In November, 1
764, Herder was called to the post of col
laborator at the Domschule in Riga; in April, 1767, he was
Cliv INTRODUCTION.

created Pastor adjunctus of two of the churches there. Con

currently with the punctual discharge of his duties as a teacher
and preacher, he kept up an active interest in literary prob
lems, and soon began to publish so that when he became
;

known to the literary world in Germany, it was from this east

ern outpost of German civilization within Russian territory

that his voice was heard.
It is interesting that Herder s. first books came into exist
ence in the closest possible relation to the activities of Les-
sing and his friends in Berlin. This was indeed not unnatural.
No man of letters could fail to appreciate the fact that Berlin
was then the seat of the most significant and illuminating
criticism in Germany, and no young man of letters could
underestimate the advantage of an alliance with the Berlin
critics especially if he brought to the treatment of critical
problems a new method and a new point of view. That
was Herder s case. Accordingly, we see him publishing
the installment of his history of poetry in the form of
first

supplements to the Briefe, die neueste Literatur betrcjfend,

and putting into this not very convenient receptacle the
best fruits of his studies and meditations up to that
time.
Herder had begun his work in connection with the Litera-
turbriefe under Hamann s eye in Konigsberg. In the fall
of 1765 he published anonymously at Riga (with the date
1767, and without mention of the place of publication) two
collections, and in 1767, a third collection (dated at Riga)
of Fragmente : Uber die neuere dcutsche Literatur. Eine
Reilage zu den Briefen, die neueste Literatur betrcffeud. The

receptacle was not perfectly convenient a glance at the table

:

of contents seems to promise a historical and philosophical

work on language as such, periods in the development of lan
guage, efforts to improve language, translations from ancient
 INTRODUCTION. civ

languages, characteristics of modern tongues, and qualities of

style in modern German writers (Erste
Sammlung) the in ;

fluence of Oriental literatures and Greek literature in Germany

(Zweite Sammlung} the influence of Latin literature in Ger
;

many, and the use of ancient mythology (^Dritte Sammlung].

The contents themselves are a pretty promiscuous series of
ideas, reflections, citations, criticisms, not satisfactory as an

orderly development of the successive subjects, and obscured

by constant references to the Literaturbriefe* On the other
hand, it is fair to say that this programme of supplementation
gave to Herder s observations a certain pertinence and actual

ity ;
and that it also reveals the range of interests covered by
the articles in the Liter aturbricfc. We shall have occasion
to citemore than one passage from the Fragmentc; for the
present it may suffice to note that Herder takes in a general
way the ground taken by the Berlin critics but that his dis ;

cussions run farther out into theoretical considerations and ;

that, as a fundamentally lyric nature, he stands from the be

ginning in an attitude of contrast to Lessing. This contrast
is evident in the opinions held
by the two critics concerning
Klopstock is evident in their very conception of poetry.
;
it

In Lessing opinion, poetry, or any other art, was almost

s

reducible to a science it was the fruit of cultivation, and

;

could be judged according to recognized standards. Ha-

mann defined poetry as Tie sD2ltttcrjprad)C bctf nicufd)fid)CU
($cfd)(cd)t a means of expression that preceded culture
and defied judgment by making a judicial mood impossible ;

and Herder wrote, Tic crftcrt SdjriftftcUcr jcbcr Nation finb

)td)tcr, bie crften Tirfjtcr unnadjafjutlid); 310: 3cit bcr fdjoncu
$rofa itmd)3 in ftcbidjtcn nidjts afo bic Shmft: ftc fjattc fid)

fdjon itber bic Qrrbe crfyobenunb fudjtc eiu ^oc^ftc^ bid ftc

tt)rc f rdftc crfdjopftc unb iin 5(ctt)er bcr 2pilH"tnbig!eit b(icb.

3n ber fpdtcrn cit I)at man blog Dcrfifijicrtc

Clvi INTRODUCTION.

ober nutte(maJ3tcje ^ocfic.

1
When Herder treats the same
subject that Lessing treats, we feel that the subject is
ap
proached from a different side, and that it deserves to be
looked at from that side ; but when he argues with Lessing,
there is frequently no possibility of a conclusion, for the

very reason that he does not meet Lessing on Lessing s

own ground.
Though published anonymously, Herder s Fragments were
almost immediately discovered as his. They gave him a
national reputation at once ;
and they were so acceptable
to Lessing s friends in Berlin that Nicolai invited Herder to
contribute to the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, in succes

sion, so to speak, to a gifted young man who had just died

Thomas Abbt (1738-1766), the author of a remarkable little
book, Vbm Tode furs Vaterland. Herder accepted the in
vitation, maintained relations with the Bibliothek for seven
years, and presently (1768) paid his respects to the memory
of the man whose place he had taken, in a fragmentary essay,
Uber Thomas Abbts Schriften. Der Torso von einem Dcnk-
mal, an seinem Grabe errichtet? In 1768 he published a
revised version of the first collection of
Fragmente ; in 1 769
he completed four and published three Kritische Wdlder. As
may be seen from the title-page to the first Wdldchen (p. /5j),
all of these were anonymous, only the third making mention
of the place of publication ;
and as we have learned above, 8
Herder openly and stoutly denied that he was the author.
It not easy to understand why he should have persisted in
is

a vain attempt to mystify his readers, nor why he was unwill

ing from the start to assume the responsibility for his printed
utterances. He seems to have thought critical and especially
controversial activity in the field of belles lettres inconsistent
1
Werke, ed. Suphan, Berlin, 1877 ff., I, p. 156.
2 8 P.
Werkc, II, pp. 249 ff. cl.
 INTRODUCTION. civil

with his position as a schoolmaster and pastor, or at any rate

likely to alienate his Riga friends and parishioners. As a

matter of fact, these fears were realized in spite of his ano

nymity. He was irresistibly drawn away from the Russian

commercial city, out into the German world of letters. In

May, 1769, he left Riga never to return.

Lessing s Laokoon came into Herder s hands in the late
summer of 1766. $d) Ijobc il)lt, he wrote to his friend
1 s
Scheffner, ciucu ^acfjiitittag nnb bic folgcnbc Jtod)t tut IT!)

vcd)t fyeijjfjnngrig brctmal narfjemanber burdjcjdefen. The

Fragments which he was just then printing give ample evi
dence, if any were needed, why Herder read and reread
this book. The public had for several years awaited another
considerable work in prose by Lessing. And here was one
in which Lessing took issue with Winckelmann, and based a

long argumentation upon the practice of Homer Herder !

himself was a reader of Homer like few of his contempora

ries the Literaturbriefe had given him occasion to discuss
;

questions of translation which presupposed intimate acquaint

ance with Homer s poetic diction ;
and the history of poetry
which he dreamed of writing was to be a UWtcfclmaimifdie
cfdjidjtc.
2
$o ift nbcr nod) cut bcutfdjcr ^lUmfcdnaim, he
8
exclaims, bcr iw$ ben Xcmpcl bcr cjricd)i|d)eu 3ctel)ctt unb
3Md)thwft fo croffnc, at$ cr ben Slimftlcrn ba# eljettuniS bcr

($ricd)cn Don fcruc $cicjt? (5 in SBitirfcfmauu in 5(bfid)t anf

bic ^imft fonntc blog in 9tom aufbtiiljcn; abcr etn 3Binc!c(^

ntann in xHbftd)t bcr )id)ter fanu in ^cutfrijtanb and) Ijeroor*

trctcn, nut feincm romifcfjcn ^orflanflcr eincn grofecn ^ 3cii S

gU|ammcn tun. Herder s respect for Lessing was genuine,

and he seized the opportunity to ally himself with Lessing

against their common enemies. Assuming that he could

1
Quoted by R Ilaym, Herder, Berlin, 1877 ff., I, p. 229.
2 3
Werke, I, p. 243. Ibid., p. 293.
Clviii INTRODUCTION.

regard himself as Lessing s colleague and companion in

arms, he did
not hesitate to question Lessing s conclu

sions, nor to refute his arguments. But towards Winckel-

mann he felt the awe of a disciple for his master. He
bowed down to Winckelmann s superior knowledge in the

great fieldwhich he had no competence ; and he more

in

readily accepted the master s views because he was funda

mentally the same kind of man as Winckelmann himself.
Both Herder and Winckelmann formed their opinions in
accordance with personal reactions upon concrete phe
nomena, and were suspicious of systems and abstractions.
Herder s first impulse in criticising Laokoon was, therefore,
to defend Winckelmann against the supposed or real attacks

of Lessing and his method throughout the Erstes Wahl-

;

chen is to examine Lessing s propositions from a point of

view that may be called that of a unncfctmanni|d)C (^efd)id)te
bcr ^ocfic. We may expect, accordingly, many a noteworthy
query, caution, or supplementary observation ; but also many
an observation that is gratuitous, or even out of order, be
cause it does not touch the question under discussion. We
have already seen, however, how highly Lessing esteemed
Herder s criticism of his work. 1

X.

GOETHE.

Goethe s essay, Uber Laokoon, was not called forth by

it was written to
Lessing s treatise ; put the classical ideal
before the eyes of an age that was running after the strange

gods of romanticism. It represents Goethe (1749-1832) at

1
Cf. supra, p. cl. Herder s Erstes WaLIchen was reviewed by
Gerstenberg in the Hamburgische Neue Zeitung, Apr. II, 1769; cf.
DLD 128, pp. 183 ff.
 INTRODUCTION. clix

and is a good example of how

the height of his classicism,
Winckelmann had taught Goethe to see a statue. That
Goethe should appear in this volume with a paper dealing
with the qualities of a piece of sculpture is altogether
ap
propriate. Far more than Lessing and Herder, he was a
connoisseur of plastic art, indeed, a life-long student and
admirer of all the formative arts. As a boy, he assiduously
practiced drawing, and he kept up the habit of sketching
from nature until he was well on towards middle age. He
was a student of Oeser
s at Leipzig in the very years
(1765
1768) when Winckelmann s Kunstgeschichte and Lessing s
Laokoon appeared. The enthusiasm for Winckelmann that
he there caught from Oeser persisted to the end of his days ;
l

and though did not immediately fill his mind to the ex

it

clusion of other than the classical ideals, it led him to read

Laokoon with a more critical eye than would seem to have

been the case from the reminiscence quoted above 2 from

Dichtiing und Wahrheit In the Ephcmerideii of the year
3
1770 we find Goethe remarking apropos of Laokoon, chap
ter II (34, n), ric 5Utcn . . .
fdjcutcn utd)t fo feljr baa
>0rij5ltd)c
a(# batf Ralfdjc unb ucrftanben and) bic fdjrerflidjften

^eqcrrunftctt in fdjoncn Wcftdjtern jur d)onf)eit 311 inadjcn.

-. .(S3 ift mtr ba
. uncber ein 33cn)eitf, bafc man bte $or^
s
treffiidjfcit bcr ^((tcn in etui:,c< aubcrcnt a(^ bcr 53ilbung ber

<2id)i>ut)cit JU fltdjcn l)at. Upon his first visit to a consider

able in 1768, he was most in

picture gallery at Dresden
terested Dutch school, paying no
in the works of the
attention to the Greek sculptors and taking the Italian
masters on faith. 4 In 1770 he met Herder 5 at Strassburg,

1 Cf. the admirable exposition, Wittckelmann und sein Jahrhnn-

1805 W. A. XLVI.
2 P. cxlix.
dert, written in ;

8 W. A. XXX VI F, p.Sg; also in DLD 14, p. 10.

6
* D. u. W., VI I f. //,/,/., x.
Clx INTRODUCTION.

and he saw one of the most splen

in Strassburg Cathedral
did examples of Gothic architecture. Herder inculcated
in Goethe his admiration for Shakspere, his sympathy with

the natural and national wherever found, his gospel of per

sonality, feeling, genius ;

he taught Goethe to trust his
instincts and utter his emotions ;
and Goethe discovered,
not altogether to Herder s taste, that the Cathedral was

just such a work of irrepressible, creative genius sure of

1
its purpose and master of its means, as Herder had dis
covered in the works of Shakspere. And so, Goethe de
clares, is the work of Diirer, whom elegant modem painters
of nymphs and fairies ridicule so are the rude and glaring
adornments of savages, unfeigned expressions of individual
feeling: and btcfc d)araftertftifd)c Jtunft ift nun bic einjige
2
uniljve.
Thus speaks Goethe the Stitrmcr unb granger, the
ardent advocate of a view the
very opposite to that of
Oeser and Winckelmann, a view, moreover, that he was
destined, ere long, to abandon for theirs. The antithesis
between the characteristic and the typical in art, which is
here alluded to, is the fundamental distinction between ro
manticism and classicism, reai ism and idealism, between
the German and the Greek. Goethe calls Gothic the
German style. In this style he writes Gotz von Berlichingen
( X 773)>
Werther (1774), and the charming Erkldrung eines
alten Holzschnittes, vorstellend Hans Sachsens poetische Sen-
dung (1776) ;
and in a theoretical essay, Nach Falkonet und
8
iiber Falkonet (\ii&], he declares, (v# ift timd)t, Don cittern

1 Von deutscher Baukunst, Frankfurt, 1772 (dated 1773), reprinted

in Herder s book, Von deutscher Art und Kunst, Hamburg, 1773, which
is now accessible in DLL) 40.
4 DLD 40, p. 90 ;
W. A. XXXVII, p. 149.
8
Aus Goethes Brieftasche, W. A. XXXVII, p. 321.
 INTRODUCTION. clxi

$imftler ju forbern, er fo(( Die!, cr foil atte

Jonnen umfaffen.
)atte bod) oft bie ^atur felbft fur gan$e ^rootnjen nur eine
efid)t$gcftalt ju uergeben. Ser alfgemein fetn uritt, iwrb
nirf)t3, bie Gnnfdjrdntung ift bem Slimftfer fo notu>cnbig
ate

jebem, bcr au3 fid) uufc -Sebeutenbea bilben unit.

aft en an ebenbenfelben (9egenftanben, an bem

s
Dolt ottcit Jpaudrate unb rounbcrbarcn Vumpen, ^at jfem-
branbt jn bem ^in^igen gcmad)t, ber er ift.

Between 1776 and 1788 Goethe published nothing on

any of the formative arts and his paper of the latter year,
;

Zur Thcorie der bildenden Kiinste, contains, among other

things, an expression of contempt for Gothic architecture, es

1
"

pecially for such a monstrosity as the Cathedral of Milan.

"

There is no denying that this is a complete change of front,

thatGoethe looked askance in 1788 at that which in 1776 he

had looked up to and yet we cannot say that his mind had un
;

dergone a revolution. The new conviction was brought about

by the gradual evolution of elements present from the first,
in factthrough the very strain in Goethe s blood that made
him recognize, in spite of Oeser, esthetic kinship with the
Dutch painters, with Diirer, and with the builder of Strass-
burg Cathedral, Erwin Steinbach. For Goethe had never
sympathized with those aspects of Gothic and characteristic
art which might appear fantastic and capricious. It was the

genuineness of that art, the fidelity to nature, and the sincer

ityof personal expression that he admired ; and he had a

dim consciousness of an inner form even in that which
seemed outwardly formless. The change was brought about
chieflyby widened knowledge, more extensive experience of
the world, the development of a scientific habit of mind, and
an increasing tendency to systematize and classify. The so-
called Ten Years at Weimar (1775-1786) witnessed the reso-
i Wieland s Teutscher Merkitr, Oct., 1788 ;
W. A. XLVII, p. 64.
dxii INTRODUCTION.

lute termination of many chapters in the poet s past life.

He turned his back upon the @turm unb and its >rang

products ; he learned self-denial and discipline ; he learned

to work for the community, and to see in such suppression
of individualistic impulses as devotion to the common weal

requires, a means of enriching the individual life itself.

It is therefore not surprising that in the course of these

years Goethe turned more and more decidedly to the study

of that art in which nature appears in a form free from the
accidental circumstances of time and place, and the artist is
at one with her. It is not surprising that he was drawn with

an attraction becoming daily harder to resist to the great

storehouse of this art in Italy. On the third of September,

1786, he stole away from Karlsbad and hastened to Rome.

For nearly two years he lived in the atmosphere of antiquity
as he saw it before his eyes, an atmosphere that he kept
serene by the constant reading of Winckelmann ;
and upon
his return to Weimar, June 18, 1788, he was more a Greek
than a German convinced of the truth of Winckelmann s

doctrine concerning the canonical authority of the ancient

artists, convinced also that he had now acquired for himself

the capacity for a similar perfect expression the only kind

to be dignified with the same style.
In a brief article entitled Einfache
Nachahmung dcr Nafur,
Manier, Stil? Goethe distinguished between three modes
of artistic expression the first, a mere copy, as it were, a
:

photograph of nature ;
the second, a new combination of
elements copied from nature ; the third, a free creation in
which the process rather than the product of nature is imi
tated in is the expression of
which, in other words, there
an ideal. Expression of an ideal was what Winckelmann
and many before him had found in Greek sculpture and
1 Wieland s Teutsc/ier Merkur, Feb., 1789 ;
W. A. XLVII, pp. 77 ff.
 INTRODUCTION. clxiii

Greek poetry ; Goethe s conception is noteworthy only in

the definiteness with which he postulates a basis of reality for
ideal structures. An ideal is an idea, a figment of the imag
ination, but of an imagination working in harmony with the
intentions of nature, because trained to perceive these inten
tions in the imperfect forms of actual life. An ideal of
humanity can be founded only upon a knowledge of men ;

art can produce a type of man only if it has so studied the

processes of nature that it can create as nature herself would
create under perfect conditions ; typical art will not be un
real for its creation is natural ;
nor will it be merely real
for it creates a form
transcending the limits of reality, and
suggesting the universal at the same time that it presents
the particular. Creation in typical forms is style Greek ;

creations are examples of style ;

the modern artist should
make of himself in this matter a Greek,
1
and should
cultivate a mind which the actualities of nature can fruc
tify, because they mean to it more than in themselves
they are.
Goethe gave an example of composition in style when he
wrote Iphigenie (1787) and Hermann und Dorothea (1797).
But meanwhile the works of his youth were those most widely
known and ^tuvm Ullb 3)rant] which he had
imitated ;
the

outgrown somewhat younger men (Schiller s

lasted later in
R duber, 1781 Kabale und Lie be, 1784); and a degenerate
;

rationalism (Inland, Die Jdger, 1785 Kotzebue, Menschen- ;

s
1
In 1818 Goethe exlaimed, ^cbcr jet nuf feinc <Urt ein vtedje!
s
flber er fet 3 (Kunst und Altertum, II, i
;
W. A. XIJX, p. 156). And
ten years later: 2Her etuwS Ofrofccd leiften mill, mufe feme Alibiing fo

gefteigert Ijaben, bafe cr gleid) ben Okiedjcn imftanbe jet, bie gertngere
rcale 9latur 311 ber ipofye jcineS $eifte fyeranjufyeben unb baSjenige
iuirflid) 311 inarfjen, um in nntUrlidjen (vrfd)einunflcn QU innerer
d)tt)cid)e ober (inherent ^inbctnt^ nut Intention geblieben ift (Ecker-
mann, GesprdcJic, 20. Oct., 1828).
clxiv INTRODUCTION.

hass uitd JReue, 1789) descended from a more or less faith

ful realism to commonplaces and platitudes. If we forget
for the moment how far the classical Goethe and Schiller
were from being undisputed sovereigns in the realm of Ger
man letters at the end of the eighteenth century, we may
l
see in the Xenien of 1
796 how numerous were the rebels
against them. We must remember also that in these days
Romanticism was rapidly coming into prominence, and that
it was a movement which tended to exaggerate variations
from all that could be called typical namely, the emo
tional, fantastic, sensuous, and peculiarly individual elements
in human character. The Romanticists were more attracted
to the mediaeval religious painting of Germany than to Greek
sculpture of the age of Pericles ;
and to them multiplicity of
characteristic details seemed synonymous with significance
of expression. The practice of contemporary artists con
formed for the most part to this predilection ; and the
Romantic views also found theoretical defense in the writ

ings, among others, of Aloys Hirt (1759-1839) a ration

alist whom they ridiculed, but who was in this matter a

partisan of theirs.
Hirt, a learned but pedantic archeologist, had in 1786 ren
dered Goethe good service as a guide in Rome ; ultimately
he became professor at the University of Berlin. He rejected
the theory of Winckelmann and Goethe as to the typical,
and work of art is to be
insisted that true distinction in a
attained only by an abundance of characteristics. Hence
he was commonly nicknamed der Charakteristiker. Agree
ing with the universal opinion in the eighteenth century that
the Laocoon was the masterpiece of Greek sculpture, he
differed as to the reasons for this opinion. In the year

1797 he contributed three articles to Schiller s Horen : one

l Edited by E. Schmidt and B. Suphan, Weimar, 1893.
 INTRODUCTION.

on artistic beauty in general, the other two on the character

istic beauties of Laocoon.

According to Dichtung und Wahrheit, XI, Goethe first

saw a complete plaster-cast of the group of Laocoon and his
sons in 1771 at Mannheim. He at once decided for him
self the celebrated question whether or not the father is

represented as crying out, by observing that for anatomical

reasons he cannot be crying out. Other questions he also
settled to his satisfaction, and in a letter to Oeser he de

veloped at some length his conception of the intention of

the sculptors. This letter was lost ; but Goethe remem
bered the trend of it, and worked it over into the essay
Uber Laokoon, in order indirectly to controvert the argu
ments of Hirt. He dwells especially upon the significance
]

of the figures in the group as types, pointing out that the

statue would be just as effective if it were understood to be
a scene from human life without reference to the fate of the

Trojan priest and his sons.

Uber Laokoon was the first article printed in the Propy-
laen, eine periodische Schrift, herausgegeben von Goethe,
Tubingen, 1798. The fanciful title
(TrpoTru Acua, gateway,
entrance, portico, Goethe had at first thought of Natur
und Kunsf] was chosen, as the editor explained in the

Einleitung? for symbolical meaning

its the magazine was :

intended to serve as a vehicle of expression for a group of

men who, no longer young, had speculated on esthetic
problems and studied many works of art, but still felt them

selves to have arrived only at the portico of the temple of

beauty. These men next to Goethe, the most important

was Heinrich Meyer (1760-1832) calling themselves Wei-
marische Kunst-Freundc, had already taken practical steps
to encourage artistic activity in the direction of their prefer-
i
W. A. XLVII, p. i ff.
Clxvi INTRODUCTION.

ences. The name

of the entrance to the acropolis at Athens

naturally suggested the classical point of view of the editors

of the new magazine. They wished to restore to their
fellow-countrymen a taste for Greek art. The Greeks, they
said, and the Italians of the Renaissance knew what was

picturesque modern artists appeared not to know.

; Just as
the Xenien had swept clean the market-place of German
letters, the PropyliUn^ they hoped, would purify the temple
of the German arts. Its numbers appeared at irregular

intervals, two constituting a volume ; and like many periodi

cals of the time, Goethe s was short-lived. There were
in all only three volumes: October, 1798, to November,
1800.

Besides the EinUitun& we have from Goethe s hand an

Anzcige of the Propylcien printed in the Allgemeine Zeifung
for April 29, 1799. In the Anzeige he said that he wrote
the essay Uber Laokoon, mil CWf btc 3 tttcntion bcr $imft(cr,
bie biefcS ^crf toerfcrtiijten, genaucr a(3 c$ lntfl)cr gcfctycljcn,
1
aufmerffant 311 macfycn. In order fully to appreciate his
own intentions we must look a little at the setting in which
the essay stood in the Propylcien.
There was need of reform. 1)cr *}uftanb, in ft)drf)cm bic
ifunft (jccieunmrtifl iff, bcr ang 311111 iVcucn, $ur xHbtucdjS-
lunii, it)i* ti)irflid)c<J
2luavtcn in mandjcn Xcilcn, fdjciut un$
bvin^cnb cobac^timg bcr Wcijcln auf^iiforbeni.
^iir 5Bir
2
bitvfcn fcin ,f)aar brcit worn cjcrabcn 3Bci]e abuicidjcn. One
of the most skillful sculptors of that time was unquestion

ably JohannGottfried Schadow (1764-1850). In 1794

he had made a marble statue of Frederick the Great s
general von Zieten in all the regalia of an officer of hussars.

1
w. A. XLVII, p. 38.
2
Prop., I, ii, p. 6Q. By Meyer, but in entire accord with Goethe s
views. Cf. Meyer s Kleine Schriftcn zur Kunst, 25. DLD
 INTRODUCTION.

l
Goethe s magazine protested against this unstatuesque
realism :
3n Berlin |d)dut, aufter bent ilkrbienft befauu-
ter 2)?etfter, ber datura liSmuS, mit ber &Mrf(td)fett3= unb

9?itklid)fctt$forberung, 311 ipaufe 311 fein unb ber profatfdje

^cttgetft fid) am ntcifteit 311 offeubarcn. ^ocfie luirb burd)

efd)id)te, (Sljarat ter unb 3bcal burd) ^ortrat, ftjmbolifdje 33e=

fyanbluitg burd) ^Kegoric, I cmbfdjaft burd) 5lu$fid)t, ba$ al(a,e=

mein s
JDeu[d)ltd)e burdjs 33ater(aubtfd)e uevbrangt. Schadow
confused the reality of nature with the truth at which the
artist should aim : Der ed)te gcfc^gcbcnbc ilitnftlcr ftrebt itad)

^unfttual)rl)ctt, ber gcfcfelofe, ber einem blinben Xrieb folgt,

s
nad) Jtaturnrirfltd)fett; burd) jcnen iuirb btc ^unft 311111 l)i)d)ften
2
ipfc(, burd) bicfcn auf tl)rc niebrigftc <3tufc gcbrad)t. ^tur
bem gan3 uugclnlbeteu ^jufd)auer faun ctu ^uuftiucrf a(3 ein
8
^atunvcrf erfd)cincn. Goethe on another occasion praised
the landscapes of Claude Lorrain for representing bic l)od)ftC
4
Sal)rt)eit abcr feine vSpur uon SBirflidjfcit. The doctrines
of Hirt, however, encouraged the observation and repro
duction of &Mrflid)teit. Goethe esteemed Hirt for his
knowledge less for his judgment and was at first

inclined to welcome his insistence upon the characteristic

and the emotional because it tended so counteract false
notions about the coldness of Greek sculpture ; and
lifeless

he encouraged Hirt to send in his articles to the Hot-en.

When the articles appeared, however, he was by no means
satisfied with them ;
nor did he rest content with the veiled
polemics of his article Uber Laokoon. In a subsequent

epistolary article, Dcr Sammler und die Seinigen, Goethe

introduces Hirt as der Gast and der Charakteristiker, and,
with a parody of Hirt s own language, makes him say :

1 8
Prop., Ill, ii, p. 167. Ibid., p. 262.
2 W. A. XLVII, p. 23.
4
Eckermann, 10. April, 1829.
clxviii INTRODUCTION.

Xretcn Sic rjor bcu ciofoon, itnb [eljcu Sic bic 9fatur in
DoKcr Crmpbruug itnb ^crjiveiflung, ben (c^teu erftirfcnbcn

Sdjiueq, franipfavtige Spaummg, unttcube 3u tf un fl ^c

SBirfung cincS a^cnbcn ift3, Ijeftigc Wtirung, ftocfcubcn
Umlauf, crfticfcnbc ^rcffung uub para(t)tifd)eu Xob. To 1

which burlesque description Goethe himself makes reply :

v
<h*cuu Vaotoou uurflirt) jo uor uitfcru XUitgcu ftitube, u>ic ^ic
tl)n bciri)vcibcn, fo unirc cr uicrt, baft cr ben 9(ugculi(icf in
2
Stitcfcn gcfd)(agctt tinirbc. Goethe did not fail to recognize
the importance of characteristic elements, but he assigned
them to their proper place : I^er (5l)UVattcr DClljiitt ficl)

pm Sd)b ncn mic bav< Sfclctt jum Icbcnbic^cn 9D?cnfd)cn;

ba^ (Sfyavaftcriftifdjc ticgt jinn CMruubc, auf il)in ruljen C2in-
fait uub &Mtrbc; ba^ l)bd)ftc ^jicl bcr fiunft ift Sd)bnl)cit uub
s
tljre Icjjtc 3iMrfung ^cfiiljt bcr *?(umut. The true artist ought
not to copy the peculiarities of nature, but should seek UU tt-
s
ciferub utit ber ^atur chva^ etftig^Organifc^ed tjcmoqu
briugcn, nub fcincm ^unftwcrf ciucu foldjeu cljalt, eiue

fold)c jorm ^u
( when, moburd) c^ uatitrltd) ^uglcid) uub
4
itbcrnatiir(id) crfdjcint.
In the Commentary we
shall have an opportunity to dis

cuss Goethe application of

s these principles to the interpre
tation of his chosen example of Greek sculpture.

1
W. A. XLVII, p. 161. Ibid., p. 159.
2 Jbid. 4
t p. 167. Ibid., p. 12.
 <8oe tf?e

Hbcr iaofoon

(Erftcn Banbcs erftcs Stucf

 liber aofooru

@in ecfytes unftitoerf bleibt, n)ie ein Dtaturfaerf, fiir unfern

33erftanb immer unenblid>; e3 toirb angefcftaut, empfunben;
e3 toirft, e fann aber nicbt eigentlicb crfannt, toiel toeniger

fein 2Befen, fein mit Scrten auC^efprochen toerben.

3>erbienft

5 2Ba^ alfo Her iiber ^aofoon i^efac^t ift, bat feineStocgS bie 3(n=
mafeung, btefen (^egenftanb ju crfd^opfcn, c^ ift mefyr bet

elegenf)ctt biefc^ trcfflid>en ftunfttoerfS al^ iiber ba^felbe

gefd;riebcn. WloQt biefe^ balb iuieber fo aufaeftellt fein,

ba^ jeber Siebbaber [id; barcm freuen unb bariiber nad) feiner
10 2(rt reben f onnc !

2Benn man toon etnem trefflid^cn Munft^crfc fpred^cn tr>ill,

fo ift e3 faft notig, toon ber gan$cn ilunft ju rebcn, benn c^

entf)dlt fie ganj, unb jeber fann, fotoiel in feinen ^rciften ftef;t,

aucf) ba3 2UIgemeine au^ einem fold^en befonbern Jail ent-

15 tuicfeln; be3toec3en fei bier aucf) ettua^ 2IlIgemeine3 toorau^

gefcfndt.
2(Ue boben ftimftiwerfe fteden bie menfd>Iid>e
9^atur bar, bie
bilbenben ^iinfte befc^aftigen ficb befonber^ mit bem menfcf)=
licben Aorper; Voir reben gegenh)artig nur toon biefen. Xie
20 $unft ^at toiele Stufcn; auf jeber berfelben fonnen toorjiig=

lidie &imftler erfcf^einen; ein toollfommenc^ Munfttuerf aber be=

greift alle igenfcfmften, bie fonft nur ein^eln au^geteilt finb.
$)ie F)5cf)ften ^unftmerfe, bie fair fennen, ^eigen un:
Sebenbige, od)organifierte D^aturen.
I)
5Jian

25 ertoartet toor adem Aenntni^ be^ menfcblicben ^orper^ in fei=

nen eilen, 5Ra^en, innern unb au^ern Sweden, gormen unb

55eh)egungen im allgemeinen.
3
4 (Soetfye.

G F>
a r a ! t e r c. $enntniS be 2lbn)eid)cn biefer eife in

Wcftalt unb 2Birfung. @igenf$aften fonbcrn fief) ab unb

ftettcn ficb ctnjcln bar; fyicrburcb cntftcben bie Gbaraftcre, unb
e3 fbnnen bic fccrfdnebencn Slunftujcrfc babureb in cin bebeu=
s
knbe3 -Tserbaltni3 c\ec\cneinanbcr ftcbraebt tocrben, foluie auefy, 5

irenn cin 3$erf ^itfammenflefe^t ift, fcine ^cilc fief>

bebcntcnb

(icf\cncinanbcr i^crbaltcn fonncn. !Dcr Gkflcnftanb ift:

3 n 3^ u b e o b e r 33 e h? c c\ u iuv Gin -fikrf ober feine

^eile fonnen cntnxbcr fiir fid> bcftcbenb, rubtg ihr blof^c^ Da=
fcin anjctiicnb, obcr anef>
betrecjt, n)irfenb, leibenfcfraftlief) 10

anebrnef^on barcjcftcllt tnerben.

3 b e a (. Urn fyierjn 511 c^clan^cn, bcbarf bcr ^iinftler

cinc ticfcn, flriinbliekn, ausbancrnbcn 6innc3, gu bem abcr
noef) cin bobcr Sinn fid) cjcfcllcn mufe, nm ben egenftanb in
fcincm c\an5cn llmfancje 511 iibcrfcbcn, ben r>brfftcn bar^u= 15
ftellcnben foment 511 finben, unb ifm alfo au^ fcincr befcfrrtinf=
ten SlMrfltcf^fcit berau^ubebcn unb ibm in ciner ibcalcn 9Bctt

9)taft, (^rcnje, 9iealitcit unb iirbe u c^ebcn.

31 n cr mu
cgcnftanb abcr unb bie 2(rt, il;n borjn=
t.

fteHcn, finb ben finnlicbcn ^unftgefc^en untertDorfen, ndmlid) 20

ber Drbninu^, Jvaf^Iid^feit, Symmetric, Gkcjenftenuncj u. f. nx,
tuobiiref) cr fiir ba 5ht$e fcbon, ba beif^t, annutticj toirb.
6 ef) b n b c i t. J crner *ft er bcm (33cfe^ ber rteiftic^en

6cbbnbeit untcrtoorfcn, bie burcf) bn^ yftafc cntftebt, Voeld^cm

ber jur !Darftetluncj obcr .s^crborbrincumg bc^ Scf^bncn cje= 25

bilbete 93?cnfd) a(le, focjar bie extreme ju untcru^erfen meif^.

9?ad>bcm icb bie Sebincjuncjen, tt)clebe fair bon einem boben
5lunftmerfe forbern, gum i?orau^ ancjegeben fo !ann id; f>abe,

mit it>enicjen
Morten bid fagen, njenn icf) bebaupte, ba^ un-
fere ruppe fie atte erfutlt, ja bafj man fie au3 berfclben allein 30

enttoiefeln fbnne.

5Ran tt>irb mir ben ^Beiueig crlaficn, baf5 fie <Renntni3 bc^
 liber aofoon. 5

menfcMicfcen $orperg, baft fie bag (5I)aral teriftifd)e an bem*

felSen, fotoie 2lugbrucf unb Setbenfcfcaft jeige. SSie I)od) unb
ibeal ber egenftanb gefaftt fei, toirb fid; aug bent ^olgenben
ergeben; baft man bag SSer! fd)dn nennen miiffe, fairb ftof)l
niemanb frejtoeifeln, inelcfter bag -iJJiaft erfennt, n?omit bag

@jtrcm eineg ^h^fifd^en unb geifti^en Seibeng fyier bargeftellt

Vt)irb mandbcn ^araboj frf^einen, tt?enn id) 6e=

f)aupte, baf? biefe Wruppe aucf) ju^lcicf) anmutig fei. ier=

10 iiber alfo nur einic^e orte.

Jebeg flunftyricrf mujj fid) atg cin fold)cg anjeiflcn, unb bag
!ann eg allcm burcf) bag, rt>ag \mr finnlid^e Sd^onheit ober 2(n=
mut nennen. Tic 5((ten, u^eit entfernt i^on bem tnobernen
9BaT)ne, baft ein 5lunfttt>etf
bem SdH ine nad) iin eber ein Scatuvs

15 toer! trerben nuiffc, bejeid^neten ibre \unftnxrte alg fold^e

burd; ge^ciWtc Drbmmfl ber 2:eile; fie erleid^terten bem

bie Ginfid^t in bie S5erF;altnif[e burcfi Sinnmetrie, unb fo
ein iKilvicfelteg erf faftlidx Xurdi eben btefe 6\>iiunctrie

unb burd) eQenftellungcn univben in leifen 5I6rt>eic^ungen

bie

20 bod>ften
Tie Sorcjfalt ber ^unftler, man*
iloiitraftc moglicf).

nigfaltiiie ^JJaffen ocgcn einanber 511 fteKen, befcnberg bie (Sj=

tremitaten ber ^ibrper bei C^ru^pen gcflen einanber in eine

regelmafcifle Sac\e 511 briiuien, itar aufterft iiberlegt unb gliicf=

lief), fo baft ein jebeg MunftlDerf, tocnn man aucf) Don. bem Jn=
25 halt abftrafnert, tvciin man in ber (Sntfemung and) nur bie

aHflcmcinftcu llmriffe fiel)t, nod) immer bem 3(uge alg ein

^terat erfd>eint.
Tie alten 9>afcnflefcen ung f;unbert 33eU

f^iele einer fold)en anmutic^en ru^ierung, unb eg Uwrbe

bielleicf)t moglicf) fein, ftufennxife Don ber ruBigftcn SBafcn*
30 Qruppe Oig 511 ber F)od)ft betDe^ten beg ^aofoon bie fdbonften

33eif)3iele einer f^mmetrifd) fiinftlid)en, ben 2(ugen c^efalligen

3ufammenfel5uni3 barjulcgen. 3d? Qetraue mir ba^er

 6 (Soetfye.

u bafc bic
u>ieberf;olen :
ruppe be3 Saofoon, ncben
alien iibrigen anerfannten Skrbienften, &ugleid; ein DJtuftcr
fci bon Symmetric unb Don ^ftufye unb 53e=
2ftannigfaltigteit,
toegung, toon egenfatjen unb Stufengangen, bic fief) gufant;
men, teil3 finnlicb, teil3 geiftig, bcm ^Befebauer barbieten, bei 5

bem l;ol;en SpatboS ber $>orfteUung eine angenefyme @m^fin=

bung erregcn unb ben Sturm bcr Scibcn unb 2eibenfd)aft
burd; 3(nmut unb Scftonfyeit milbern.
@ ift ein grower SSortetl fur ein ^unftmcrl, roenn e^ felb=

ftanbig, tuenn e3 gefcr;loffen ift. Gin ru^iger egenftanb jeigt 10

fief) Wojj in feinem S)afcin; er ift alfo burcf) unb in fid; felbft

gefdjtfoffen. (Sin Jupiter mit einem Xonncrfcil im Sd)o^,

eine Juno, bie auf ibrer Wajeftat unb ^rauenfrnirbe rubt, eine
in fid) berfenfte ^ttncrba, finb ecjenftanbe, bie cjleid;fam nad)
aufien feine ^ejiebutui baben; fie ru^en auf unb in fief) unb 15

finb bie erftcn, licbftcn Wegcnftanbc ber ^Bilbbauerfunft.

5lber in bem fyerrlicftcn 3^ r ^ be^ m\)tl)ifef)en Munftfreife^,
in tt)elcf)em bie einjelnen fclbftanbigcn 9taturen ftef;en unb
ruben, cjibt e3 fleinere 3^f^/ ^ bie einjelnen GJeftaltcn in

^Bejuc^ auf anbere cjebacbt unb (\earbeitet finb. 3 um E^tit= 20

pel bie neun 5Kufen mit if)rem giif)rer 5fyoll, ift jebe fiir fid;

cjebad;t unb au^^efiibrt, aber in bem flanjen mannigfalti=

gen Qfyor h)irb fie noef) intereffanter. C^ef)t bie $unft jum
leibenfd)aftlicf) 53ebeutcnben iiber, fo fann fie h)ieber auf bie-
s
felbe lBeife ^anbeln: fie ftellt un^ entrtieber einen rei3 toon 25

C^eftalten bar, bieuntereinanber einen lcibenfd;aftlid;en 53e=

gug baben, mie 9?iobe mit if)ren ^linbern, berfolgt bon

unb )iana; ober fie jeigt un in einem 2Berfe bie

gugleid^ mit il)rer Urfacbe. 3Sir gebenfen f)ier nur be^ an=
mutigen ^naben, ber fief) ben >orn au^ bem 5u 6 e 5* e ^*/ ^ er 3<>

linger, jn^eier ruppen bon JVaunen unb ^r>mpf)en in

ben, unb ber betoegtcn berrlid;en (^ruppe be^ Saofoon.

 liber Caofoon. 7

$)ie S3ilbr;auertimft toirb mit 3ffed)t fo fyodj gefyalten, toeil

fie bie auf ifyren fyod^ften

2)arftettung ipfel bringen fann
unb mufj, toeil fie ben 9Kenfdben bon attem, toa3 ifym nicfyt
toefentlicb ift, entblbfct. So ift aucb bei biefer ruppe a o=
5 f o D n eirt blower ;ftame; toon feiner ^priefterfcbaft, bon feinem
trojanifcfy=nationellen, toon attem poetifcfyen unb mtytfyologU
fd;en ^Behcefen f)aben if;n bie SUmftler entfleibet; er ift nicfytS

toon atlem, ^0511 if>n bie Jvabel mad)!, eg ift ein Skater mit jmei

Sobnen, in Gkfafyr, gmei gefdbrlicf)en 2:ieren ^u unterliegen.

10 So finb aud) bier !eine gotter^efanbten, fonbern blofc natiir^

lic^e Scfilanc^en, mdcbtig Qenug, einige 5Renfd;en ju iiber*

ttwltigen, aber feine^n^e^, ^eber in ifyrer Weftalt nod)

lung, auf^erorbentlicbe, tcid^enbe, ftrafenbe 2Befen.
9tatur gemdfi fd)leicf)en fie f;eran, umfd;lingen, fd;niiren 511=

15 fammen, unb bie eine beijjt erft gereijt. SoHte ic^ biefe
toenu mir feine tx>eitere
!Deutung berfelben befannt
crllarcn, fo nriirbe id) fie eine tragifd)e JbtyUe nennen.
Gin ^Bater fd)Iief neben feinen beiben Sofjnen; fie tourben
toon Sd>langen umn?unben unb ftreben nun, ertoacbenb, fief)

20 au3 bem lebenbigcn 9Je^e lo^urei^en.

Slu^erft tuicbtig ift biefe^ AunftlDcrf burd) bie 2)arftellung
be 5)ioment^. 2Senn ein 2Ber! ber bilbenben ftunft fid) n?irf=

lic^ t>or bem Stuge ben)egen foil, fo mufc ein borubergef)enber

foment gen)df)It fein; furj border barf fein eil be^ GJanjen
25 fid) in biefer Sage befunben ^aben, fur nad)f;er mujj jeber
2^eil genbtigt fein, biefe 2age 511 berlaffen; baburd) iuirb ba^
2Ber! 5RiUionen 3(nfcbauern immer h)ieber neu lebenbig fein.
Um Jntention be3 fiaofoon red;t ju faffen, fteUe man
bie

fid; in gef)6riger Gntfernung mit gefd^Ioffenen Slugen bator;

30 man fie unb fd)liefje fie fogleicf) lticber, fo fairb man ben
offne

ganjen farmer in ^Betoegung fef;en, man voirb fiircbten, \v\-

bem man bie 3tugen voieber offnet, bie ganje ruppe beran*
8 (Boetlje.

bert $u finben. Jrf) mod;te fagen, toie fie jet baftefyt, ift fie

ein firjerter 53li, eine Svelte, berfteinert im Hugenblide, ba

fie gegen bag lifer anftromt. SMefelbe SBirfung entftefyt,
toenn man bie Gkuppe nad)tg bei ber Jacfel fiebt.

$er guftanb *> er b SiQuren ift mit ber fyocbften Seigtyeit 5

ftufentoeife bargeftellt: ber ciltefte obn ift nur an ben @r.-

tremitaten i^erftricft, ber 5n?eite bfter3 um^unben, befonber^

s
ift i^m bie $ruft jufammengefcfjnurt; burd) bie 33eft>eflum3

be^ redden 5lrmg fud>t

er fid) uft jit madden, mit ber Sinfen
brangt er fanft ben Mopf ber Sd^lan^e ^imicf, nm fie ab^u-- 10
s
fyalten, bafc fie nicf)t noc^ einen
ffihtfl ^ruft jief)e; urn bie

fie ift im s
^e(\riff, nnter ber $)anb tve^ufd^liipfen, f e i n e &

toegg a ber beifet fie. Der ^sater bin^e^en \v\il fic^

unb bie .Uinber biefen Umftrirfungen mit Wetoalt

t>on
befreien,
er pre^t bie anbere Scf^lange, unb biefe, flereijt, bei^t ibn in 15

bie .s)iifte.

Um bie Steltun^ beg ^aterg foitjobl im ganjen alg nad> alien

^Teilen beg ftbrperg 511 erfldren, fd^eint eg mir am t>orteilbaf=

teften, bag aiiQenblicfucfye WefiiW ber 3Bunbe alg bie aupt=

urfad^e ber c^anjen 33emec\ung anjugeben. ^Die d)(ange ^at 20
nicbt cjebiffen, fonbern fie beifct, unb ^var in ben faeitfen 2eil

beg ^lorperg, iiber unb ettoag binter ber iifte. ie SteHung

beg reftaurierten ilopfeg ber Scblange f;at ben eigentlicf^en

$Mfc nie redU an^egeben; 0liirflid>ern3eife baben ficb nocf) bie

9iefte ber beiben ^linnlaben an bem bintern Xeil ber 6tatue 25

erbalten. SSenn nur nicf)t biefe fyod;ft VoicfHigen 6v>uren bei

ber je^igen trauri^en ^Beranberung aucb berloren $eben! 2)ie

Sd>(anc3e bringt bem uncjlurflicben 9)fanne eine 2Bunbe an

bem eile bei, n)o ber 9)ienfd) gegen jeben 9?eij febr emfinb=
lid; ift, n?o fogar ein geringer ^i^el jene 33en?egung beri^cr- 30

bringt, ^eld)e n)ir fn er burcb bie SSunbe bettir!t feben: ber

er fliebt auf bie en^egengcfeWe Seite, ber ^?eib jiebt fid)
 fiber Caofoon. 9

ein, bie Scfyulter brancjt fief) fyerunter, bie SBruft ttitt Berber,
ber $opf fen!t fief) nacb ber beriibrten Seite; ba fief)
nun nocf)

in ben 5 u &eN, bie gefeffelt, unb in ben 5lrmen, bie ringenb

finb, ber tlberreft ber borbercjefyenben Situation ober anblung

5 $eia,t, fo entftebt eine ^ufammentoirfunQ ^ on treben unb
gliefyen, toon 2Birfen unb Seiben, toon 2Inftrencumg unb 9^ad;=

geben, bie bieUeid)t unter feiner anbern SBebincumcj moglicb

mare. Wan berliert fidb in rftaunen iiber bie SBei^cit ber
$im[tler, tvenn man berfucbt, ben 33ifc an einer anbern <teHe

10 anjubringen; bie cjanje Gkbiirbe iDiirbe beranbert fein, unb

auf feine SBeife ift fie fcbicflicber benflicb. @g ift alfo biefeS
ein auptfa^: ber ^iinftler bat unS eine finnlicf)e

barc^eftedt, er jeic^t un3 auc^ bie finnlicbe Urfad^e.

^unft be3 Siffe^, irfi h)ieberbole e^, beftimmt bie gefl

15 ti^en 5ku)ecumc\en ber (^(ieber: bag ^lieben be3 llnter!6r^er,

ba (Sinjieben be^ eibe3, bag .C^erborftreben ber ^Bruft, bag
Dtteberjudfen ber 5(d>fel
unb beg .ftaupteg, ja atle bie Quqt beg
3In(^eficf>tg fef) icb burcb biefen aiuienblicflicben, fcfimerjlicben,
uner^uarteten Wei$ entfcfneben.
20 gern aber fei eg Don mir, bafe id; bie Ginbeit ber menfcb=

lid)en 9?atur trennen, baf5 icf) ben $eifti$en ^Irdften biefeg

^errlic^) $ebilbeten 5)ianneg if;r 93iitrt)irfen ableugnen, baft id;

bag Streben unb eiben einer flrofeen 5?atur berfennen follte.

3lngft, 5urcf)t, @d)recfen, i)d terlicf>e -iReiQung fd^einen aucf) mir

25 fief) buref) biefe 2(bern ju betoegen, in biefer 33ruft auf^ufteigen,

auf biefer Stirn ficfy ju furcf)en; cjern cjeftef) icf), baft mit bem
auc^ bag geifticje Seiben auf ber F)5d)ften Stufe bar-
finnlicf)en

geftedt fei ;
nur iibertrage man bie 2Bir!uncj, bie bag 5lunft=
trier! auf ung maef)t, nicf)t ju leb^aft auf bag 9Berf felbft, be=
30 fonberg fef>e
man feine SSirfuncj beg (Siftg bet einem $brper,
ben erft im 5luc^enbliete bie 3^^^ ber Sef)lanc^e er^reifen; man
fetye fetnen STobegfampf bei einem fyerrlicfyen, ftrcbenben, gefun=
10 (Soetfye.

ben, !aum bertounbeten $orper. ier fei mir einc 33emer!ung

erlaubt, bie fur bie bilbenbe $unft fcon SBicfytigfeit ift: bet

fyod)fte patfyetifcbe Slugbrudf, ben fie barftetten tann, fcfytoebt

auf bem Ubera,ana,e eineg 3 u ftan ^ eg * n ^ en flnbern. -IRan

fefye ein lebbafteg inb, bag mit aUer @nergie unb Suft beg 5

ebeng rcnnt, fyrinctf unb fid; er$dt, bann aber etrta unt)er=

fyofft t>on cincm Wcfpiclcn l;art getroffen ober fonft

ober moralifd) (>efti^ tocrle^t ir>irb; biefe neue
teilt ficfi \v\t ein eleftrifd^er Bd^Iac^ alien Wlicbern mit; unb ein

folder llbcrf^rung ift im ^ochftcn Sinne ^atbetifcf^ e ift ein 10

GJcflcnfa^, toon bem man obnc rfa^runfl feinen 53ec\riff bat.

ier ^irft nun offenbar ber fleiftic^e foiuo^I al ber

5)?enfd). 53leibt alSbann bei cincm fold)en

bie beuttid>e
6pur bom borber^ebenben ^^f^inbe, fo entfteF)t
ber hcrrlidtftc Wcgcnftanb fiir bie bilbenbe .Uunft, n)ic beim 15

Saofoon ber J-all ift, iuo Streben unb Seiben in cincm

Stuflcnblicf toereinic\t finb. 60 iuiirbe jum 5^eifpiel (Sur^bice,
bie im S33ioment, ba fie mit gcfammcltcn tinmen froblid) iiber
bie SSiefe c^ebt, toon einer c^etretenen Sd>Ianfle in bie 3 er fe

gebiffen h)irb, cine fefyr patbetifd^e Statue madf^en, n>enn nicbt 20

allein burcb bie berabfallenben 53lumcn, fonbern burd) bie

SWtung aller lieber unb bag d)ft>anfen

ber fatten ber

boppelte ^uftanb beg frobltd^en 5>orfd)reiteng unb beg fcbmer^

Iidl)en 2InbaIteng aug^ebriidt faerben fonntc.
2Benn ^m r nun bie .sjauptficuir in biefem Sinne a,efajjt 25

fjaben, fo fonnen fair auf bie Sfterfyaltniffe, 3(bftufunc^en unb

e$enftit}e fdmtlicf)er Xeile beg flanjen 2Berfeg mit cinem

freien unb fid;ern 35(icfe F;infel;en.

^)er getoafylte GJec^enftanb ift einer ber aJUidlicfyften, bie fid^

benfen laffen.9J?enfcben mit c^efabrlidien Xieren im $ampfe, 30

unb jn)ar mit ^ieren, bie nid^t alg 5Raffen ober OJevoalten.
fonbern alg augo^eteilte Slrafte icirfen, nid^t Don c i n c r Seite
 liber ao!oon. 11

broken, nicfyt cinen ^ufammengefafsten 2Biberftanb forbern,

fonbern bic nad) ifyrer auggebefynten Drganifation fdfyig finb,

brei 5Renfrf)en mefyr ober faeniger ofyne 33erleung gu parah)=

fieren. S)urd; biefe3 Wlittd ber Safymung toirb, bei ber groj^en

5 23ett)egung, iiber ba anjc fcbon eine getoiffe 9hibe unb @in=

^eit Derbrettet. X>ie
2Birfuncjen ber Ecf^ati^en finb ftufen=

rt>eife angec^eben. 2)ie eine utnfd^Itngt mtr, bie anbere ii)ivb

gerei^t nnb berle^t if;ren Wegner.

2)ie brei 5Renfdben finb gleidifaHg nuf^crft tueifc geiuablt.
10 @in ftarfer, n?oblgebauter IDinnn, abr fdion iiber bie ^sabre ber

grof^ten Gnergie fyinauS, Voeniger fabig, 6rf>nierj

unb eiben

^u h)ibcrftcf;en. 5Jian benfe fid) an feiner Statt einen ritftigen

Bungling, unb bie Wruppc toirb ibren ganjen 51l*ert t?erlieren.

W\t if;m leiben ^wei .^naben, bie, fetbft bem ^?af\e nacb, c\egen
15 if)n flein gef;alten finb; abermal3 ^uei 9iaturen, em^fringlid)
fur <Sd)mer$.
^er jiingere ftrebt unnmd^tig, er ift geangftigt,
aber nid)t terlel5t; ber Skater ftret^t mncfttifl, aber unanrlfam,

bielmeT;r bringt fein Strebcn bie entgegengefeUte 3^irfung

fyerfcor. @r reijt feinen Wegner unb mirb bermunbet. Xer
20 altefte Sobn ift am leid>teften fcerftricft; er fiiblt rveber 53e=

Remmung nod; Sdbmerj; er erfcfu icft iiber bie augenblidlid>e

SSerrtJunbung unb ^eluecumg feine^ Water s, er fd^reit auf, in=

bem er ba Sd)langenenbe toon bem einen 5v u 6^ abjuftreifen

fucf)t; F;ier ift alfo nod) ein SBeobacbter, 3 eu ^ c un ^ ^Teilnebmer
25 bei ber ^Tat, unb ba 9Ber! ift abgefcf>lof(en.

2Ba3 id; fcf>on

im 2>orbeigeben beriibrt babe, ruiH icf) bier

nod; befonber3 bemerl en: bafi ade brei Jyiguren eine bo^pelte
^anblung aufiern, unb fo f;od;ft mannigfaltig befdniftigt

finb. 2)er jiingfte SoF;n nMtl fid) burd; (Sr(?ol;iing be^ red;ten
30 2(rmg 2uft madden unb brangt mit ber Iin!en ben Ko^f >anb

ber Scblange jurucf; er h)iH fid; ba^ ftegentoartige libel er=

leidf)tern unb ba groove Derbinbern ber f;od;fte C^Jrab bon
12 (Soetfye.

Xatigfeit, ber ibm in fciner gefancjenen Sage nod) iibrig bleibt.

)er &ater ftrebt, fieb Don ben Seblangen lo^utoinben, unb
ber ftorper fliebt sugleieb Dor bem augenblieflicben 53iffe. 2)er

altcfte Sofyn cntfeftt fief) Dor ber 5kH)ecuing be 3>ater3 unb

fud)t fid; Don ber leiebt umhnnbenben Seblancje 511 befreien. 5

Gcfyon oben ift ber Wtpfel be Dorc\efte(Iten Slugenblic!^ al^

ein grower ^orjug biefe^ ^unfttoertd gerii^mt, unb fner ift

nod; bcfonber^ baDon 511 fpred;en.

SSir na^men an, baft natiirltcfce Scf^Iangen einen SSater
init feinen Sobnen im Scblaf umiuunbcn, bamit ^ir bei 33e= 10

trad>tung ber 93Jomente eine Steigerung Dor un faF)en. $)ie

erften 5(ugenblide be llnninnben^ im Gcblafe finb abnungg=

Doll, aber fiir bie .Uunft nnbebeutenb. 93lan fonnte DieQeid^t
einen fd;lafcnben junflcn oerfule^ bilben, . ^Die er Don Sd)tangen
umtininben unrb, beffen Weftalt unb S^uFje un aber ^eigte, 15

\va$ ir>ir Don feinem (5rtr>acf>en

511 ermarten batten.
Weben trtr nun n^eiter unb benfen un ben 5sater, ber fid;

mtt feinen Minbern, e^ fci nun, tuie e fei, Don Scblangen um=
iDitnbcn fitblt, fo cu bt e^ nur einen foment be bod;ften

Jntereffe: tDcnn ber eine ftorper burcf) bie Umftinbung n)ef;r- 20

lo^ gcmad>t ift, n?cnn ber anbcre j\Dar toefyrfyaft aber Derle^t

ift, unb bem brittcn eine .^offnung jur ^hubt iibrig bleibt.
^n bem erften JaMe ift ber jiingere 6o(m, im jn^eiten ber
Skater, im britten ber altere Sobn. 5Ran Derfud;e nodf) einen
anbcrn ^a(( 511 finben, man fuc^e bie Gotten anberg, al fie 25

fyier au^c3eteilt finb, 511 Derteilen!

benfen n)ir nun bie .^anblung Dom 5lnfang F^erauf unb er*

fennen, baft fie gegenn)drtig auf bem ^unft fte^t, fo

bod;ften
luerben n)ir, n)enn tDir bie nad^ftfolgenben unb fernern 93?o=
mente bebenfen, fogleid; gevoabr U)erben, baft fief) bie gan^e 30

OJru^pe Deranbern muft, unb baft tein 9(ugenblicf gefunben

iucTben faun, ber biefem an Munftmert gleid; fei.
er jiingfte
 Uber Caofoon. 13

Sofyn ftrirb enttoeber toon ber umfainbcnben Scfylange erfticft

ober, toenn er fie rei^en foftte, in feinem fcottig fyilflofen $u=

ftanbe nod) gebijfen. 33eibe Jyalle finb unertrdglid), toctl fie

em SettfeS finb, ba nicfyt bargcftcflt merben foil. 2Ba ben

5 SBater betrifft, fo toirb er enttocber toon ber Sd)Iange noc^ an
anbern Xeilen gebiffen, Ujoburcf) bie ganje Sage fcine^ ^orper
fid; beranbern mu, unb bie ben 3ufd)auer,
erftcn 53iffe fiir
rtjcnu fie nicf)t fcerloren ge^en borf), n^cnn fie ange^eigt n^erben
fodten, ef el^>aft fein unirben ober bie Scblange !ann and; fief)
;

10 umh)enben unb ben alteften 6of)n anf alien; bicfer toirb al&
bann auf fid? felbft jurucfgefiibrt, bie SBegeben^cit fcerliert ihrcn

Xeilnefjmer, ber Ic^te <d>em bon .Coffining ift au ber ruppe

toerfc^munbcn, e^ ift fcine tragtfdic, e ift eine graufame ^sor=

ftetlung. 2)er SSater, ber jet in feiner &wfc unb in feinem

15 Seiben auf fief) rufyt, miif^te fief) gcgcn ben Sofyn tt>enbcn, cr

toiirbe teilnebmenbe ^tebenfigur.

2)er ^llenfd^ l)at bci eignen unb frcmben Seibcn nur brei
(Smpfinbungcn :
^yuref^, Scfircdfen unb llittlciben, ba bange
SSoraufcI)en cities fid) anndbernben llbcl^, ba uncrvrartete
20 en)af)riuerben gcgentr>artigen 2eibcn3 unb bie Xeilnabmc am
bauernben ober bctgangcnen; allc brci faerben buref>
biefe

^unftroer! bargeftellt unb crregt, unb ^t>ar

in ben gef>origftcn

5lbftufungen.
2)ie bilbcnbe $unft, bie immer fiir ben 5Jioment arbeitet,
25 n)trb r fobalb fie eincn patbctifd)en Wegenftanb tDdblt, ben=

jenigen ergreifen, ber Sd)recfen crtoecft, bal;ingegcn focfie fief)

an folefye fjalt, bie 5urcf)t unb -Bfatleibcn crregen. 35ci ber

ruppe be Saofoon
erregt Seiben beg 35ater3 Sd;recfen ba ;

unb $vaic im f)dcf)ften rab, an i^m bat bie 33ilbf)auerfunft

30 i^r def)fte3 getan ;
aHein teil^ um ben $irfel aller menfd;Ucf)en

mpfinbungen ju buref)laufen, teil um ben fyeftigen inbrucf

be Se^redteng 311 milbern, erregt fie ^Ritleiben fiir ben
14 (Soetfye.

be3 jiingern SofmS, imb gurdbt fiir ben altern, inbem fie fiir

biefen and? nod) offnung iibrig lafct. So brad)ten bie Sliinfts

Icr burcfy 9ftannigfaltigfeit cin getoiffeS @leid?0en)icbt in ifyre

2(rbeit, milberten unb crbobten 2Birtung burcfy 2Birfungen

unb bollenbeten fofaobl ein $eifticie3 al3 ein finnlickS an^e. 5

GJemtQ, fair biirfen fiihnlicf) bcF)aupten, ba{^ biefe^ $unft=

feincn Gkgenftanb erfd;opfe unb allc ^lunftbcbingnngcn
erfiille. @3 Ic^>rt un^, ba^ n)enn ber 5Rcifter fein

uF;i^en nnb cinfac^cn (yeoenftanben eim

flof^cn fann, fid; bod) eigentlid; ba^felbe in feiner ^6d)ften 10

ncrc^ie unb 2Bitrbc scige, tocnn e^ bet SMlbung mannigfaltiger

Gbaraftcre feine 5lraft be^eift unb bie (cibenfdmftlid)en
briid>e ber menfdilid^en ^atur in ber ftunftna$a$mung
unb ju banbigen berftebt. 3Bir flcben in ber
eine genauere ^Bcfcbreibun^ ber Statuen, toelcfye unter 15

bcm Xiamen ber J-amilie ber 9iiobe befannt finb, fottie and;
ber GJru^pc be3 garnefifd^en Stierg; fie g^ r cn unter bie

u?eniflcn patf)etifcben XarftcIIun^en, ti)eld;e un^ Don alter

S!ulptur iibrig (^eblieben finb.

baben fid^ bie Dteuern bet ber 2Bafyl folder 20
bergriffen. 2Senn 5RiIo, mit beiben anben in
ciner 53aumfpalte {^efangcn, ton einem ^on?en angefallcn
h)irb, fo toirb bie ^unft fid) Dcrc^cben^ bemuben, baraug ein
3Ber! ^u bilben, ba^ eine reine 2eilna^me erregen fbnnte.
(Sin boppelter Scfjmerj, eine bergeblicfte Slnftren^ung, ein f)ilf= 25

lofer 3 u ftan ^ e^ n flctDtffer ilnterc^an^ fonnen nur 2Ibfcf>eu

errcgen, tocnn fie nicf>t

ganj fait laffen.

Unb jule^t nur nocf) ein 2Sort iiber ba^ 58erf)dltnig beg
s
egenftanbeS jur $oefie.
^3Kan ift bocbft unoered^t 0egen S5ir{\il unb bie ^id)t!unft, 30

incnn man ba3 c^efcbloffenfte 5Reiftern?cr! ber 33ilbfyauerarbeit

mit ber epifobifc^en 33e^anblung in ber 5lnei3 aucf) nur eintn

 Uber aofoon. 15

5lugenblicl bergleicfyt. )a einmal ber unglucflidje bertriebene

5lnea3 felbft er^dfylen foil, ba er unb feine anbleute bie un=
toerjeifylicfye ^orfyeit begangen fyaben, bag befannte ^3ferb in
ifyre Stabt ju fiifyren, fo mu^ ber 2)id)ter nur barauf ben!en,
5 trie bie anblung ju entfc^ulbigen fei. $Uk$ ift aucf) barauf
angelegt, unb bie efcf)i(f)te be3 Saofoon ftef)t ^)ier al^ ein

rfyetorifcfyeS Slrgument, bei bem eine llbertreibung, n?enn fie

nur stoecfmtijiig ift, gar njo^I gcbilligt toerben !ann. 60

fommen ungeF>eure <Sd)langen
au^ bem DDJeere, mit $ammen
10
auf bem aupte, eilen auf bie Minbcr be^ ^priefterg, ber ba
$ferb berle^t fyatte, ummicfeln fie, beiften fie, begeifern fie;
umhjinbcn unb umfc^Iingen barauf S3ruft unb al be su

ilfe eilenben SSater^ unb ragen mit ifyren ^opfen trium=

pfyierenb I)orf; empor, inbem bcr llnglucflicbe unter if>ren 2Bin=

15 bungen bergcbcng urn ilfe fcfireit. as> ^Bolf entfe^t firf)

unb fliefyt beim Slnblicf; niemanb Voagt e3 meE;r, ein patriot

ju fein; unb ber 3nf;orcr burcb /

bie abenteucrlicbe unb e!elbafte

efrfjic^te erfcfyrecft, gibt benn auc^ gern ^u, ba^ ba^ $ferb
in bie Stabt gebrarf)t tuerbe.
20 60 ftefyt alfo bie efdn cbte 2aofoon3 im 3>irgil blof^ al^
ein 9ftittel ju einem F)5F;crn ^n^cfe, unb e^ ift nod; eine grofce
grage, ob bie Segebenfyeit an fid; ein poetifc^er egenftanb fei.
 a o f o o n:
ober

uber fcie

t>er

TfOzro/$

A3. nara H. fl *ara 2.

beptauftgen grlduterungen
toccfdjietcner

ter altcn ^u
con

ottfyolD

23 c r I i
n,
 <eite

Sorrebe. 2ftalerei unb

^oefte
bei ben Stltcn : 2U)nlicf)feit ber
28irfnng, il>erjd)iebeitf)eit in ben (Segenftiinben unb in ber 5lrt
bcr sJiad)al)inung Don ben Jlnnftrid)tern erfannt. 33ei ben
9?eiteren ftnb bie renjen ber beiben ftimftgattmtgen oerunfdjt :

@d)ilberungfud)t in ber ^oefte, xUUegorifterei in ber 2)?alerei 23

I. SBinrfelmannS ^ennseicfymutg ber gried)ifrf)en2Mfhrtt)erfe in

ber 2ftalerei unb 33ilbl)auerfimft : ber sKnbritcf jeige bei alien

eibenfd)aften eine grofte eeele; faofoon fd)reie nidjt, ie bei

Virgil, fonbern er leibe tuie be eopl)ofle ^fjilottet. SBie

teibet btefer? @djreien unb SSetnen gatten ntdit bei ben rie*

(^en unmannlid), uiofyl aber bei ben uorbifd)en 33arbaren.

fiir
SBenn ber ?aofoon ber @tatue nidjt fc^reit, fo ^at bie etnen
anberen runb, ats baft @d)reien nid)t mit einer grofjen Secle
Dertrdgttd) ift
26
II. 3)iefer runb ift ttie(mef)r ber, baft etn jdjreienbcs @eftd)t
nid)t jc^on ift. 33ei ben kitten tuar <Sc^bnl)eit bad l)od)fte e=

fe^ ber bilbenben tfiinfte. 33erbot ber ^arifatur. 33efd)ranfung

ber ^ortrdtmalerei.
2)a
2)ie 5l(ten tjabcn nie eine fyme gebilbet.

d)reien be8 Saofoon in @eufjen gemilbert ...

unb 5lubru(f
31
III. Seitere renjen ber neneren fiunfl :
SSaI)r^eit
i^r erfteS efe^j. )ennod) ift bem ^tiinftler geboten, 2ftaft 311

fatten ;
er faun nur etnen einjigen Jdtgenbticf barftellen, btefer
fann nid)t frndjtbar genng geumtjlt trerben nub barf nicfjts
auSbritcfen, iua ftd) ntd)t anberS al tranfttortfd) benfen Idftt 36
IV. Der 3)id)ter ifl nid)t anf fbrperltd)e ed)bnl)cit befd)rdnft. S3ei
bem ?aofoon iirgils faflt e ntemanb etn, baft jnm @d)reien
ein weitgebffneter 9}iunb nbtig fei. Center nbtigt ben
nidjts, fein emdtbe in einen einjtgen 5lugenbli(f gu
trieren. 2)a8felbe uon bem bramatifdjen 1)id)ter.
gilt and)
33eifpiel be 3bee be8 fbrperUc^en @d)meqe8
bie
^iloftet:
ttntnberbar Derftdrft unb ertueitert, mit anbern Ubeht derbunben,
fobaft ber db feine babei betuafyrt (bie 3tb=
moralifc^e (Srbfte
ftd)tber tragtfd)en 33ii^ne ift iibertiaupt nid^t bie ber rbmifdjen
5lrena) bcr (Stnbrncf be8 t^reienS anf bie ^ebenperfonen tm
@titcf duftevt fid) nid)t nnr tn STcitletb, fonbern beftimmt ifyr
35erl)aiten bem ^elbcn gegeniiber. 3}liftgriffe be8 S^ateaubrun 39
1
Ditfe 3n^alt3an0abc ift nid^t on Ceffing.
19
20 efftng.
Seitt
V. Uber ba8 2>ed)altni8 ber ruppe gum $irgtlifd)en aofoon.
2)ie 23tlbl)auer finb nidjt ber alteren Irabition gefolgt, fonbern

ftellen bic rnppe tualjrjdjetnlid) ber ^irgiltfdjen ^djilberung

rntfpredjenb bar, iljre Xbtuetdjungeii bauon laffcu fid) au fiinft*
lerifdjen riinben evfliiten 50
VI. efefct ben ber 2)id)ter Ijabe ben 23ttbf)auern nadjgeafjmt,
^afl,
fo Ijatte er jeben 3 U beffen (id) biefe bebienten, betbetjalten
9>

fonnen. 2)ic8 fyat cr nidjt getan unb feine 5lbtDeid)nngen

ludren and) fonft nod) unerHarlidj 58
VII. G8 gibt jtueiertei 9cad)al)nuinn : entiveber ber 3)td)ter be=
^anbelt benfelben egenftanb wte ber bilbenbe ^iinftter unb bleibt
Original; ober er afymt befj en 5lrt unb il eife nad) nnb ift ^lopifl.
93ei ooUFommener Criginaiitdt fonnen aber 5)id)ter unb &iinft=
ler in ber
^eljanbfnng be^jetben @egonftanbe^ mel)r ober tuenigcr
uberetnftimmen nnb fic^ lufdjfel^iucife erld ntern. S8 ift jebo(^
ein fteljter, o^ne njettereS air,nne()inen, etn 3)id)ter t)abe in
feiner ^d)ilbentng bieje Statue ober jeneS entdlbe im 5Uigc

geljabt. Xiefen geljler beget)! epence in feinem ^olt)inett . 63

VIII. ^erfd)tebenl)etten in ber 2?e{)anblitng be^felben egenftanbe
bet 1)id)tern nnb ^iinftlern, bte beni pence unerftarlidj blriben ;

IX.
5. 33.

l^er ^iinflter
33acd)it init

ift
-Vornern nnb etne ergiirnte 5>ennS lommen
bei Xtdjtern uor, in ^nnftiuerfen aber nidjt

md)t tininer fret t>on

....
anfjerHdjem 3 llian 9-
69

Gin fold)er 3 luan tt)ar J 33- i c 9u ligion. Sin <titcf

ift nut
bann ein $nnfhuerf ju nennen, ttjcnn ber tfiinftler e5 burtf)au8

frei geftaltet ^at. @onftige 3rrtihner bed epence . . 74

X. (gpence ttiunbert ftd) baritber, bafi bie alten 3)id)ter bte 2)Jnfen
nnb perfonifaterte ibftrafta niema(8 fo bejdjrteben Ijaben, tt)ie
fie anf ben SBilbern ber ^itnftter 511 fefyen ftnb. 3n ber ftttnfi
brandjen moralifc^e SBefen etnnbilber, uin fennt(td) 511 tuevben,
in ber ^oefte ftnb fte e bnrd) il)ren tauten unb itjre $anb=
Untgen. 2)er 2)id)ter fott ba()er feine ^iguren nid^t mtt ben
innbitbttn ansjieren, bie ber ^liutft ein 9cotbe()elf ftnb ; bod)
gibt es allerbingS fold)e, bte er gebrancfyen faun, namlid) fo(d)e,
bie a!8 SBetfjenfle 311 betradjten ftnb 79
XI. 2Ste @pence, fo fdjeint and) (^raf <5at)ht$ 511 irren. 6r empfiel)tt
bem ^nnftler bie 9?ad)a^nmng Comers nnb gibt etne 9ietf)e
uon emd lben an8 il)in an. 33ortetl beS ^itnftler?, inbem er
fotc^e befannte egcnftdnbe beljanbelt 83
XII. 9(ber joiner bearbettet nnftd)tbare fomotjl a(S ftdjtbare Sefen
nnb panblnngen, in ber 9D?a(erei ift alleS ftd)tbar unb anf
v

etnerlet 2Krt ftdjtbar. Urn Unftc^tbateS anjnbenten, bebtent ftd)

 aofoon. 21
(Seite
bic Sftaferei finer biiniien SSolf e, bic au8 Bonier fetbft ent*

letjnt jit fein fd)eint. 33ei bem 2)id)ter aber ift baGiinfyuHen
in 9?ad)t iinb Jtebel lueiter nidjts, als einc poetijdje 9teben
art filr llnfid)tbarmad)en ; eine luirflidje SBolfe 511 biefem
Recife in einem ema lbe anbringen, fyeijjt an8 ben renjen
bcr 9Jto(erei I)eran8gel)en 89
XIII. S)te Don (at)lnS angegebenen (Semcitbe umrben feinen S3f*

griff uon
2)td)ter
XIV. Xte
omertf molerijd)em Xatente gcben.
ift 2lrmut be
5Keirf)tum
emiilbe^, unb umgefe^rt
ben 2)kler
...
fein ^robierftein fiir
be
94
55raud)barfeit fiir ift

ben 2)id)tfr. 2)iilton8 2>ertoreneS ^arabic bleibt baS erfte

GpoS nad) tro^bem e8
iponter, arm an 23oninirfen 511 mate-
riellen cmdlbcn ift; unb bie eibenc<nefd)id)te (S^rifti ift beS=

luegen nod) fein <)$ocm,

tt)et( fte eine 9JJenge ber grofjten 5lrttften

bejdjaftigt l)at 97
XV. 3)a8 ouierifd)f emtilbe uom d)iif|"e
bcS ^anbariid ift nn-
brandjbar fiir ben Staler, lueil e^ eine fortfdjrettenbe $>anbtung

entt)iilt 99
XVI. Sorpcru, bie ^oefie mit Apanb=
2)ie ^Ui aleret befafjt ftd) ntit

htngen ; bie 2)?alerei fann and) ^anblnngen nadja^men, aber

nur anbentitng^uieife bnrd) Aiirper ; bie ^oefie fann and)
ft brper fd)ilbent, aber nnr anbentnng^uieife bnrd) anblnngen.
s
5)ie SLUalerei iua ()lt ben prdgnanteften Xngenbiitf, an tue(d)em
ba ^or()ergel)enbf nub ba^ 5^8 en ^ e am begreiflid)ften finb ;
bie ^oefie nn^t fine ein^ige C5igenfd)aft ber $orper bal)er
bie 9iege( don ber Ginljcit ber materifdjen 53eiiubrter. joiner
malt nid)t al fortfdjreitenbe ^anblnngen, fiir e i n 2)ing ^at
er ge\uot)ii(id) nnr einen 3
U P i er befdjreibt, iiibem er ^an*
be(n la jjt. (Srempet: 3nno SBagen, 3Igamemnon 53ef(eibung
nnb cepter, ber Sogen be S
^anbarn8 101
XVII. >ie
5 irf)
en oer ^Poefte ftnb toillfiirlid) nnb faljig, ^torper,
tuie fie im SRauute eriftieren, auSjitbrudfu, inbem bie d)ilbe=
rung bie Xetle berjelben folgen Idyt. anfetnanber
abnrd)
getangt man aber md)t gu bem 23egriff eine anjen. Srem=
pet anS ^>aller ?t(pen. lid)flen3 ber bibaftifdje 2)id)ter barf
forperlid)e egenftdnbe fcf)ifbern, anf ba Xcinfd)enbe fommt
e bei il)mnid)t an. S3eifpiel be SJirgil. liber bie @d)i(=
bernng8jnd)t in ber ^eitgenbjfifdjen ^oefte 107
XVIII. Settfolge ift ba
2)ie ebiet be 3)ici)ter8; ber SRaum,
ba ebtet be 9Ra(er9. 5)er Skater fann jtuar bnrd) geeig=
nete ^nnftgriffe jtuei uerfd)iebene Stiuienblicfe in einen ein^igen

jujammenbringen ; ebenfo oermag ber 3)ic!)ter juiueiten me^r

22 Cefftng.
Stitt
al8 fine (Sigenjdjaft eineS DingeS 311 beriiljren. 2BIU Corner
aber ben d)ilb be8 2ld)iUc8 befd)reiben, jo Idfet er ifyn Dor
unjereu 5lna.en entftefjen. Virgil tueidjt Don ber omertfd)en
SSeife ab, ba cr ben @d)ilb be$ &nea8 al3 fertig befdjreibt . 113

XIX. Senn man ben d)i(b beS $td)ille8 nad) Comers 33f

fdjretbung rctouftriiiereu out!, inujj man nid)t anfoer ad)t taffen,

ba^ joiner narf) jeiner, b. I), nad) bid)tertjd)er 5trt bejc^reibt ;
tua ifym ein etn^igeS 33ilb ift, luiirbe in ber 2Jia!eret sroei
bet
bis brei befonbere 53ilber geben. Ubertjanpt l)at Bonier nic^t
ineljr a( jel)n uerfd)iebene ema tbe auf bem ganjen @t^itbe 12C

XX. joiner anf bie umftdnblidje ^djilbentng fbrperlid)er

ld(jt ftd)

@d)b n^ettfn nirgcnbd ein. 3lnber3 ^onftantinnS si)Jana(fe8 unb

^Irioft. 2)e8 le^teren JBejdjreibung jeiner Sllciua, oon Dolce
betuunbert, ift ein SBeifpiel oon bem, rt)a8 einem 2)ic^ter un^
mog(id) gelingen faint. Virgil befdjretbt ntdjt feine 3)ibo,
jonbern itjren prd d)ttgen 9Inf$ng ; 3lnafreon gibt ber @d)ilbe*
rung feine 3)?dbd)en9 eine gliicfltd)e Senbung, inbemjpr einem
2)ialer teilttmje uorfd)reibt, njie er fte malen jolt. VlljnUd^eS
bei ^itctaii 124

XXI. joiner Icif^t bie au8 i^ren Stvfintflen erfennen.

<2>djonf)eit

(Sin anberer 3Seg, ber jit bemjelben j&itlt fitljrt, ift, bie ^d)bn-
^eit in 5Reij ju Oenuanbeln. $Rei^ ift djon^eit in iBeiuegung.
iBeifpiele bet
s
<>lrioft
unb Hnafreon 132

XXII. 2)ie alten ^iinftter tunrben anberS, af8 eS Sat)(n8 toifl,

burd) joiner angeregt. Satjlud ^orfdjtag ^n einem emtilbe

s
ber ^etena tor ben ?llten Xroja. 2)ie }Uten afymten bie
9iatnr bnrd) ben joiner nad), aber fte fopiertett nid)t bie 53ilber
be8 2)id)ter . . 135
XXIII. ?tnd) ba6 ^dfjltdje
ttJit^te Apomer ju uerroerten, urn bie
uermifd)ten Smpftnbnngen be3 ?dd)i vlid)en unb be3
i

i^redf
li^en tjeruoi^nbringen nnb 311 uerftarfen. X^erftteS. Um
Idcfjerltd) ju ^d^Ud)fett nnfdjdbltd) feitt :
tt)irfen, nuij? bie

5?ontraft jiuijd)en bem 33aftarb im ^bitig ?ear nnb Ottdjarb III. 140
XXIV. Die 2ttalerei, al jdjbne ^nnjl, null bie dfe(id^feit nidjt
ait^briicfen 144

XXV. 35a etetbafte, a(8 l)bt)erer rab be8 ^dfjltdjen, fann in

s
ber ba6 ^ddjedidje nermel)ren ober ^orftellniigeit ber
^oefie
SBiirbe, be ^nflanbeS, bnrd) ^ontraft lad)er(id) mad)en. ^od^
inniger fann fid) ba3 (ffeltjafte mtt bem @d)rerfltd)en oer*
tntid)en. 3n ber 2Jtalerei ift ba (Sfel^afte unertrdgtic^ . 147
 Dorrebc.

$)er erfte, metier bie 9Jtaleret unb ^Soefie miteinanber toer=

glicfy, tear em 9JIann toon feinem efiifyle, bcr toon beiben

$iinften eine afynlick 3Birfung auf fid; toertyiirte. SBeibe,

cmpfanb un3 abtoefenbe 3Mnge ale gegentoartig, ben

er, ftetten

5 Sd)ein al3 2iUrfliefyfeit bor; beibe taufcfjen, unb beiber

fd;ung flefallt.

@in jtoeiter fud;tc in ba^ 5 nn r^ ^^f^ efaHen

bringen, unb entberfte, ba^ e bei beiben au3 einerlei CueHe
pie^e. X)ie dbonbeit, beren Segriff n?ir ^uerft bon for^)er=
10
Ud;en egenftanben ab^iefyen, F;at allgemeine ^Hegeln, bie fid)

auf mefyrere ^)inge anmenben laffen; auf ^anblungen, auf

ebanfen fotoofyl al^ auf ^ormen.
(Sin britter, Voelcf)er iiber ben SBert unb iiber bie SSerteilung

biefer aUgemeinen ^Hegeln nacbbacbte, bemerfte, ba^ einige

15 mef)r in ber 5Ralerei, anbere mefjr in ber ^oefie berrfcbten;

bafe alfo bei biefen bie ^oefie ber IRalerei, bei jenen bie 5Ka-
lerei ber $oefie mit drlciuterungen unb SBeifpielen au^elfen
fonne.
2)a erfte tear ber
Sieb^ajbejr,
ba ^n)eite ber ^tyjIofopF), ba
20 britte ber $unftrid)ter.

Sene beiben fonnten nid;t leic^t, ^eber toon ibrem efiifyl,

nod^ toon i^ren 6chliiffen, einen unred^ten ebraud) macben.

ingegen bei ben Semerfungen be ^unftric^ter^ beritfyt ba^
meifte in ber 9f?id)tigfeit ber 2lntt>enbung auf ben einjelnen
25 5 a ^^ un ^ & ft&w tin SSunber, ba e gegen einen fc^arffinnU
gen ^unftrie^ter funf^ig mi^ige gegeben f)at, n?enn biefe 5ln-
^toenbung jeberjeit mit aUer ber S5orfid)t n)dre gemac^t toorben,
23
24

toelcfye bie SBage jhrifcfyen beiben $iinften gleicf) erfyalten mufj.

gaFB 2lpette3 unb ^kotogeneS, in ifyren berlornen Sdjjriften

bon ber ;JRalerei, bie 9?egeFn berfelben burcfy bie bereitg fefk

gefe^ten Sfogeln ber $oefie beftatigt unb erlautert F>aben, fo

barf man fid)erlicf) gFauben, baft e mit ber ^Ra ^igung unb G)e= 5

nauictfeit n?irb gefcf)e^en fein, mit toelcfyer mir nod; je^t ben

2lriftotele, Gicero, oraj, Duintilian, in if;ren SSerfen, bie

runbfa^e unb rfafyrungen ber ^Jialerei auf bie SBerebfam*

leit unb ^)icf)tlunft ann?enben feben. ^ ift ba^ 3Sorrecf)t ber

2Uten, feiner Sarf)e Voeber 511 biel, norf; 511 n)enig ju tun. 10

2(ber h)ir ^euern F;aben in me^rern Stiicfen geglaubt, un^

h)eit iiber fie h)ec$ufecn, n)enn n?ir if;re fleinen Sufttoege in

Sanbftraf^en t)ertt)anbelten ; fotlten aud; bie fiirjern unb fid)rern

Sanbftrafsen bariiber ju ^Pfaben einge^en, Voie fie burc^ SBUb*

niffe fiibren. 15

!Die blenbenbe 3Intit(?efe be3 gried)ifcf)en SSoltairc, ba^ bie

^Ralerct eine ftumme ^poefie, unb bie ^Poefie eine rebenbe

^Ralerei fei, ftanb h)or;l in fcincm Sebrbucbe. tt)ar ein

infaH, h)ie Simonibe^ mel;rere F;atte; beffen toabrer Xeil fo

einleud^tenb ift, baft man bag Unbeftimmte unb 5<tffd>e,
tnelcbe^ 20

er mit fid) fiifyrt, uberfeF;en ^u miiffen glaubt.

leid)n)oF;l uberfaF;en e^ bie 3(Iten nicfyt. Sonbern inbem

fie ben 2(u3fprucf) beg Simonibeg auf bie S&irfung ber beiben

5liinfte einfcbranften, fcergaften fie nicF)t einjufd^arfen, baft,

ungeacbtet ber boHfommenen >H^nlicbfeit biefer 2Birfung, fie 25

bennodi, fottoF)I in ben Gkgenftanben al in ber 5(rt i^rer

9?acbabmung ("YXr;
K<U
rpoTrots /xt/u-TJo-cw?), t^erfdfneben tt)aren.

SSoFIig aber, alg ob fief) gar teine foldbe SSerfdnebenbeit

fanbe, F>aben biele ber neueften ^unftricfiter au jener tlber-
einftimmung ber 9Merei unb ^oefie bie frubeften $5inge bon 3o
ber 3Selt gefcbloffen. 33alb jn^ingen fie bie ^oefie in bie en=

gern Scbranfen ber ?[Ralerei; baFb laffen fie bie 9ftalerei bie

^--
l, -C ,-\,K <

sp
 A" fr--u^c # 7xtt< -j^
, .

*- X
Caofoon. 25

/)UrVWjLA-iT ^r&i* </

ganje toeite Spfyare ber ^poefie fiitten. 9lfte3, n?a ber einen
redbt ift, foil and) ber anbern beraonnt fein; atteS, toa in ber
einen gefallt ober mijsfallt, foil nottoenbui aud> in ber anbern
gefaHen ober miftfallen; unb bofl bon biefer Sbee, fprecf)en
5 fie in bem juberfid^tlid^ften ^one bie feid^teften Urteile, VDenn
fie, in ben SSerfen be Xid^terg unb "DJJaler^ iiber einerlei 5>or=

Vourf, bie barin bemerften 5lbh)ci(f)ungen i>on einanber $u

?veF)tern madden, bie fie bem einen ober bem anbern, nad>bem

fie enttueber mehr Wefdnnacf an ber id>tfunft

ober an ber
10 5Raterei baben, ^ur Saft legcn.

3a biefe 3lfterfritif f>at

jum ^eil bie ^irtuofeh felbft i>er=

fiihrt. Sie hat in ber % oefie bie Ednlberinu^fnd^t, unb in

ber 5Ralerei bie SUlcQorifterei crjcugt; inbem man jcne ju
einem rebenben Wenialbe madden tvoUen, ofme cigcntlicft ju
15 unffen, h^a^ fie malen fonne unb folle, unb biefe ^u einem ftum;
men Webid^te, obnc iibcrlcgt 511 baben, in u>eld>em
Waf^c fie

aflgtmeine 5^egriffe au^briidten fonne, obne fid) Don ibrer 53e=

ftimmung ju entfernen, unb 511 einer tviHfurlirf^cn Sd^riftart

511 toerben.
20 X)iefem falfd^en Wefd>macfe, unb jenen ungegriinbeten/Ur=
teilen entgeGenjuarbeiten, ift bie fcornebmfte Stbfid^t folgcnbcr

2luffae.
Sie finb jufalligertDeife entftanbcn, unb mcbr ber nad>

5olge meiner Seftiire, al burd^ bie metbobifd>e @nth)idtelung

25 aHgemeincr Wrunbfdi^e anc\eU)ad>fen. ^ finb alfo mebr
unorbentlid^e Goltectanea 511 einem s^ud)e, al3 ein ^ud>.

T)od; fd>meid^le id? mir, bafs fie aud> al fold^e nicfit gan^
511 beracbten fein Vverben. 3(n ft)ftematifc^en 3Micftern babcn
tmr X>eutfd)en iiberbaupt feinen 9Jianc\cl. 3(u^ ein ^aar
30 anflenommenen 2Borterttarungen in ber fd>onften Drbnung
mir nur tvoUen, ber^uleiten, barauf Derftef;en n)ir
t>a

tro^ einer Nation in ber 3

26 effing.

SBaumgarten befonute, einen grojjen eil ber Seityiele

in feiner ^Iftfyeti!, e3ner3 3Borterbucf>e fdmlbig $u fein. 2Benn
mcin 9iafonnement nicfyt fo biinbig ift
al3 ba3 53aumgarten-

fcfye, fo toerben bod; meine 33eifpiele mebr nacfy ber Ouelle

fcfymedfen. 5

S)o id) fcon bem Saofoon ajteid;fam ouSfefcte, unb mebrmal^

auf ifm juriidfomme, fo babe id; if;m and; einen Stnteil an ber
2luffd)rift laffcn iuoUcn. Slnbcrc fleine 2ln3fd;n)eifnngen iiber

Derfc^iebene ^unfte ber alten .Slunftgefcbicfote trogen

ju meiner 2lbficf)t bei, unb fie fteben nur ba, toeil id) ifmen nie= 10

einen beffern ^pta^ ju geben boffen fann.

erinnere idf), baj} id) unier bem 9?amen ber ^Ralerei
bie bilbenben $iinfte iiberfyaupt begreife; fomie id) nicftt bafiir

ftefye, ba^ id) nid)t unier bem 9Jamen ber s^oefie aud{) auf bie

iibrigen ^iinfte, beren 9?acbabmung fortfcbreitenb ift, einige 15

^iicffid)t nef)men biirfte.

I.

^a attgemeine borjiiglicbe ^enn^eid)en ber griecbifcben

Dfoifterftikfe in ber 5lialerei unb SBilbbauerhmft fe^t err

SBindfelmann in eine eble Cnnfalt unb ftille Gkofce, fon)of)l

in ber Stellung al$ im 3(ubrucfe. ,,on)ie bie iefe be 20

^Reere^/ fagt er/ rubig bleibt, bie Dberflacbe mag

,,alle5eit

aucf) nod^ fo touten, ebenfo ^eigt ber Slu^brudf in ben Jiguren

ber ried^en bei alien Setbenfcbaften eine gro^e unb gefettfe
eeele."

^iefe Seele fdnlberi ficb in bem efic^te be3 Sao!oon, unb 25

nid^t in bem eficbte allein, bei bem l;eftigften Seiben. X>er

Sdjmerj, toelcfyer fid) in alien 9}?ufeln unb Sefmen be^

ber 9^acf)a^nning ber griedjifcijen SSerfe in ber a^alerei unb
.
21, 22. [3)i3) 20, @. 24.]
 aofoon I. 27

entbecft, unb ben man gan^ aftein, oFme ba GJeficfrt unb

anberc Xeile ju betracbten, an bem fc^mer^Iicf) 01111305013011011

Unterleibe beinabe felbft 511 empfinben glaubt; biofor Scfymerj,

fage icb, auftert ficb bennod) mit foinor 25ut_in bom $efidite

5 unb in bor ganjen Stelhmg. @r erbebt fein fcbrecflidic3 e=

fefyrei, h)ie 5sirgil Don foinom Saofoon fingt; bie Cffnung bo*
geftattot o^ nicf>t;
o ift tnclmohr ein dngftlid>o
unb
toflemmtef Seufjen. Dor Scf)morj bo3 5torpcr^ unb bic

ro^e bor Boolo finb bnrcf^ bon ganjon ^an bor ^yignr mit

10 gloicfyor Starfo au^otoilt, unb glctcf fam abgctDogcn. ^ao=

s
foon loibet, abor er loibet mie bo^ 6ov>f>of(o3 ^>M(oftot: foin
Glonb ge^)t un3 bi^ an bio Scolo; abor mir nntnfcbton, iuie

biofer grofto Wann ba^ (5lonb ertrai3cn ju fonnon."

,,X)or 5(n^britcf einor fo grofjon Soolc gobt n?oit iibor bie

V
15 Silbnng bor fcfydnon 3tatur. Tor .Uiinftlcr mufUo bio 3tcirfo

bo^ Weifto^ in fief) folbft fiiblon, anld^o or foinom Warmer cin=

V>ragto.
Wriorf>onlanb batto .Uiinftlcr unb 2^o(t^cifc in oinor
^Sorfon. Dio 3Boi^boit roid>te bor .Unnft bio Manb, nub blicS

ben Jiguren borfolbon mobr alv gcmciue ccclcn oin" u. f.

n>.

20 Die ^Bemorfung, Vuelcbe bier jum (Mrunbo liogt, baft bor

c^morj ficfi
in bom Weficbte bo^ ^aofeon mit bcrjonigen Si^ut

nirf)t jeige, n3elcf>e man boi bor .C>eftigfoit bc^felben ucrinutcn

follto, ift Donfommon rid^tig. 3hicfy ba^ ift nnftroitig, ba|*3 ebon
fn erin, h)o cin . oalbfenner bon ftiinftler nntor bor Siatur ge*

25 bliebon 511 foin, ba tt>abro

^>atbetifd)e be Sdnnorjo^ nicbt

erreicfU 511 babon, nrtoilon biirfte; baft, fage id;, ebon bierin

bie 3Beiwfyeit borfolbon ganj befonberS bcruorlcud^tot.

%luic in bom Wrunbo, n)dd>on
$orr SBincfclntann biofor
2Boi^boit gibt, in ber 2l(Igomoinbeit bor ^egel, bie or au^ bie=

30 fcm runbe ()erloitet, toage id>

c^, anberer Wciuung 511 fein.

3c^ befenne, baft ber miftbiUtgenbe Seitonblicf, tuolcfion or

auf ben SSirgil Voirft, mic^ juerft ftu^ig gomacbt ^>at;

unb
28 Ceffing.

nacfyftbem bie 33ergleid)ung mit bem ^tyilottet. SSon fyier

id; auggeF;en, unb meine GJebanfen in eben ber Drbnung nie^

berfd)reiben, in ft>eFd)er fie fief) bei mir enttoidfelt.

,,aofoon leibet fine beg SopF;o!leg $F;ilottet."

9Bie leibet

biefev? @g ift fonberbar, baft fein Seiben fo tterfcbiebene 5

(Sinbriicfe bei ung &uriicf gelaff en. &ie illagen, bag efd)rei,

bie toitben SSer^unfcfningen, mit tt>elcf)en

fein Scfnnerj ba^
Sager erfiUIte, unb atte D^fer, atle F;etligcu anblungcn ftorte,

erfc^oHen nicf>t minber fcf^recflid) bnrd) ba^ obe ditanb, unb

fie toaren e, bie i[;n babin berbannten. 3Seld;e ^one be^ 10

Unmutg, be gammerg, ber SSeratoeifhmo;, toon meldbcn and;

ber 3)id;tcr in ber 97acbaf;inung ba 2T;eater burd)F;anen lieft!

Sd;reien ift ber natiirlicbc 9(ubrucf be^ for^er(id)cn 6d)mer=

e. omer Derrtjunbete .^ riecjcr fallen nid;t felten mit e=
2
fdjrei 511 33oben. 3)ie oeril^te Ssenu^ fd)reit (aut; nid^t um 15

fie burd; biefeg CJefc^rei al3 btc ti)eicblid)e Obttin ber

511 fdn lbcrn, bielmcf;r um ber leibenbcn 9^atur ibr

flcDen. !Dcnn felbft ber eberne 5Rar, al^ er bie Sanje be

^Diomebe^ fiiblt, fd)rcit fo flraftficb, al^ fcf)rieen gebntaufenb
3
iwitenbe Krieger jugleidb, baft beibe eere fid; entfe^en. 20
So faeit aucf) Corner fonft feine elben iiber bie menfcf)-

(id^e 9?atur erbcbt, fo treu bleiben fie ibr bocf) ftet, h)enn e3

auf ba G)efiib( ber Sdnnerjen unb ^cleibicjungen, Voenn e

auf bie Sufterung biefeg Wefiiblg burd) 6d;reien r ober burd;

Xrancn, ober burd) Scftchtoorte anfommt. 5Rad; ibren Xaten 25

finb e
Gkfcbopfe I;5I)crcr 9(rt; nad) if;ren mpfinbungen

Sd; meift eg, n)tr feinern (Suro^cier ciner Hiigcrn 9iad)n)elt

imffen iiber unfcrn 93iunb unb iiber unfere 9Iugen beffer 511

fyerrfd;en. oflid;!eit unb 3(nftanb berbieten (^efd;rei unb 30

2
Iliad. E, 343.
3
Iliad. E, 859.
 Caofoon I. 29

ranen. )ie tati$e apfcrfeit bc crften raufyen 2Bdtaltcr3

ijat fief)
bet unS in cine leibenbe Dertoanbelt. od; felbft un=

fere Ureltcrn uwrcn in bicfer grower, al in jener. 3(ber un=

fere Ureltern toaren Sd^merjen 55arbaren. 2(tte tocrbeificn,

5 bem 8treid;e be3 2obe3 mit unbertoanbtem 2lucje enta,ev3cn=

fcfyen, untcr ben $Mffcn bcr Stattcrn lachenb ftcrbcn, ir>cbcr

fcineSiinbc nod; ben ^crluft feinc^ licbftcn 5rcunbe3 bc^eincn,

4
ftnb $uw bc^ alien norbifd>en Mclbcnnuit.
^iidit fo bcr (^ricd>e! (fr fiif;Ite nnb fiirtftctc ftch; er auficrte

10 fcinc Sditner^cn unb feinen Mummer; cr fdwmtc fid; feiner

bcr mcnfdilictcn cdnuad^bcitcn; fcinc muf^tc i^n aber auf

bem SSege nad; (*f;rc, unb t>ou
GrfiUUuifl fcincr ^flicft gu=
s

ritcff;alten. ag bei bem $3arbaren au^ ^ilbbeit unb SSer=

r;drtun^ entfprang, ba^ n?irftcn bci ibm Wrunbfdl5e. ^ci ibm

15 tear bcr .s^croiymu^ line bie bcrbor^cncn Aitnfcn im Micfcl, bie

rufyig fcfilafcn, folaiu^c fcine aufjcre Wciualt fie iuccft, unb bem
Stcine mcber fcinc ,SUarI)cit nod) fcine .Svdlte ncbmcn. 5ki bem
Sarbarcn iuar ber .s^croigmu^ cine belle frcffcnbc /vlamme, bie
immcr tobte, unb jcbe anbcrc $ute Giflcnfdmft in ibm bcr^cbrtc,
20 toenicjftenS fdnt>drjte.
2^enn Momer bie ^rojancr mit \n\[?
bem $efcbrei, bie ^ricd>cn biiu-\c^cn in cntfMofwcr StiUe
gur Sd^tadit fiibrt, fo mcrfcn bie 3(uelcflcr febr tvobl an, baf5
s
ber idrter f)icrburd>
jcnc al^5 ^arbarcn, bicfe ate ^cfittctc
Golfer fdnlbcrn luollen. Wid) munbcrt, baft fie an cincr

25 anbern StcIIe eine af;nlid^c dmraftcri|"tifd>c (5 nt^cflcnfctuuifl

5
nid)t bcmcrft babcn. Xic fcinblid^cn .^Scere babcn eincn

SBaffenftillftanb flctroffen; fie finb mit ^crbrennunfl ibrcr

Xoten befcMftiflt, ircldie^ auf beiben 2:eilen nicbt obne beifte
s
abge(;t. 2lber $riamu^ berbietet fcitten ^rojancrn
4 Th. Bartholinus de causis contemptae a Danis adhiic gentilibus
mortis, cap. L
5
Iliad. //, 421.
30 Cefftng.

gu toeinen. @r berbietet ifynen 511 meinen, fagt bie Racier,

toeil er before^, fie mocfyten fid; ju fefyr erft>eid)en,
unb morgen
mit toeniger 9JIut an ben Streit gefyen. 2BoI)l ; bod; fragc icfy
:

toarum mu{$ nur ^riarnug biefeg beforgen? 2Sarum crteilt

nicfyt aud) Agamemnon feinen ried;en bag namlicfye SSerbot?

X)er Sinn be3 ^Dic^terg gef;t tiefer. ^r toil! ung le^ren, ba&
nur ber gefittcte (Dried^e gugleicf) treinen unb ta^fcr fein fbnnc ;

inbem ber ungcfittete ^rojaner, urn e3 gu fein, alle

lidjfett border erfticfen miiffe. Nc/tco-o-w/iat ye /xci/ ov8v

8
Ici^t er an einem anbern Drte ben berftanbigen 6o(>n
be^ 10

n)eifen ^eftor fagen.

@g ift merfttwrbia,, ba& unter ben njenigen Xrauerfpielen,

bie au^ bem 3(ltertume auf un^ gefommcn finb, fid; ^toei Stiicfc
finben, in \vtldjtn ber forperlidie Sdf)merg nic^t ber tleinfte
Xetl beg Unc^liicfg ift, bag ben leibenben elben trifft. 5lu^er 15
bem ^P^UoItet, ber fterbenbe erfule3. Unb aud; biefen lajjt

Sopf;ofleg flaxen, minfeln, meinen unb fd)reien. !Dan! fei

unfern arisen 3^ad;barn, biefen 5Reiftern beg 2lnfta nbi$en,

ba& nunme^r ein minfelnber Spfyiloftet, ein fc^reienber er^

!u(eg, bie ber 20

lac^erlidjften unertrci0Iid)ften ^3erfonen auf
SBufyne fein n^iirben. 3n?ar ^at einer if)rer
fic^ neueften
7
X)id;ter an bem ^^iloftet getoaot. Slber burfte er eg toagen,

i^nen ben ma^ren $F)iIo!tet u geigen?

Selbft ein Saofoon finbet fid^ unter ben berlornen 6tiicfen
beg 6o^f;ofleg. 2Benn ung bag 6cfyicffal boc^ aud^ biefen 25
Saofoou gcoonnt ^atte! 3lug ben leid^ten rn)aF;nungen, bie
feiner einicje alte (Srammatifer tun, lafet fid; nicfyt fcfjliefecn,
mie ber SMcfyter biefen 60 biel bin
toff be^anbelt ^abe. id^

berfidjert, bafe er ben Saofoon nidf)t ftoifdjer alg ben ^^iloftet

unb er!uleg rnirb 0ef($ilbert ^aben. 3IlIeg un= 30
6toifd>e ift

t^eatralifd^; unb unfer SJMeiben ift aHejcit bem 2eiben

6 i
Odyss. 8, 195. Sljateaubnin.
 aofoon II. 31

maftia,, toelcbeS ber intereffierenbe $ea,enftanb auftert. 6iel?t

man ifm fein Glenb mit grower Seelc ertracjen, fo toirb biefc

flrofte Seele ^toar unfere 93ettwnberung ertoecfen; aber bie 33e=

ft)unberun$ ift ein falter 2lffeft, bcffen nutations Staunen jebc

5 anbere toarmere Seibenfcfyaft, fofaie jebe anbere beutlid)e SSor-

fteUung, au3fcfyliefct.

Unb nunmef^r fomme id) ju meiner Jolgerung. 25>enn e^

faafyr ift, ba& ba Sc^reien bei Gmpfinbung forperlicf>en

Sc^mer^eg, befonber^ nad) bcr alien ^riecbifd^cti ^cnfung^=

10 art, a,ar mit ciner c^rpf^cn Sccle bcftchcn faun, fo faun
rt>of)I

ber 2lu3brucf einer folcben Seele bie Urfacf>e

nicbt fein, toarum
bemungeadbtet ber Aiinfttcr in feinem farmer biefe^ 6d^reien
nicbt nacf)abmen rocUen; fcnbern e^ mufc einen anbern G5runb
^aben, tvarum er bier toon feinem 9?ebenbnMer, bem Xic^ter,
15 abgef)t, ber biefc3 C^cfcbrei mit beftem $8orfatje au^briicft.

.
CA -
n
, ,
Air. ^ W. . o^
fe
-
cc/^v * -
CVt -.
A-p7**>u
-
-:,!,. ,

/ hi fr f
jj
CS
$3 fei ^abel ober (^ejcbid>te, baft bie Siebe ben erften SSer-

fudb in ben bilbenben Miinften c^emadit babe, fo toiel ift fletoift,

baft ben aroften alten ^(eiftern

fie bie ,s;)aub $u fii^ren nid^t
s
miibc c^emorben. enn roirb je^t bie 3Jtalcrei iiberbaupt al^
20 bie ^uuft, toddle Mbrper auf JIacf)en nadiabmt, in ifyrem
Qanjen Umfange betrieben, fo batte ber tueife (^riede ibr meit

engere C^renjen c^efetjt, uub fie bloft auf bie

fc^oner .Vlbrper cin^efd^ranft. Sein Miinfttcr fdnlberte

al^ ba^ Scbone; felbft ba^ c^emeine Sdhonc, ba3 Sd)bne niebrer

25 attungen, tear nur fein jufalli^er Tsormurf, feine Ubung,

feine @rf;olunfl. ^)ie 3>onfommenfyeit be^ Weflenftanbe^ felbft

muftte in feinem JBerfe ent^iicfen; er tear 311 groft, bon feinen

33etrad?tern ju berlangen, baft fie fid; mit bem bloften falten
SSergniigen, toelcfyeg aug ber getroffenen ? fmlidtfeit,
. aug bet

(Srtodgung feiner $efd;icflid;feit cntfpringt, begniigen foUlcn;

an feiner Munft toar ifym nid;tg lieber, biinfte il;m nid;tg ebler,
alg ber (5nbjh>ecf
ber Munft.

,,2Ber toirb bid) malen toollen, bn bid) niemanb feben frill," 5

1
fagt em alter (Styigrammatift iiber einen bodf)ft ungcftallcn
s
5Kenfdj)en. Dtand;er ncucre iUmfller iDiirbe fagcn: /r
ei fo

ungeftalt Voie moglid;; \d) Void bid) bod) malen. 5)tafl bid;

fcfyon niemanb gcrn fef;en, fo foil man bod) mein Wemalbe

gern fef)en; nid;t infofern e^ bid; frorftellt, fonbern infofern e^ 10

ein 33ett?ei^ meiner Knnft ift, bie ein fold;e^ Ed;eufal fo a(;n*

lid; nacf)5iibilben toei^."

greilid; ift ber anc^ ^u biefer iippigen ^pral;lerei mit leibic^en

efd;icflid;feiten, bie bnrd; ben S^ert ifyrer egenftanbe nid;t

geabelt n^erben, 511 natiirlid;, al^ baf^ nidbt and; bie Wricd;en 15

i^ren ^panfon, i^>ren $irdicu follten gel;abt f;aben. Sie

fatten fie; aber fie liefsen il;nen ftrenge (yereditigfeit toiber=

fa^ren. X)ie Dbrigfeit felbft f)ielte^ ibrer 5lnfmerffamfeit

fiir nnn^itrbig, ben ^liinftler mit Gietoalt in feiner VraTren

re 511 erfyalten. !Dag 6efe^ ber Sfyebaner, nield^e^ ihn 20

bie 9?ad;al;mun$ ing 6d)dnere befahl, unb bie 9?acf)afytnung

in df3licf)ere bei Strafe berbot, ift befannt. Q$ n?ar fein

efe^ tuiber ben Stumper, toofiir e^ ^cmeini^lid), unb fclbft

bom 3 u ttiu^,2 c\el;alten n?irb. @3 berbammte bie ^ried;ifd()en

f)e^i; ben untoiirbicjen ^ unftgriff, bie 5U)nlid;fcit burd; 25

tlbertreibung ber ^)d^lid;ern eile be Urbilbe^ ju erreicf)en;
mit einem SBorte, bie ^arifatur.
2lu eben bem eifte beg Scfybnen mar aud^ bag (5)efe^ ber
ellanobifen gefloffen. ^eber olt;mpifcf)e Sieger erl)ielt eine
Statue ; aber nur bem breimaligen Sieger toarb eine i!onifd)e 30
1
9lntiocf)U$. (Antholog. lib. II, cap. 4.)
2
De Pictura Vet., lib. II, cap. IV, i.
 Caofoon II. 33

3
0efet. Der mittelmafci$en $ortratg foUten unter ben
merfen nid?t $u friel toerben. enn obfdon and) bag ^ortrat
ein Sbeal mufc bod? bie
^ulafct, fo SfynlidVfcit bariiber f;crr=

fd)en; eg ift bag Jbcal cineg geimffen SJtenfcben, nid;t bag Sbeal
s eineg DIenfcbcn iibcrfyaupt.
2Bir lacfyen, menu tnir ^orcn, ba^ bet ben 2Ilten and; bie

$iinfte bur^crlidKii (^cfc^cu untefluorfen flc^cfcn. 2(ber ^ir

Robert nid^t immcr rec^t, h>enu \V\TC lacben. Unftrcitig miifjen

fid) bie (^efetjc iiber bie 3Bifjenfd aftcn feine (Mcuxilt anmaf^en;
10 benn ber GnbjtDcrf bcr 2Biffenfcf)aften ift SCabrbeit. SBafyr*

f;eit ift ber Seele notowcnbig; unb eg Voirb X^rannci, if;r in

biefeg hjcfcntltcftcn 33cburfniffe3 ben flcringftcn
anjutun. $)er GubjUJccf ber 5Uinfte I;in^ec\en ift

unb bag SScrflniiflcn ift cntbebrlid>. 2Ufo barf

15 eg aderbin^g toon bem efe$gtbet abbatu^en, ^ueld>c 3(rt ton
SBer^nuc\en, unb in rt)dcfcm "Diaf^e
er jebe 2(rt begfelben ber-

ftatten mill.
2)ie bitbenben .flimfte ingbefonbere, auf^er bem unfeblbaren
influffe, ben fie auf ben Gbarafter bcr Nation baben, finb
20 einer SBirfung faf;ig, n^elcbe bie ncibcre 2htffid>t
beg Wefe^cg

^eifc^t. (Srjeii^tcn fd)5ne 9Jicnfrf)cn fd>6ne ^ilbfaulcn, fo

njirften biefe f)inmieberum auf jene juriicf, unb ber Staat
s
fyatte fd)6nen 5BUbfdulcn fcf)5ne J3icnfrfcn mit ju toerbanfcn.
2)od? icf) Derate aug meinem ^ec^e. %d) toollte bloj^ feft=

25 fe^en, baft bei ben 2Utcn bie Sd;6nbeit bag f;od^fte (^efet^ ber
bilbenben ^iinfte ge^efen fei.

Unb biefeg feftgefe^t, fotc^t nottnenbic^, baft aKeg anbere,

morauf fief) bie bilbenben $iinfte ^u^Ieic^ mit erftrecfen fonnen,
h)enn eg fic^ mit ber Sc(>bnf)eit nid^t bertragt, ibr ganjlid;
30 hjeicfjen, unb n)enn eg fid) mit ifyr bertra^t, tt;r n)enigfteng un=
tergeorbnet fein miiffen.
3
Plinius, lib. XXXIV, sect. 9, Edit. Hard.
34 CeffiTtg.
r ^ .^ y 1 A^/yAjft

Jef) toill bei bem SluSbrucfe ftefyen bleibcn. @3 gibt Seiben-

fcfjaften unb rabe bon 2eibenfd)aften, bie fief)

in bem $e=
fid;te burd; bie fyaftficfjften $er$emmgcn duftern, unb ben
ganjen $6rper in fo getoaltfame Stellungen feen, ba alle
bie fcf)5nen Sinien, bie ifyn in cinem rubigern Stanbe um= 5

fd)reiben, berloren gefyen. liefer entfjielten fid) alfo bie alten

$iinftler enttoeber ganj unb gar, ober fetrten fie auf geringere
rabe fyerunter, in toelcf)en fie eine^ JRafce^ toon 6e^6nl)eit

fa^ig finb.
2But unb 58er^toeiflung fcf)dnbete feine^ toon ibren 2Berfen. 10
4
Jcf) barf befyaupten, ba^ fie nie einc %um gebilbct f)aben.

3orn fetjten fie auf rnft F)erab. 33ei bem Xief)tcr toar e^

ber jornige 3 u P^ er twcld^cr ben /

33li febleuberte; bei bem
^iinftler nur ber ernfte.

Jammer toarb in 33etrubni3 gemilbert. Unb too biefe 15

9ftilberung nid)t ftattfinben tonnte, too ber Jammer ebenfo

berfleinernb al^ entftellenb getoefen toare, toa tat ba
2:imantbe^? Sein emdlbe toon ber Dpferung ber Jpf)t=
genia, in toele^em er alien Umftef)enben ben if;nen eigentiim-

lief) ^u!ommenben (iirab ber Xraurigfeit erteilte, ba^ efie^t

20

be3 SSater^ aber, toele^e ben allerf)6cf)ften ^atte ^eigen follen,

berf)iillte, ift be!annt, unb e^ finb biel artige ^Dinge bariiber

5
gefagt toorben. dr fjatte fieb, fagt biefer, in ben traurigen

^Pf)t)fiognomien fo erfefyopft, bafe er bem $ater eine nod; traiu

rigere geben 511 tbnnen ber^toeifelte. Gr befannte babureb, 25

6
fagt jener, baft ber Sdwterj eine^ 58ater^ bei bergleid;en
4
2)ian ge^e aUe bie ^nnftrt)erfe burc^, beren ^lintus unb
unb onbere gebenfen ;
man iiberfelje bie nod) jejst uorljanbenen alten ^ta=
tnen, 33areUef8, emalbe ;
unb man nnrb nirgenb eine ftwie ftnben.
3d) nefyme bie 3JZiin5en an, beren ^iguren aber nidjt jur flnnft, jon=
bent ^ur S3ilberfprac^e gefyoren.
5
Plinius, lib. XXXV, sect. 36.
6
Valerius Maximus, lib. VIII, cap. n.
 Saofoon II. 35

fatten iiber atten 2lu3brudf fei. $$ fiir mcin eil fefye fyier

toeber bic Unbermogenl)eit beg ^iinftlerg, nod; bie Unbcr-

mogenbeit ber Stunft. Wit bem GJrabe beg Hffeftg berftarfen

fid) and; bie il)m entfprcd)enben 3iige b c cfid)t^; ber fybcbfte

3

5 rab fyat bie attcrentfdnebenften 3u fl

e /
uu ^ nicfytS ift ber

$unft Ieid;ter, a(g biefe au^ubritcfen. 2Ibcr 2:imanthe^ fannte

bie Srenjen, n)eld;e bie (yrajicn feincr Munft fe^en. (fr

n^uftte, ba^ fid) ber 3ammcr, ^clcfcr bem Agamemnon al^

SSater ^ufam, burd) 3>erjemnuv^ nujVrt, bic attejeit bd^Iicf)

10 finb. 6orteit fid) Sd)5nf>cit unb SiUirbe mit bem 2Iu^brucfe

bcrbinben licfe, fo tt>cit trieb cr ifyn. X)a^ .^a^lic^e rt)dre cr

gern iibergan^en, ^dttc cr $crn ^clinbcrt; aber ba i^m feine

5tompofition bcibc^ nid;t crlaubtc, U?a3 blicb if>m anbcr^ iibri^,

al3 c^ ju t>erf)iittcn? 2Ba3 er uicht mnlen burfte liefc er er= x

15 raten. $ur$, bicfc Scr^itHung ift cin Dpfer, bag ber .Uiinftler

ber @d)onbeit brac^tc. Sic ift cin ^cifpicl, nid>t uic man
ben 2lu3brucf iiber bie Scftranfen ber ftnnft trciben fonbern,
h)ie man ifyn bem erften (^efct^c ber Slunft, bem G)efc^e ber
Sd)5nf)cit, untcriucrfen foil.

20 Unb biefe^ nun auf ben i aofoon angc^oibct, fo ift bie Ur-

fad)e Har, bie id; fucfje. ^Der DSJkiftcr arbeitctc auf bic f;6d)fte

>d)onl)eit
unter ben anc^enommcnen Umftdnbcn bc3

Iid;en Sd;merje. liefer, in alter feiner entftcttcnben

feit, tt>ar mit jener nid;t 311 bcrbinbcn. Gr nutate i^n alfo
25 ^erabfe^en; er mufetc Sd)rcicn in Seuftcn milbcrn; nid;t toeU
bag Sd;rcien cine uncbte Secle bcrrat, fonbcrn, n?eU eg bag
($efid)t auf cine e!el^afte 25cife bcrftettt. Xcnu man rci^c
bem 2aofoon in Ocbanfen nur ben 9ftunb auf, unb urteile.

5Ran laffe i^n fd)reien, unb fefye. @g h>ar cine 33ilbung, bie

30 9Jtitleib einflo^te, meil fie Sd^onfyeit unb Sc^>mer^ jugleic^

geigte; nun ift eg cine l)af}lid)e, cine abfcbeulid;e 33ilbunc^ ge=

toorben, toon ber man gern fein efid;t bcrrtjcnbct, iueil ber
36 Ceffing.

5(nblid beg Sdjmer^eg Untuft erregt, ofyne baf$ bie Sd)6n=

fyeit beg leibenben GJegenftanbeS biefe Unluft in bag fu&e e=

fiifyl
beg 9ftitleibg bertoanbeln faun.
3Me blo^e toeite Cffnung beg 9)lunbeg, beifeite

tote getoaltfam utib e!el aurf) bie ubrigen Xeile beg

baburd^ ber^errt unb berfd^oben tocrben, ift
in ber DJJaterei

ein glecf unb in ber $ilbl)anerei eine SSertiefiing, toelc^e bie

tmbrigfte SSirlung i?on ber SBelt tut.

III.

Slber, mie fcfyon gebacfjt, bie Jlunft ^at in ben neuern Qeiten

ungleic^ toeitere ^ac^a^munG, fagt

ren^en erf;alten. 3F;re 10

man, erftrede fid; auf bie ganje fid)tbare ^atur, Don ft>eld)cr

bag Scfione nur ein fteiner Xeit ift. 2Baf)rF)eit unb Slugbrucf
fei i^r erfteg efe; unb n)ie bie 9^atur felbft bie Sd)5nf;eit

^o^ern Slbfic^ten jeber^eit aufopfere, fo miiffe fie aud) ber

^iinftler feiner aUgemeinen 53cfttmmunQ untcrorbnen unb 15

ibr nic^t toeiter nacfjge^en, alg eg SBafyrfyeit unb Slugbrud er=

lauben. enu$, ba^ burcf) 2SaF)rf;eit unb Slugbrudt bag

dyid^fte ber 9^atur in ein Sd;5neg ber ^unft fcertoanbelt
toerbe.

efe^t, man tooWte biefe 33egriffe fiirg erfte unbeftritten in 20

ifyrem 2Berte ober Untoerte laffen, fottten nid;t anbere toon

ifynen unab^angige 53etrad)tungen gu mad)en fein, toarum
bemungead^tet ber $iinftler in bem Slugbrude yflafc fatten,
unb i^n nie aug bem fybcfyften ^unfte ber anblung nefymen
muffc? 25

%d) glaube, ber ein^ige Slugenblicf, an ben bie materietten

Scf)ran!en ber ^unft atte i^re ^adf)a^mungen binben, toirb

auf bergleicfyen Setrac^tungen leiten.

 aofoon III. 37

ber Svtinftler Don bcr immcr Deranberlicben D^atur nie

mefyr al3 cincn ctngigen 2lua,enblicf, unb ber Wafer ingbefonbcre

biefen ein^iflen 3(u$enblicf and) nur au einem eingigcn &&
fid?t*punfte braudien; finb aber ibre SBerfe gemacfyt, mcfct

blofi erblidt, fonbern bctrad^tet $u toerbcn, lan$e unb toieber=

fyoltcrmafien betrad^tet 511 ujcrbcn, fo ift c3 flett)if5, bajj jencr

2lugcnblicf unb einji^e C^eficfHopunft biefcS cinjigcn 2(u=

nicftt frucfttbar ^cnu^ ijc^uaMt berben fann. !Da^=
aber nur altein ift frucbtbar, \va$ bcr inbilbun^hraft
10 fretc3 Spiel lafU. S^ me (>
r ^^ r fc ^n, befto mef;r mitffen rtir
fn n^ubenfcn fonnen. Je mebr n?ir ba^ubenfen, befto mebr
s

^
,.
^iiffen tms-.^u f eftcn ajauben. 3 n ^ cin fl"jcn ^erfol(^e cine^

^(ffeff^^ift abeV fein 9(uc\cnbluf , ber biefen ^orteil locni^cr

fyatTate bie f;6rf>fte 6taffel be^fclben. liber ibr ift a^eitcr

1

^ unb bcm ba
^v 15 nid^t^, 9dtfle mi^erfte sci^en, beifU ber ^bantafie
bie /ylii^el binben, unb fie notion, ba fie iiber ben fiuulid>en

Giubruc! nid^t I)indu3 fann, fid) unter ibin mit fd^uad^ern

33i(bern 511 befd^dfti^en, iiber bie fie- bie. fid>tbare /viiHe be
2(u^brud^ aU if;rc Wrenje fcftcut. Senn^aofoon alfo fcuftt,
20 fo fann ibn bie Sinbilbung^rraft fcftreien bbren; n?cnn er aber
fcf)reit ; fo fann fie toon ^eber eine Stufe
biefer SSorftettuitfl

f;6f)er, noa) eine Stufe tiefer fteigen, of)ne if;n in einem (eib=
licftcrn, folc\licf> unintercffantern ^wftanbe $u erblicfen. Sie
f;6rt i^n erft acfyen, ober fie fiebt ibn fobon tot.

25 Jerner. Grbalt biefer einjic^e 5lugenblicf burd> bie $unft

eine imDcranbcrlidf^c Tauer, fo timfe er nicbt^ au^briiden, n?a
fid) nid)t anber^ al^ tranfitorifd) benfen la fit. 3((lc Grfd>einun-
s
a,en, ju bcren 2Sefen \mr e3 nac^ unfern ^e^riffen red^nen, bafi
fie plbyicf) augbred>en unb plo^lid) bcrfcbiuinben, bafi fie ba,
30 Voa3 fie finb, nur einen Huflcnblicf fein fonnen; aUc fold)c @r=

fd^etnungen, fie mbgen cmcjeneljm obcr fd^recflid) fein, erbalten

bitrcfj bie SJcrlangcrunfl ber ilunft ein fo iDibernatitrlid)e

38 Cefftng.

2lnfefyen, baf$ mit jeber Voiebcrfyolten (Srblidung ber (Sinbrud

fcfytodcfyer toirb,
unb ung enblid) bor bem ganjen egenftanbe
cfelt ober graut. 2a 9Jtettrie, ber fief) alg einen jtt>citcn
emo;
frit malen unb ftecfyen laffen, lacfyt nur bie erften 5Rale, bie man
ifyn fiefyt. SBetracfytet ifyn ofter, unb er fairb aug einem ^tytlo= 5

fo^f;en ein ecf; ou feinem Sadden toirb ein GJrinfcn. So

aud; mit bem Scfyreien. ^er ^cftiflc Scfymerg, Veld;er ba
Sd^reien au^re^t, lafet entrt)eber balb narf;, ober jerftbrt bag
leibenbe 6ubje!t. 9Benn alfo audfj ber gebulbiflfte [tanb=

^afteftc 5Wann fcfjreit, fo fc^reit er bod; nid;t unablafelic^. Unb 10

nur biefe^ fd^einbar Unablafelic^c in ber materietten 3^acf)=

aF>mung ber $unft ift e^, voa^ fein Scf>reien 511 n3eibifd;em Un-
bermogen, u ftnbifc^er Unleiblid^feit madden toiirbe. Xiefe^
tt>enigften^ mufete ber $unftler be Saofoon bermeiben, batte
fd^on bag 6d)reien ber Sd^onbeit nid;t c^efd)abet ; h)are eg audf) 15

feiner $unft fc^on erlaubt getvefen, Seiben of;ne 6d;bnbeit

aug^ubriicfen.
Unter ben alien 9JJalern fd;eint Ximomad;ug ^orn)iirfe beg
au^erften 5(ffeftg am liebften (^emaf;lt 311 f)aben. Sein rafen-
ber Sljaj, feine Minbermorberin ^JJebea, n)aren beriif)mte e= 20

malbe. Slber aug ben 53efcbreibun(^en, bie tmr toon ibnen

fyaben, er^eUt, baJ5 er jenen ^unft, in U3etd)em ber 33etrad;ter
bag Sufserfte nic^t fott)of;l erblidft, alg ^injubcnft, jene @rfd>ei=

nung, mit ber fair ben 33e$rtff beg ranfitortfd;en nic^t fo

notvoenbig berbinben, ba^ ung bie ^erlangerung berfelben in 25
ber ^unft mtjjfau en fotlte, Dortrefflicf) berftanben unb mit=
einanber u berbinben gen^u^t fyat. 2)ie 5Rebea batte er nicfyt

in bem 5(ugenblicfe genommen, in faelcfyem fie i^re ^inber

toirflicb ermorbet; fonbern einige Stugenblide $ut)or, ba bie
mutterlidje Siebe nod) mit ber iferfucfjt fampft. 2Bir feben 30
bag @nbe biefeg ^tampfeg Doraug. 2Bir Bittern boraug, nun
s
balb blo^ bie graufame IRebea ju erblicfen, unb unfere
 Caofoon IV. 39

bilbung3fraft gefyt toeit iiber atteS fwitoeg, toaS un3 ber 9Mer
in biefem fcfyrecflicben Slugenblirfe jeigen Ibnntc. 2lber cben

barum beleibigt un bie in ber $unft fortbauernbe Unent=

fd)loffenl)eit ber 9)iebea fo toenig, baft fair bielmefyr toiinfrfjen,

5 e toare in ber 9?atur felbft babei geblieben, ber Streit ber

Seibenfcbaften batte fief) nie entfdneben, ober f>atte

hjemgften^
fo lange atuiebalten, bi^ tyit unb Uberlecjung bie 2But ent=

frdften unb ben mutterlicftcn Gmpfinbungen ben Sieg ber=

fic^ern !6nnen. 2(ud) f;at bem ^imomadni^ biefe feine 2Bei&

10 ^eit flrofte unb fyaufige Sobfpruc^e jugejogen, unb ibm toeit

iiber einen anbern unbefannten ^Jfaler erboben, ber unDer=

ftanbifl flenuQ gen)efen n)ar, bie 9Jiebea in ibrer f;ocbften 9iaferei

ju jeicjen, unb fo biefem fliid^tig uberbiiu^ef;enben C^rabe ber

aufterften $Haferei eine 2>auer gu geben, bie alle 9?atur em^ort.

15 SSon bem rafenben 3(ja? be^ T imomachu^ Idftt fid; au^ ber
1
9^acf)rid;t be3 ^biloftrat urteilen. 2(jar erfcbien nicbt, h)ie
s
er unter ben >erben miitet, unb ^{inber unb $6cfe fiir 53Jenfcf)en
s
feffelt unb morbet. Sonbern ber )3Jeifter jeic^te ibn, h)ie er

nad; biefen toabnun^iflen .sSelbentaten ermattet bafitjt, unb

20 ben 2Infd)lag faftt, fic^ felbft um^ubrinflen. Unb ba^ ift

toirflicb ber rafenbe 5Ijar, nid>t toeil er eben je^t raft, fonbern
Voeil man fiebt, baft er oeraft bat; rtieil man bie G)rofte feiner

3^aferei am lebbafteften au^ ber ^erj^eiflung^ollen Scf)am

abnimmt, bie er nun felbft bariiber empfinbet. H?an fiebt ben

25 Sturm in ben ^riimmern unb 2eid>en, bie er an baS 2anb ge=

tt>orfen.

IV.

3d) iiberfefye bie angefii^rten Urfac^en, toarum ber 5Reifter

be^ Saofoon in bem 2lu3brucfe be^ for^>erlicf>en Scfymer^eS
5Raft fatten mujfen, unb finbe, baft fie allefamt Don ber eigenen
1
Vita A poll , lib. II, cap. 22.
40

Sefdjaffenfyeit bet $unft, unb bon berfetben notfaenbigen

Scfyranfen unb 33ebiirfnif[en bergenommen finb. Sd)faerlid;

alfo faofyl irc3enb eine berfelben auf bie ^poefie an=

biirfte fid)
faenben laffen.
DFme fyier 311 unterfucfcen, faie faeit e3 bem 3Md)ter gelingen 5

f ann, torperlicbe Sd)5nbeit 511 fdnlbern :

fo ift fo Diet unftreitig,

bafc, ba ba ganje unerme^Iirf^e ffieirf) ber Sotl!ommenF)eit

feitier ^ad^aOmung offen fteht, biefe ficf)tbarc uHe, unter

it)elcf)er 3SoU!ommen^eit 511 Scf)5nheit toirb, nur eine Don ben
gerinflften IRttteln fein lann, burd; bie er un fiir feine ^er= m
fonen 311 intereffieren fteif$. Dft bernad^Iafftgi er biefe^
9JtttteI flatijlirf;; berfirf;crt, bafi n^enn fein ftelb einmal unfere

ctt)ogcn^eit ciefaonnen, un^ beffen eblere @i0enfd^aften ent*

h)eber fo befc^aftigcn, baf^ fair an bie forperlid)e (^eftalt gar
nidjt benfen, ober, Voenn fair baran benfen, un^ fo beftedkn, 15

fair ibm bon fetbft fao nid)t eine fdbone, bodf) eine c\Ieid)=

erteilen. 5(in faenic^ften fairb er bei jebem ein^elnen

,
ber nicftt auSbritcfticf) fitr bag Wcficf>t beftimmt ift, feine

SRiicffid^t auf biefen Sinn ncf>men biirfen. 2Scnn

bennod)
Saofoon fd;reit, faem fcillt e^ babei ein, baf^ ein grofteS 20

^um Schreien notig

ift, unb
baf^ biefe3 gro^e 5RauI ^af^

(id^ laftf? G^enug, ba^ clamores horrendos ad sidera tollit

ein erl;abner 3 U 9 fur ba (Se^or ift, mag er bod) fiir ba3

eficfyt fein, faa er faUI. 2Ber f)ier ein fcf)6ne 53ilb fcerlangt,

auf ben ^at ber $)id?ter feinen gan^en inbrucf berfef;lt. 25

ytM$ notigt F)iernacbft ben 3Md)ter, fein Sematbe in einen

ein^igen Hugenblid ju fon^entrieren. Gr nimmt jebe feiner

anblungen, faenn er faitt, bei il;rcm llrfprunge auf, unb
fiifyrt fie burd) afte moglicben 5lbanberungen big ju ifyrer 6nb=
fd>aft. gebe biefer 5Xbanberungen, bie bem Hiinftlcr ein 30
gan^eg befonbereg Stiicf foften faiirbe, foftet ibm einen ein=

jigen 3ug; unb faiirbe biefer 3ug, fiir fid) betracfitet, bie Cnn=
 Saofoon IV. 41

bilbung be3 3 u ^rer^ beleibigen, fo tear er enttoeber burd)

ba3 $orl)era,el;enbe fo toorbereitet, ober toirb burd) ba3 gol=

genbe fo gemilbert unb toergiitet, baft er feinen einjelnen @in=
bruct fcerliert, unb in ber Skrbinbung bie trefflidifte 3Birhtng
5 toon bcr 2Selt tut.SBdre e3 alfo and) n)irf(irf) eincm

unanftdnbig in ber Ajeftigfeit be3 Scbmerje^ 511 frf)reien,

fann biefe fleine ubcrbingehcnbe Unanftanbigteit bemjenigen
bet un^ fiir 9?acf)tei( bringen, beffen anbcre Xugenbcn un$
fcf^on fiir if>n eingenommen f;aben? ^sirivl^ Saofoon fcf^rcit,

10 aber biefer fcbreienbe Saofoon ift eben bcrjcnige, ben luir bc=

rcitS al^ ben borftcf)tigften ^atrioten, al3 ben rtjdrmftcn 5sater

fennen unb (ieben. 9Bir bejieben fein Scbreien nid>t
auf fcincn
G^arafter, fonbern lebiglid; auf fein unertrd^lid^e^ Seiben.

2)iefe^ allein f)5rcn tuir in feinem Sdireien; unb bcr id>ter

15 !onnte e^ imS burcf) biefc3 Sd^reien allein finnlid; macben.

2Ber tabelt i^n alfo nod)? 5Ser muft nid)t \)telntef;r be*

fenncn: menn ber 5liinftler toofyl tat, baft er ben aofoon

nid)t fd;reien lieft, fo tat ber )td>ter
ebenfo ^obl, baft er ibn
fd^reien lieft?
20 3(ber Virgil ift bier bloft ein er^dblenber ^)id)ter. irb in

feiner 9iecf)tfertigung and) ber bramatifd>e Xid)ter mit begriffen

fein? @inen anbern Ginbrucf mad^t bie Grjablung toon je-

manb^ efd^rei; eincn anbern biefe^ Wefdiret felbft. a3

s
Crania, tueld)e^ fiir bie lebenbige )3Jalerei be^ 6d>aufpieler^

25 beftimmt ift, biirfte toielleicf)t eben be^tuegen fidi an bie (^efe^e

s
ber materiellen }}?alerci ftrenger ^alten miifjen. Jn i^m
glauben n)ir nicbt bloft einen fcf>reienben ^biloftet 511 feben
unb ju f;oren; toir f)oren unb fcben mirflid) fd^reien. Je ndber
ber Sd>aufpieler ber 9Jatur fommt, befto empfinblicf)er mu fjen
30 unfere 5lugen unb Dfyren bcleibigt ttjerben; benn e^ ift untoU
berf^rec^lid), baft fie e3 in ber Siatur merben, toenn n)ir fo
laute unb befti^e *Hufterunc\en be^ Sdnnerje^ i)ernel;men.
42 Ceffing.

$ubem ift ber forperlicfye Scfymer^ iiberfyaupt be3 -IRitleibenS

mrf)t fafyig, toelcfyeS anbere libel ertoecfen. Unfcre inbtlbimg

lann $u toenig in ifym unterfd;>eiben, al3 baft bie blofte @rbli!s

tung be^felben ettoa3 toon einem gleidnnaftigen GJefiifyl in un

fyertoorjubringen Dermod^te. SopfyofleS tonnte bafyer leicfyt 5

nicfyt einen bloft VDiIlfiirlidben, fonbern in bem 2Befen unferer

mpfinbungen felbft gegrunbeten 2(nftanb iibertreten ^aben,
ftcnn cr ben ^^iloftet unb erfule3 fo Voinfeln nnb Voeinen,

fo fd(>reien
unb briiHen Idftt. 3Me Uniftebenben fonnen nn*
moglicf) fo toiel Slnteil an if)rem Seiben nebmen, aB biefe un= 10

gemdfeigten 2lubrucf)e 511 erforbern fcbeinen. 6ie inerben

un 3 u W auern toergleicfyunflStoeife ^ a ^ toorfommen, nnb ben-
nod^ !onnen trir i^r ^Ritleiben nicfyt \v>oU
anber^, al^ ttie bag
5Raft be imfrigen betracbten. ierju fiige man, baft ber

Srf>anfpieter bie SBotftcttung be forperlirf)en Scbmer$e fcf)h)er= 15

ltd; ober gar nicfyt bi^ ^ur ^Uufion ireiben fann unb ; h>er
toeift,

ob bie neuern bramatifdien id>ter nid)t eber ^u loben, al3 u

tabeln finb, baft &lippe entvoeber gan^ unb gar feet-
fie biefe

mteben, ober bod) nur mit einem leidf)ten $alnie umfabren

^aben. 20

2Bie mand)e3 h)iirbe in ber Stbeorie untoiberfpredhlidi fd^ei=

nen, n)enn e^ bem (%nie nid;t gclungcn \vart, ba 2Biberf^>iel

burd) bie Xat $u errt)eifen. 5llle biefe 53etradf)tungen finb nid)t

ungegriinbet, unb bod) bleibt ^F;iloftet eine bon ben s
Dteifter=

ftiicfen ber 53itf;ne. enn ein Xeil berfelben trifft ben So= 25

nic^t etgentlidf), unb nur inbern er fid) iiber ben anbern

ttjegfe^t, fyat er Sc^on^eiten erreicf)t, bon toelcben bem
furdf)tfamen ^unftrid)ter, oF>ne biefeS ^Beif^iel, nie traumen
n)iirbe. 5 D ^3 en ^ e Hnmerfungen n?erben e^ na^er seigen.
1. 2Bie h)unberbar ^at ber >id;ter
bie 3^^ ^ former- 30

lichen Sd^mer^e^ ju berftarfen unb ju ervoeitern gen>uftt! @r

it)af)lte eine SSunbe benn aucf) bie Umftanbe ber efcfyicfyte
 Caofoon IV. 43

!ann man betracfyten, a(g ob fie toon feiner yRafy aba,eban$en

fatten, infofern er namlid) bie flange $efcbid;te, eben biefer
ifym fcorteilbaften Umftdnbe toefleii, nniblte er todfylte, fa$e

id;, eine 3Bunbe unb nidjt cine innerlicbe Mranffyeit; toeil fid?
s Don jener eine lebfyaftere itorfteflunfl madden lafct, alg toon

biefer, u>enn
fie and) nod) fo frfnncrsttrfi ift. Unb biefe 2Hunbc
tear ein (\ottlid)eg Strafgericfyt. G in mcbr alo naiiirlid^c

6Mft iobte unaufborlidi barin, unb nur ein ftdrferer 3(nfa(I

toon Sdnner^en batte feine c\efel>te fy\t, nacb meldtem jcbc^
10 mal ber Un0ludfUd;>e
in einen betaubenben Sd^Iaf uerfiel, in

n>clcf)cm
fid) feineScatnr erbolen mnfUe, ben ndm=
crfcf>bpftc

lid;en 3Beg be^ SeibenS trieber antreten ju fonnen. (5ba=

teanbrnn laf^t ibn blof^ toon bem l>erv)ifteten ^feite eine^ ro=

janer bcrtDiinbct fein. 3Ba^ fann man fidf)

Don einem fo
15 0en)bl)nlid>en 3^ f^ l 1 ^ 3Cu^erorbentlid^e3 fccrfpredhcn? 3()m
n?ar in ben alien Mrie^en ein jeber au^efeUt; tt>ie fam e,
ba^ er nur bei bem ^bitoftet fo fcftrerfltdie /yolc\cn battc?
Gin natiirlid)e (yift, bag nenn (\anje Sabre toirft, obne ju
toten, ift nocb ba^it n?eit nnmabrfd^inlid^er, al^ atte bag fabel-
20 ^afte SiUinberbare, \\wu\\t e ber Wriedie angfleriiftet bat.
2. So c^rofi unb fdnrccflidi er aber and^ bie fbrperlid^en

Sc^mer^en feineg .sSelben madte, fo fiiblte er eg bod>

febr U^oH,

bafe fie adein nic^t binreid^enb n)dren, einen merflid^en Wrab

beg DJiitleibg ju errccien. (S r Derbanb fie baber mit anbern
25 Ubeln, bie $leid>fallg fiir fid>
betrad^tet nicbt befonberg riibrcn

fonnten, bie aber burd) biefe ^serbinbun^ einen ebenfo melan=

d^olifd^en 5(nftrid; erbielten, alg fie ben forpcrlicften Sdnnerjen
^inVoieberum mittciltcn. !Diefe tlbel n^aren Dolli^e ^eraubung
ber menfd^lid^en WefeIIfd;aft, .jMtn^cr unb atte Unbequem=
30 lid^feiten beg Sebeng, n>etd>en man untcr einem ranben ,sSim=

mel in jener ^Heranbimfl ang^efe^t ift. ^Ocan benfe fid) einen

5)ienfcben in biefen Umftanbeu, man c\ebe if;m aber

44 Cefftng.

fyeit unb Jtrcifte tmb gnbuftrie, unb e ift em ffiobinfon Grufoe,

ber auf itnfer 9JMeib voenig 9(nfprurf) macbt, ob un gleicb
fern Sd;icffal fonft gar nicfyt gleicbgiUtig ift. enn fair finb

felten mit ber menfcfylicben efettfcbaft fo gufrieben, baft un3

bie 3tul;c, bie fair aufter berfelben genieften, nicbt febr rei^enb 5

bitnfen follte, frefonber unter ber 3sorfte((ung, vcelc^e jebem

gnbtbibuum frfimeid^elt, baft e fremben Seiftanbe^ nac^ unb
nad; farm entbehren lernen. 2(uf ber anbern Seite gebe man
einem 9JienfdBen bie fd;mer5licf^fte iml)eilbarfte ^ranfbcit, aber
man benfe ibn ju0lcic^ bon gefdlliiien ^reunben umc\cbcn, bie 10

t^n an nid^t^ 9Jtan^eI leiben laffen, bie fein libel, fobiel in ibren
Slrdften ftef;t, erleicbtern, gec^en bie er nnberr;Df)Ien flaxen
unb jammern barf: unftreiti^ toerben mir 5)iit(eib mit ibm
fyaben, aber biefe^ 5Rit(eib bauert nid;t in bie Sange, enblid;

gudfcn tt)ir bie Slcf^fel unb berit)etfen i^n ^ur CJebulb. 97ur 15
toenn beibe Jydlle ^ufammenfcmmen, tocnn ber (Sinfame and;
feine Alorper nid)t madfiti^ ift, iuenn bem $ranfen ebenfo=

menig jemanb anberS ^ilft, al er ficb fclbft belfen !ann, unb

feine SUagen in ber bben Suft fcerflieflen: al^bann feben n)ir

al(e @(enb, tta bie menfd;(id)e 9tatur treffen fann, iiber ben 20
UngliicHicben gufatnmcnfd^IaQen, unb jeber piic^tige ftebanfe,
mit bem n>ir un an feiner Stetle benfen, erregt Scbaubern
unb Gntfe^en. SSir erblidfen nid)t3 al^ bie 5>er^n)eiflung
in

ifyrer fd;redflidiften GJeftalt i>or

unS, unb fein "JRitleib
ift ftarfer,
feine jerfd^melgt mef)t bie ganjc 6eele, al^ ba, n?elcbe^ fid; 25
mit SSorfteKungen ber 95crh)eiflung mifd)t. 5Bon biefer 5Irt

ift bag TOleib, n)eld;eg fiir ben ^pbiloftet empfinben, unb

n>ir

in bem 2Iu$enbUcfe am ftcirfften cmpfinbcn, toenn ttir

iF;n
aud) feine 33ogen beraubt fef;en, be injigen, toa3 i^m fein
fummerlid)e eben erfyalten muftte. D be ^ran^ofen, ^ er 3
feinen SSerftanb, biefe 511 iibertegcn, fein .C^er^, biefe3 ^u fiiblen,
gebabt bat! Dbcr toenn er e gef;abt I)at, ber flein genug
 CaoFoon IV. 45

tear, bem armfelicjen 0efcbmacfe fcincr Nation aftel biefeS

aufeuopfern! Gfyateaubrun cu bt bem ^fn loftet efettf$aft.
@r laftt eine ^rin^effin 3Tocbter $u ibm in bie ttriifte 5>nfel
font*

men. Unb aucfy biefe i[t nicfyt allein, fonbern fyat if)re of=

5 metftertn bet fid); ein ing, toon bem icb nicbt toeifs, ob e3 bie

^prin^effin ober ber icbter nottflcr .gebraucht bat. a3 c^anje

bortrcfflicfje Spiel mit bem 35ogcu bat cr toccifldaffcn. 2)a=

fiir la ftt er fc^one 2(ugen fpielen. Jrcilirf) iDiirben ^fcil unb

33ogen ber fran5{tfd^en elbenjugcnb febr luftig borc\cfoms
10 men fein. 9^id^t^ ^ingcgen ift ernftbaftcr al^ ber 3orn fd^bner
s
2lugen. ^)er riec^e martert ung mit ber cjreulicben ^e=
s
forguni^ ber arme ^bi(oftet rterbe obne fcinen ^oc^cn auf
ber miiftcn 5 n f e ^ bleiben unb elenbi^lui> iimfommen tmif(en.
s
2)er gran^ofe meife eincn flduiffcrcii ^ca 511 nnfern .^crjcn:
15 er laf^t nny fiirrf^ten, ber Sobn be>o Slcfnllcg ^crbe obne feine

^rin^effin abjief)cn muff en. iefe3 bie|Vn benn and) bie ^a=
rifer Alunftricf>tcr
iibcr bie 2Utcu trtumpMcrcn, unb einer fcf>Iug

bor, ba^ 6f;ateaubrunfd)e 6tiicf la difficulte vaincue ju be=

1
nennen.
20 3. 9^ad) ber SBirhuifl be3 GJanjen betrad>te man bie ein=

jetnen Scenen, in ^eld^en ^biloftct nid^t mebr ber ucrlaffcnc

$ranfe ift; \w er .^offnuno bat, nun balb bie troftlofe Cfindbe

ju berlaffen unb n^ieber in fein 9?eicb ju c\elanc^en; mo fid; alfo

fein flanje^ Unfllucf auf bie fdnncr,^icf>e
iiUtnbc cinfcbranft.

25 @r itiimmert, er fdireit, cr befommt bie grafilid;ften gwfunflcn.

iermiber geF)t eigentlic^ ber (5inlr>urf
bc beleibi^ten 3In=

ftanbe^. @ ift ein Gnglanber, melcber biefcn @immirf mad)t;

ein 5Rann alfo, bet toelcbem man nicf)t leid^t eine falfcf)e X)elU

!ateffe argtobbnen barf. 2Bie fc^on beriibrt, fo gibt er if)m

30 and) einen fef;r guten C^runb. 3Hle (Smpfinbungen unb

Seibenfc^aften, fagt er, mit toelcfyen anbere nur fefyr it>enig

1
Mercure de France, Avril 1755, p. 177.
46 Cefftng.

fonnen, toerben anftoftia,, toenn man fie gu

2
fyeftig augbriicft. 3?id)t3 ift betruglicfyer al3 aUgemeine e*

fee fiir unfere mpftnbungen. !J$r Gktoebe ift fo fein unb

toertmdfelt, baft e* aud) ber befyutfamften Spefulation faum
mogltd) ift, einen eingelnen gaben rein aufjufaffen unb bnrd) 5

atte ^reujfaben ju bcrfolgcn. (Selingt e if>r aber aud^ fd^on,

toaS fiir 9^u^en f)at e^? ^ gibt in ber 9^atur feine cingclnc
retne m^finbung; mit einer jeben cntftc^cn taufenb anbere
jugletrf), beren gcringfte bie runbempfinbung flanjlicfy Der=

anbert, fo ba(^ 5lu3na^men iiber 2lunaf)tnen ervoac^fcn, bie 10

ba Dermeintlidf> aH0emeine (3efe^ cnblicfy felbft auf eine blo^e

(Srfabrung in tt>cnig einjelnen JyciHen einfcbrdnfen. 2Bir
bcrad^tcn benjeni^en, facjt ber ngldnber, ben n)ir unter !6r=

^erlirf)en Scbmer^en f>eftig fcfyreien (>oren.

3(bcr nirf)t immer:
s
nicbt ^um erften IRale ; nicfyt, rt^enn n?ir fe^en, ba^ ber Scibcnbe 15

alie^ moglicbe antocnbet, feinen 6c^merj u berbeif^cn; nicfyt,

n)enn Voir if;n fonft al3 einen IRann bon 6tanbf)aftigfeit !en=

nen; nodf) ttienicier, h?enn tt>ir

i^>n felbft unter bem Seiben
$roben toon feiner StanbF)aftig!eit ablegen feF)en, n^cnn n?tr

fe^en, baft ifm ber Sc^merj jtcar $um Scbrcien, aber auc^ 511 20

ineiter niditg 5rt)ingen

!ann, baft er fid? lieber ber iangern gort-
bauer biefe^ Scf)mer^e^ imtertoirft, al^ ba G5erinQfte in feiner
3)enfung3art, in feinen 6ntfd)liiffen anbert, ob er fcfyon in
biefer Sseranberung bie 9anjlid>e 6nbfd;aft feineg Scf)mer^e^
^offen barf. X)ag afte3 finbet ficf^ bei bem s
$l)iloftet. !Die 25

moralifd^e (Srofte beftanb bei ben alten (55riec^en in einer eben=

fo unberdnberlid)en Siebe gegen feine greunbe, al^ untoanbel-
barem affe c\egen feine geinbe. ^Diefe (Srofte beF)dIt ^()iloftet
bei alien feinen 9ftartern. 6ein Scfymers ^>at feine Slugen
nicf)t fo fcertrocfnet, baft fie i^m feine ranen iiber bag Sdjirf- 30
2
The Theory of Moral Sentiments, by Adam Smith. Part I,
sect. 2, chap, i, p. 41.
 Caofoon IV. 47

fat feiner alien greunbe flctuabren fbnntcn. Sein 6d;merj

fyat ifyn fo miirbe nicfyt gemacbt, bafc cr, urn ibn (06 ju toerbcn,

feinen Jeinben berQeben, unb fid? a,ern $u alien if;reh ci$en-

niitjigen Slbficfctcn braucbcn laffen morfitc. Unb biefen Jel=

5 fen toon einem 9Jcanne fatten bie 2ltbenienfer beracMen foUcn,

mil bie 2BeIlen, bie iFw nicht erfcbuttern fonnen, ihn
ertonen mac^en? %d) befenne, bafj ic^ an ber

be Cicero iiberbaupt faenift Wefrfnnac! finbe; am

ften aber an ber, bie cr in bcm ^vciten 53udie feiner
10 fcr;en Jraflcn iiber bie Grbulbunfl be^ forperlicben 6cfmierje3
au^framt. 9Jian follte c^Iaubcn, cr tootle einen labiator

abrichten, fo fefyr eifert er rt)iber ben aufterlicben 2Iu^bruc!

be^ Sc^merje^. Jn biefem fcbeint er allcin bie Un^cbulb ju
finben, o(;ne $n uberleftcn, baj^ er oft nicbt3 n^eni^er al^ frei=

15 toiUig ift, bie rt)af?re ^apferfcit aber ficb nur in frci>r>illic\en

anb(ungen jei^en fann. C^r hort bei bem 6opbofle^ ben

^P^iloftet nur flaxen unb fd^rcien, unb iiberfiebt fein iibric^e^

ftanbbaftc^ ^ctra^en flcinjlicfr. 2i^o bdtte er aucb fonft bie

elegenbeit ju feinem rbctorifd>cn 2(uefallc rt)iber bie Xid-ter

20 fyergenommcn? W 8ie follcn un^ incid^id^ madden, n?eil fie

bie tapferftcn banner fla^enb einfiihrcn." ie muff en fie

flaxen laffen; benn ein ^beater ift feinc 2lrena. Xem l^r
bammtcn ober feilen Jyed^ter fam e^ ju, allc^ mit Hnftanb ju
tun unb ju leibcn. 5>on ibm mu^te fein fltifllid^er aut ^e=

25 fyort, feine fa^mer^licbe 3 U(^un 9 erblicft roerben. Xenn ba

feine S^unbcn, fein ob, bie 3 u W aucr ct^o^en follten, fo
mufete bie ^tunft alle3 Wcfiibl t>erbcr^cn lebren. ^ie flerinflfte
S
be^felben ^atte 33iitleiben ertoecft, unb ofterg er=
JRitleiben roiirbe biefen froftic^ graufamen 6cbaufpielen
30 balb ein @nbe $emad)t baben. 3Ba^ aber bier nicbt errec^t
n?erben follte, ift bie ein^icje 2(bficbt bcr trac^ifcben 23iibne, unb
forbert bafjer ein gerabe entgegenQefe^te^ 58etragen. 3^ rc
 48 Ccffing.

elben miiffen Gkfiifyl $ei$en, mii[fcn ifyre Sdjmer^en dujsern,

unb bie blofce 9?atiir in fief)
toirten laffen. 3>erraten fie 5(6=

ricfytung unb gtoang, f

*a
ff en fa
un f cr cr 3 fa ^ un ^ &ttfs
fedrter im ^otljwrne
tbnnen fybcbftenS nur bennmbert toerben.
SMefe 33enenmmg tocrbiencn alle ^erfoncn bcr fogenannten 5

Senecafc^en ^racjbbtcn, unb id) bin bcr feften 9fteinung, ba^

bic C^(abiatorifcf>cn Spiele btc toorncbmftc Urfad^c ge^cfen,
tuarum bie Corner in bem Xrac\ifd)en nocb fo ^tcit unter bent

DJJittelmafttflen c^cblieben finb. ^)ie ^ufdmuer Icrnten in bem

blutic^en 3(mpbitf)eater alle 9iatur tcrfennen, U)o allenfall^ 10
ein ittefilau^ feine ^unft ftubieren fonntc, aber tiitnmerme^r
ein Sopfyofle3. ^Da tragifcbfte (^enie, an biefe fitnftlicfyen

^obcSfccnen gch)6F;nt, mufjte auf 33ombaft unb $)iDbomon=

taben berfallen. 3Ibcr fo n?eni^ al3 foldie ^obcmontaben
I

ttaF;ren .^elbenmut einflofecn fonnen, ebcnfo itcnicj fbnnen 15

^3^ilo!tetifd)e ^lagen n^eid^lid) madden. te ^lac^cn finb

cineg ^JJcnfd^en, aber bie ftanblunflcn cine^ .^elben. 33eibe

madden ben menfd;lid)en elben, ber toeber u^eid^licb nod) ber=

fyartet ift, fonbern balb biefe^ balb jene^ fd)eint, fo n)ic ifm

je^t 5Zatur, je^t runbfa^e unb ^flidht l>erlan^en. C^r ift 20

ba ^bcr/fte, Voa bie 2Bei31)eit berborbrin^en, unb be ^unft

nad>abmen fann.
4. 9Zicf)t G enu 9^ bflfc 6o^bo!le^ feinen em^finblid^en ^pbi=
loftet bor ber Sserac^tung oiefid^ert bat; er bat aud> allem
anbern tt)eiglic^ toorc^ebaut, Voa^ man fonft au^ bcr 3(nmcr= 25

fung be3 nglanber^ ivibcr ibn erinncrn !bnntc. ^enn i?er=

ad)ten voir fcbon benjenioien nidit tmmcr, ber bei fbrpcrlicbcn

Scfjmer^en fcbreit, fo ift bod) btefeS unn^ibcrfprcd^licb, bafc U)ir

nicbt fo bid TOleiben fiir il>n
empfinbcn, al^ biefeS cfcbrci

^u erforbern fcbeint. 2Sie follen ficb alfo biejenicicn fccrbalten, 30

bie mit bem fcbreienben ^biloftet ju tun f>aben? Sollen fie

fid) in cinern fyofyen Orabe geriiF)rt ftellen? G ift toibcr bie

 Caofoon IV. 49

9?atur. Soften fie fid; fo fait unb berlegen bejeigen, al3 man
h)irflid) bet bergleid^en gatten $u fein pflegt? a3 toiirbe bic

toibrioiftc iffonan$ fiir ben 3ufd>auer bertiorbringcn. 2lber,

ttne gefagt, and) biefem hat 8opbofle3 ttorgebaut. Taburd)
5 namlicb, baft bie Jiebenperfonen ibr eigeneS ^ntereffe baben;
s
baft ber Ginbrucf, rocldjen ba^ Scftrcicn bc ^biloftct auf fie

mad^t, tiidit ba3 einjigc ift, tca fie bcfcfrnftigt, unb ber 3 U;
fd)aucr bafjer nid>t
fotoobl anf bie disproportion ibre^3 W\t=
leib^ mit Dtcfcm Wefd>rei, alS in elmebr anf bie SSeranbernng
10 adjt gibt, bie in ibren cigcncn Wcfinnungcn unb ECnfc^Iagcn
bnrd) ba^ ^iitleib, e3 fei fo fd^macf** ober fo ftarf e3 \v\ll, ent=

ftefyt, ober entftcben follte. Oieoptolem unb ber Cbor baben

ben nnoiu kfUcbcn ^Mloftct ^intergangen; fie erfennen, in

n?eld>e
^er^feiflung tbn ibr SJetrug ftiir ^en ( ^crbe; nun be=

15 fommt er feinen fd>rccflid>cn ^ufall t>or ibren 5(u^en; fann

biefer 3 u f fl H feine merflid^e fiMiipatbetifd^e (5 inpfinbung in

if;ucn crrcgcn, fo fann er fie bod) antreiben, in fid) jn i^eben,

s
gegen fo in el Glenb 3(cftuug ju baben, nnb e^ burd> ^erraterei
nicbt ^aufeu jn tDolIcn. ^iefe^ ertrartet ber ^ufdmuer, unb
20 |eine 6rtrartung finbet fid) toon bem ebclmiitigen Sicoptolem
s
nid;t gctaufcf^t. ^biloftct, feiner Sdnnerjen 3Jieifter, njiirbe

ben 9(eoptolem bei feiner Serftellnng erbalten baben. *$bi=

loftet, ben fein Scfymer^ alter SRerftcIhntg unfcibig mad>t, fo

^odf)ft ubtig fie ibm aud>

fd>eint,
bamit feinen ftinftigen ^eife=
25 gefa^rten ba ^Berfpredien, if)n mit fid) ^u ne^mcn, nidit 511

balb gereue; ^biloftet, ber ganj 9tatur ift, bringt aud; ben
9Zeoptolem 511 feiner 9?atur n)ieber jnriicf. ^Diefe Umfefyr ift

bortrefflicf), unb um fo toiel ritfjrenber, ba fie fcon ber bloften

^enfd)(id>feit bertirft toirb. 33ei bem granjofen ^aben toie=

3
30 berum bie fcbonen 2lugen ibren ^teil baran. ^)od^ id) toill

an biefe ^arobie nicbt mebr benfen.

3
Act II, Sc. III. De mes deguisements que penserait Sophie?
fagt ber @ofjn be
50 Cefftng.

Db ber 6d)auftneler bag $efd)rei unb bie Skr^udfungen

beg Sd?mer$eg big ^ur ^Hufion bringcn lonne, mill id) toeber

-JBenn
gu Derneinen nod) $u bejafyen toagen. id; fdnbe, bafc
eg unfere Sd)aufpieler ntd)t lonnten, fo miifcte id) erft toiffen,

ob eg aud) ein arrtcf nid)tbermogenb nearer unb ftenn eg 5

aucfy biefem nid)t geldnge, fo toiirbe id) mir nod) immer bie
Sfeuopoe unb )eflamation ber 3llten in einer SSofltommen*

^eit benfen biirfen, toon ber n)ir ^eut^utage gar feinen 53egriff
^aben.

V.

g gibt tenner beg Slltertumg, meldf^e bie ruppe 2aofoon 10

fiir ein 2Berl griedbifcf^er ^eifter, aber aug ber 3d* ber
r ^alten, toetl fie glauben, ba^ ber SUrgtlifdfye Saofoon
babei jum 58orbilbe gebient f)abe.
^d) \v\ll bon ben dltern
ele^rten, ^Reinung gen?efen finb, nur ben 33ar=
bie biefer
2
tE)olomdug ^arliani/ unb toon ben neuern ben 5Rontfaucon 15

mnnen. 6ie fanben oF)ne 3 n)C ^f e ^ Jtoifcfyen bem

unb ber 33efc^reibung beg ^)icf>tcrg eine fo befonbere

ftimmung, ba^ eg if)nen unmoglid; biinfte, baJ5 beibe Don un=

gefafyr auf einerlei llmftdnbe follten gefallen fein, bie fid^

nid)tg toeniger alg toon felbft barbieten. abei fc|ten fie 20

boraug, bafc iuenn eg auf bie @I)re ber (Erfinbung unb beg
1
Topographiae Urbis Romae, lib. IV, cap. 14. Et quanquam
hi (Agesander et Polydorus et Athenodorus Rhodii) ex Virgilii des-
criptione statuam hanc formavisse videntur, non tamen illam in om
nibus sunt imitati, quod viderent multa auribus, non item oculis
convenire et placere.
2
Suppl. aux Ant. Expliq., T. I., p. 242. II semble qu Age-
sandre, Polydore et Athenodore, qui en furent les ouvriers, aient
travaille comme a 1 envie, pour laisser un monument, qui repondait a
1
incomparable description qu a fait Virgile de Laocoon, etc.
 Caofoon V. 51

erften 0ebanfen3 anfomme, bie 2BaI)rfd>cinlicbtcit fiir ben

$)id)ter ungleid) grower fci al fiir ben ftiinftler.

fcbeinen fie toergeffen ^u baben, baft em britter Sail

fei. enn toielleicbt bat ber icbter ebcnfotoenig ben

5 $iinftler, al3 ber iinftler ben icbter nacfcgcafymt, fonbern
beibe baben au3 einerlei altercn Cuclle Qcfcfcbpft. ;Jiacb bem
3
5JJacrobiug toiirbe ^ifanbcr biefe altere Cnellc fein fcnnen.
^enn al^ bie 2$erfe biefe^ griecfnfd^en Xicf^tcrg nocb borbanben

iuaren, n?ar e^ fcbulfunbig, pueris decantatum, baf? ber $ib=

10 mcr bie gan^e Grobenm$ unb 3^ftorimc\ ^slium^, fein flan^e3
jmcite^ 53ncb, au^ nicbt fomobl nad>^eabmt, al^ trculirf^
if>m

iiberfettf f^abe. SBdre nun alfo ^ifanbcr aud) in ber 0)e=

fcfyicbte be^ Saofoon 9>irfliIS ^orflan^cr flctocfen, fo braud^ten
bie griednfd^en Miinftler ibre 2lnlcitimfl nid>t au^ eincm latci-

15 nifdjen X)id;ter 511 bolen, unb bie OJiutmafumg toon ibrcm ^\t-
alter griinbct fid) auf nid>t^.

^nbe^ njenn ieb not^enbi^ bie ^Jtcimmg bc^ 3)iarliaiu unb

^Diontfaucon bebaupten ntiif^te, fo iuiirbe id^ ibnen folgenbe

2lu3flurft leiben. ^ifanbcr-o Webid>te finb terloren; tme bie

20 0efd;id)te be3 Saofoon toon ibm erjablt toorben, IcifU fid^ mit
3 a Graecis, dictu-
Saturnal. lib. V, cap. Quae 2. Virgilius traxit
rumne me putatis quae vulgo nota sunt? quod Theocritum sibi

autorem, ruralis Hesiodum ? et quod in ipsis

fecerit pastoralis operis

Georgicis, tempestatis serenitatisque signa de Arati Phaenomenis

traxerit? vel quod eversionem Trojae, cum Sinone suo, et equo

ligneo, caeterisque omnibus, quae librum secundum faciunt, a Pisan-

dro pene ad verbum transcripserit ? qui inter Graecos poetas eminet
opere, quod a nuptiis Jovis et Junonis incipiens universas historias,
quae mediis omnibus secuHs usque ad aetatem ipsius Pisandri conti-
gerunt, in unum seriem coactas redegerit, et unum ex diversis
hiatibus temporum corpus effecerit ? in quo opere inter historias cae-
teras interitus quoque Trojae in hunc modum relatus est. Quae
fideliter Maro interpretando, fabricatus est sibi Iliacae urbis ruinam.
Sed et haec et talia ut pueris decantata praetereo.
52

etoiftfyett nicbt fagen; e tft aber n)ar;rfd;etnlid), baft e mit

eben ben Umftanben gefckhen fei, fcon toelcben fair nod) jetjt

bet griednfd;en Scbriftftellern Spitren finbcn. 9tun fommen

aber biefe mit ber Cr^aMiing bc 3>trgil
im geringften nid;t

itberein, fonbern ber romtfdhc ^id-ter tnuf^ bic griccfnfd)e Xra= 5

bition bbWig nad) feinem utbiinfen umQcfc^moljcn F)aben.

9Bie er ba Unc^luc! bc Sao!oou cr^iMt, fo ift e3 feine eic^ene

(SrfinbuniV, fol^lidf), menu bie AUinftlcr in il;rer SRorftcWung

mit if;m ^armonieren, fo tonnen fie nid^t luoH anber a(3

nad; feiner 3 e^ Qelebt, unb nad>

fcincm 5BorbiIbe gearbcitet 10

ift ber erfte unb ein^ic\e, trelcber foiuof)! $ater al^

^inber toon ben ScManflen vunbriiuien lafjt; bie 53ilbbaner
tun biefe^ ^(eidifall, ba fie e3 bod) al^ C^ried^cn nid;t fatten
tun follen: alfo ift e3 ttabrfd>einlid\ baft fie e^ auf Sseran= 15
l Cretan baben.
laffung be^3 3>ir(u

3d) empfinbe fefyr n)o^l, ^tieDicl bicfer 3Sabrfd>cinlid^feit

^ur F)iftorifd)en C^emiftbeit maiu^clt. 21 ber ba id) aucb

iftorifd;e^ toeiter barau^ fd>lieften anil, fo fllaube icb

ften^, baft man fie al eine $i>potf>efe

fann c\elten laffen, nad; 20
nxkber ber 5tritihi feine Setrad^tungen anfteilen barf. 33e*

n)iefen ober nicbt ben^iefen, baft bie 55ilbbauer bent Virgil nac^=

gearbeitet I;aben: id; n)ill e bloft annebmen, urn $u feben,

ttie fie if;m fobann nad>gearbeitct batten, liber ba3 Wefdirct

F)abe id; mid; fd;on er!lcirt. ^8ielleid;t, baft mid; bie nxitere 25

35erc3leicbung auf ntcbt njentger unterricbtenbe 33cmcr!utt(3en

leitet.

)er infall, ben 35ater mit feincn bciben SoF)nen burc^ bic

morbrifcben Sdblangcn in einen 5lnoten $u fcbiir^en, ift un

ftretttg ein fefyr gliicfltdber Ginfall, ber toon einer ungemein 30
malerifd)en ^pbantafie jeugt. 9Bem c^ebort er? em ^id>ter,

ober ben Slunftlern? 9)fontfaucon tm ll if;n bei bent $)icbter

 aofoon V. 53

4
md)t finben. 5lber id) mcine, 9Jiontfaucon bat ben >icf>ter

mrf;t aufmerffam genug gelefen.

illi agmine certo

Laocoonta petunt, et primum parva duorum

5 Corpora natorum serpens amplexus uterque
Implicat et miseros morsu depascitur artus.
Post ipsum, auxilio subeuntem et tela ferentem
Corripiunt, spirisque ligant ingentibus

>er >icbter bat bie Scfylangen fcon cincr ftwnberbaren

10 ftefdnlbert. Sie fyaben bie ftnaben umftrirft, unb ba ber
ifynen $u ttfe fommt, er^reifen fie ami) Urn (corripiunt).

ifyrer (yroj^e fonnten fie fid; nicfrt auf einmal toon ben
loSnjinbcn; e mufUe alfo emeu SluQcnblic! flcben,
ba fie ben mit ihren .Slopfcn unb s-KorbcrteiIen
3>ater an= fd>on

15 flefattcn batten, unb mit ibren ftinterteilen bie .Unaben nod;

berfcf)htn^en hiclten. liefer 5(ugenblicf ift in bcr Aortfd>rci=

tunfl be
^oetifd^en emdlbe^ nottuenbig; ber X^id^ter lafU
ifyn fattfam cinpfinben; nut ihn au3jumalen, baju tnar jctjt

bie $t\t nid)t. *a$ \l)i\ bie alten 2lu^le^er and) iuirflid) em*
20 pfunben ^aben, fd>eint
eine Stette be^ Tonatu^ 5 ^u be^eiuien.
2Bie biel n>cnigcr inirb er ben Miinftlern enttvifd>t fein, in beren
i)erftcinbi^e 3(uc\c alle^, li)a ibnen borteilbaft merben fann,

fo fdwell unb beutlid) einlcud^tet?

n ben 2Binbungen felbft, mit u^eld^en ber id>ter bie

4
Suppl. aux Antiq. Expl., T. I, p. 243. II y a quelque petite
difference entre ce que dit Virgile, et ce que le marbre represente.
II semble, selon ce que dit le poete, que les serpents quitterent les

deux enfants pour venir entortiller le pere, au lieu que dans ce

marbre ils lient en meme temps les enfants et leur pere.
5
Donatus, ad v. 227, lib. II, Aeneid. Quos supra et longos et
validos dixit, et multiplici ambitu circumdedisse Laocoontis corpus
ac liberorum, et fuisse superfluam partem.
54 Cefftng.

Scfylangen urn ben Saofoon fiibrt, fcermeibet cr febr forflfaltig

bie Slrme, um ben anben alle ibre SBirffamfeit 311 laffen.

Ille simul manibus tendit divellere nodos.

$ierin mufetcn ibm bie ^unftler nottoenbifl folcjen.

cu bt mef;r 2lu3brucf nnb Seben al bie SBetoecumcj ber cinbe; 5

im 3lffefte befonber3 ift ba3 f^rccftcnbftc Wcfidbt obne fie un=

bcbeutcnb. 3(rmc / burd; bie ftinfle ber Sd;lanc\en feft an
ben ^or^er gefd^loffcn, ^itrben Jvroft unb Xob itber bie flanjc

($ruppc toerbreitet I;aben. 9Hfo fe(;en toir fie, an ber aupt=

figur fort>of)(
at^ an ben Dtebenfi^nren, in uodiger Xati^feit, 10

unb ba am meiften befd)dfticjt, too gegenftattig ber fjeftic^fte

d^merj ift.

2Beiter aber and; nicbt g, al3 biefe Jyreibeit ber 3(rme, fanben
bie ^iinftler jutrac^lid;, in 2lnfebnnfl ber ^erftricfun^ ber

6d)langen, bon bem ^Did)ter ju entlef;nen. SUrflil lafet bie is

Sc^tanflcn boppelt um
ben Seib, unb boppelt um ben al^
be^ Saotoon fief) iDtnben, unb f)ocf) mit ibren ^lopfen iiber \ljn

fyerau^ragen.
Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum
Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis. 20

>iefe3
33tlb fuUt unfere inbilbun^fraft bortrefflicb ;
bie ebe(=

ften Xeile finb bi jum (grftirfen geprefct unb ba^ OMft

$erabe nac^ bem Weficf)te. ^emungead^tei tear e3 !ein

fiir ^tinftler, toeld^e bie 9Birfunflcn be ftifte unb be^ Scbmer=

je^ in bem $orper ^ei^en VooHten. enn um biefe bemerfen 25
$u fonnen, mu^ten bie ^au^ttcile fo frei fein al moglid^, unb
burd^auS muf^te fein auferer auf ba3 ruc! fie n)ir!en, toeld^er

Spiel ber leibcnben S^erben unb arbeitenben 9)?ufeln ber=

anbern unb fdmmcfyen fonnte. !Die boppelten 2Binbunflen
ber 6cf)Ian^en toiirben ben flatten Seib berbedft ^aben, unb 30

jene fcfymerslicbe Ginjie^ung be^ UnterleibeS, toelcf^e fo fef)r

 Caofoon V. 55

au3briicfenb ift, toiirbe unficfytbar geblieben fein. 2Ba3 man

iiber, ober unter, ober ^toifcfyen ben 2Binbungen Don bem Seibe

nod; erblicft I)dtte, toiirbe unter s$reffungen unb 2luffd;ft>ellun=

gen erfcfnenen bon bem inncru Gd^mer^e, fonbern

fein, bie nic^t

5 toon ber ciuftern 2aft getoirft toorben. )er ebenfo oft um=

fdbtungene al3 toiirbe bie pmamjbalifcfye 3 u fP^ un O ^ er

Girup^e, tt)eld;e bem 3tuge fo angenef;m ift, gdnjltcf) Derborben

(>aben;
unb bie au^ biefer 9Bulft in^ Jreie f)inau^ragenben

fpien Scf^anc^enfopfe fatten einen fo p(o(icfyen 5IbfaU toon

10 5Kenfur gemad^t, baft bie Jorm be^ C^anjen dufterft an=

ftdftig geir>orben toare. 6^ gibt 3^id;ner, rt>elcf)e

unberfttinbig
genng gemefen finb, fid) bemun$eac$tei an ben ^Dic^ter ju
binben. 2Ba^ benn aber auch barau3 getuorben, Idftt fid;
6
unter anbern au^ einem 5^Iatte be^ S ran S (Flet)n mit 2(bfc(>eu
15 erfennen. Xie alten ^Bilbbauer iiberfabcn e3 mit einem
Slicfe, baft ifyre .Slunft bier eine gdnjlicfie 3Ibanberung erforbere.
6ie berlegten alle inbungen toon bem Seibe unb >alfe
um
bie Sd)enfel unb Jiifte. ier fonnten biefe SBinbungen, bem
5lu3brucfe unbefc^abet, fo toiel becfen unb ^reffen, al^ notig
20 tear. ier erregten fie jugleid) bie Jbee ber gebemmten
unb einer 3(rt bon Unbetoeglidrfeit, bie ber fiinftlid)en
bauer be namlicften 3ft^"be^ febr fcorteilbaft ift.

^d^ tneift nicbt, toie e gefommen, baft bie &unftrid;ter biefe

SSerfcbiebenbeit, njelcbe ficb in ben 2Binbungen ber Scblangen

25 ^t>ifcf)en
bem s
unb
ber $efd)reibung be^ !Did;ter^
5"iunfttt>crfc

fo beutlid) ^eigt, ganjlid) mit Stillfd)n)eigen ubergangen (jaben.

6
3u ber pradjtigen ?IuSgabe oou 1)r^beH cttglifc^em Virgil (bonbon
1697 in gro golio). Unb bod) ^at anc^ biefer bie SBinbungen ber
@d)langen um ben eib nur einfad) nnb um ben at8 faft gar nidjt

gefu^rt. SBenn etn jo inittelnmfjtger ^unftter anberS eine @ntfrf)ulbi=

gnng toerbtent, fo fonnte ifjm nur bie ju flatten tonunen, baf? ^upfer gu
einem ^uc^e a( blo^e Grlduterungen, uidjt aber al3 fiir ftcf) befte^enbe
$unftujerfe ju betradjten [tnb.
56 Cefftng.

Sic erfyebt bie 2Bei3F;eit bet ^iinftler cbenfo feF;r al bie anberc,

auf bie fie afte fallen, bie fie aber nicbt fotoofyl an-wpreifen
toagen, ate melmefyr nur 51* entfduilbigen fucfyen. gcf) meinc
bie $erfd)iebenl)eit in ber 53efleibuna,. $ira,il Saofoon ift

in feinem pricftcrlicftcn Drnate, unb in ber ruppe erfdieint 5

cr tint beiben feinen Sobnen ttoUift nadtcub. 93can faa,t, e

o,cbc Scute, it)eld^e eine a,rof ,e Uncjercimt^ctt barin fanben,

bafj cm ^dntQ^fo^n, ein ^rieftcr, I>ci cincm Dpfer nacfcnb

borflcftcWt tucrbc. Unb bicfen Scnten anttcorten tenner ber

Munft in atleni (Srnftc, baft c3 aUerbin^ cin JveWer toiber ba^ 10

ilblid)e fei, baft aber bie Miinftlcr bajn fle^nninflcn tuorbcn,

\w\[ fie if;ren Jyicmren !eine anftdnbi^c .Hleibnnc^ c^eben fonnen.
^ie Silbbauerei, fa^en fie, fonne feine Stoffc nad^af)men;;
bidfe Jyaltcn tuad)tcn cine iible SSirfunn; an ^rci llnbeqnem=
licbfeiten F;abc man alfo bie (\eriiuifte ^dblcn, unb Itcber (^erten 15

bie 3isaF)rbeit felbft t>erftoftcn,

aB in ben Weludnbern tabel=

F;aft ^crbcn miiffen. 3Benn bie altcn 3(rtiften bci bem (Sin=

njurfe (acf^en unirben, fo ^eift icf) nidit, fr>a

fie ^u ber 53eant=
*i)ortung fac^cn biirften. Wan faun bie il unft nid^t ttefcr

F;crabfc^cn, a(3 e^ baburd; (^efd)icF;t. ^cnn aefe^t, bie Sfulp= 20

tur fonnte bie i>erfd)icbnen Stoffc ebenfo cuit nad>af)nten, ate

bie 5)Jalerei, ftriirbe fobann Saofoon notmcnbi^ bcfleibct fein

mitffcn ? SSitrbcn tt>ir untcr biefer 53efleibunc\ nicf>t berlieren?

at ein Gic^anb, ba JSerf fflain fd^er .C^dnbc, cbcnfo biel

Sd;onf;eit ate ba<3 2Serf ber crtiflcn SHJciSbcit, ein or^anifierter 25

Aorpcr? Grforbert e einerlei ^vd(;ic\feiten, ift e3 eincrlet

S^erbicnft, brin^t c^ einerlei @bre, jcncg obcr biefcn nacf^iu

aF;mcn? Pollen unfere 2(u^cn nur a,ctdufd)t fein, unb ift

e3 iF;ncn gtcid;DicI, iromit fie cjctdufdit n?crben ?

53ei bent Xid)ter ift ein (^etuanb fein GJetoanb, e berbecft 30

nicf)t-g, unfere Ginbtlbun^l raft fie^t iiberatl F;inburcf). 2ao=
foon babe e^ bei bem Virgil, ober babe c^ nicfyt, fein eibcn
 Cciofoon V. 57

ift ifyr an jebcm eile feincS &orper einmal fo fid)tbar, faie

ba3 anbere. 2)ie Stirne ift mit bcr priefterlidjen 33inbe fur

fie umbunben, aber nicfyt umfyiUlt. 3 a ft e binbert nidbt allein

/

nicfyt, biefe 33inbe; fie berftdrft aud? nod) ben 5k$riff, ben
fair un3 toon bem Ungliicfe be3 Seibenben madden.

Perfusus sanie vittas atroque veneno.

f>ilft
if)m feine priefterlirf^e S^iirbe; felbft bag $eicben
berfelben, ba if;m iiberall 5(nfeben unb ^erebrun^ ^erfdmfft,
rtnrb toon bem c^ifti(\en Weifer burcbne^t unb entbeilic^t.
10 5lber biefen 5icbenbec\riff nuif^te ber 5(rtift aufoeben, toenn
bas .^auptmerf nirf^t leiben follte. ^dtte er bem aofoon
nur biefe ^Binbe flelaffen, fo Unirbe er ben 5luebrucf utn
aucf>

ein flro^eg flcfd;>oad;t

baben. !^ie tirne trdre gum Seil
toerbecft morben, unb bie Gtirne ift ber 6it5 be^ 9(uebrucfc3.
15 2Sie er alfo bort ; bei bem Sd^reien, ben Shiebrucf ber 6d>biu

f;eit aufopferte, fo opferte er bier ba^ ilblitfe bem 3(uebrucfe

auf. ilberf;au^t tear ba3 llblic^e bei ben 5Ilten eine febr
s
^
ringfc^a^ige Sad?e. Sie fiif>lten, ba)l bie bbdifte ^eftim=
mung i^rer iiunft fie auf bie todUifle G ntbebrun^ be^felben
20 fii^rte. Sc^onbeit ift biefe bodfte Seftimmung; 9?ot erfanb
bie $leiber, unb ma^ bat bie Munft mit ber 9cot ju tun? $d)
s
gebe e^ gu, bafe e^ aud^ eine Ecbonbeit ber ^efleibun(^ flibt;

aber toa3 ift fie, (^e^cn bie d>onbeit ber menfd^id^en ^-orm?
Unb toirb ber, ber ba^ Wrbj^ere erreid^en faun, fid) mit bem
25 $leinern bec\niic\en? 3^ fiirditc febr, ber toollfommenfte
5!Jieifter in (^etoanbern, geigt burd) biefe (yefd^idlic^feit felbft,
h)oran e im eIt.
58 efftng.

VI.

9Jleine $oraufeung, baft bie $iinftler bem id;ter nad)=

geafymt fyaben, gereid;t ifynen nidjt &nr Skrfleineruna,. 5^

2Beifyeit erfd^eint bielmefyr burd; biefe 9iacfyaftimmcj in bem
fd;onften Sid^te. Sic folgten bem S>icbter, obne fid) in ber

geringften ftleinigfeit Don if;m Derfiibren 511 laffen. Gie

fatten ein 5>orlnlb, aber ba fie biefe3 ^orbilb an einer Jlunft

in bie anbere l)iniibertrac\en muf^tcn, fo fanbcn fie

elegenbeit felbft 511 benfen. llnb biefe ibrc eic\cnen

fen, Voeldje fid; in ben 2lbnjeidmnflen l>cn ibrem Ssorbilbe

^eigen, betoeifen, baft fie in if;rer ftnnft ebcnfo groft ^e^efen 10

finb, al3 er in ber feiniflcn.

97nn \v\ll id; bie SSorauSfe^ung nmfebren: ber ^id^ter foil
ben ^iinftlern nadn^eabmt baben. (5 ou bt Welebrte, bie biefe
1
^oraugfe^nng al eine Sl^abrbeit bebanpten. !^aft fie bifto=

rifcbe riinbe bajn babcn fonnten, ^iifUe id) nid>t. 5(ber ba 15

fie bag $unfttt>erf fo iiberfcfnra n^licf) fdion fanben, fo fonnten

fie fid) nid;t bereben, baft e an fo fpa ter fyit fcin follte. G^
muftie aug ber 3cit fcin, ba bie .ftnnft in if;rer boHfommenften
53liite n?ar, U)eil e^ baran 511 fein l)erbiente.
@^ fyat fief) ge^ei^t, baft, fo bortefflid) ba^ G5cmalbe be^ 20

SSirgil ift, bie ^iinftler bennod) berfcbiebene $iw be^felben

nic^t brancben tonnen. ^Der Sa^ leibet alfo feinc Ginfd)ra n=
fung, baft eine cuite ^oetifd^e Sd)ilbcrnng and) ein gnteS n;ir!=

lid;e^ emalbe geben miiffe, nnb baft ber !^id;ter nnr info=
iteit gut gefcbilbert babe, alg ibm ber 5Irtift in attcn 3 u ^ en 25

folgen lonne. 5)lan ift geneigt, biefe Gnnfd)rtinfnn$ jn t)er=

muten, nod^ efye man fie bnrd; 53eif^iele erbartet ficl;t; bloft

i, 9?td)arbfon, itnb nod) iieuevlid) ber err Don ^ageboru

(^Betrad)tungen itber bie 2)?alerei, . 37 ; Richardson, Traite de la

Peinture, Tome III, p. 513).

 Caofoon VI. 59

au GrVDacuing ber toeitern 6pl)drc ber ^poefie, au bem un=

enblicfyen Jelbe unferer GinbilbungSfraft, au ber Gkiftigteit

ifyrer Silber, bie in $roftter 93?en$e unb 9Jianniflfaltictfeit

nebeneinanber fteben fonnen, obne baft eine ba3 anbere becft

5 ober fcbanbet, toie e3 toobl bie in$e felbft, ober bie natiirlirf^en

3eid>en berfelben in ben cnflcn Scfiranfen be3 9iaunic!o ober

ber 3^it tun ttriirben.

SKenn abcr ba^ JUeinere ba (^Jr6f;ere nirf>t

faf(en fann,
fo fann baS Mleinere in bem tdjjem fein. Jd) entfialten

10 mid fa^en: twcnn niefyt jebcr 3rt/ ben ber malenbe Tidier

brandbt, eben bie (uite SJirfunrt auf ber Alad-e cber in bem
9)Zarmor haben fann, fo mod>te i>ielleid>t
jeber $\\(\, bejjen

fid) ber 9(rtift bebient, in bem SBerfe be^ id>ter3 ton ebenfo
^nter 98irhmfl fein fonnen? llnftreitiiv, benn \va$ n>ir in

15 einem Annftiuerfe fd>on finben, ba^3 finbet nid>t

nnfer 9(ui\c/

fonbern nnfere (SinbilbunQ^fraft, burcft ba^ 9(111^, fd>bn.

Qa* namlidie 3^ilb mafl alfo in nnferer G inbilbinu^fraft

bnrd) minfitrltcf)e ober natiirttck 3eid>en
imcbcr erre^t tuerben,

fo mu (5 and) jeberjeit ba^5 ndmlidn 3^oM^efaUen, obfd>on

20 nid^t in bem nnnilid>cn (^)rabe, aneber entfteben.

5)iefe aber eingeftanben, tnufj id) befennen, baf^ mir bie

SSorauSfefcung, 9iirc\il babe bie .Uiinftler nad^vieabint, u^cit

unbec^reiflidter mirb, al^ mir ba o ^iberfpiel berfelben c\e^or=

ben ift. Jlsenn bie .ruinftler bem itfter tiefol^t finb fo fann ;

25 id) mir toon alien ibren 9(b\veidnuu^en ^Kebe unb 3(ntu>ort

geben. Sic mufUen alnueid^en, toeil bie nd mlid>en 3wflc be*

$)id)ter in ibrem erfe Unbequemlid)feiten fcerurfad^t baben

tuiirben, bie ftdi bei ibm nicftt nuftcrn. 9(ber tvarimi mufUe
ber ^icf^ter abtt>eid>en? enn er ber (3ku^pe in alien unb
30 jeben Stiiden ireulid) nacf)c^eftaiuien md re, ir>iirbe er un3 nid>t

immer nod) ein toortrcfflidjeS Wemalbe c^eliefert baben? Jd)

begreife h)obl, lute feine fur fid) felbft arbeitenbe ^bantafie
60 Ccfftng.

ifyn auf biefen unb jenen $ug frringen fonnen; aber bie Ur*

fad;en, toarum feine 23eurteilungfraft fd)one giige, b\* &

bor 2Iugen gefyabt, in biefe anberen giige bertoanbeln gu

miiffen glaubte, biefe Vooften mir nirgenb3 einleucfyten.

9Jtid? biinft fogar, toenn Ssirgil bie GJruppe u feinem SBor* 5

bilbe gefyabt f;dtte, bafe er fid; fd)tt)erlid; ftriirbe F;aben mafiigen

fonncn, bie SSerftticfung alter brei Abr^er in einen jlnoten,

glcidbfam mir erratcn 511 laffen. 6ie miirbe fein 2hige 511 leb=

F)aft geriibrt F;aben, er Voitrbe eine ^u trefflid>e SS>irfung Don

if;r em^fnnben ftaben, at baf^ fie nicf>t and) in feiner 53efcf)rei= 10

bung mefyr borftecf)en foKte. gcf) fyabe gefagt, c^ mar je^t bie

3eit nirf;t, biefe Serftridnng auSjumalcn. ^ein; aber ein

ein^ige^ 2Sort me^r miirbe if;r in bem 6d)atten, tuorin fie ber

)id;ter laffen nutate, einen fef;r entfd^eibenben ^)rucf Dielkicf)t

gegeben I;abcn. 3Sa3 bcr 3(rtift r of>ne
biefc^ SSort entbecfen 15

fonnie, miirbe bcr SMcfyter, menn er e^ bet bem 5lrtifien gefcFjen

T;dtte, nid;t of;ne ba^felbe gelaffen F;aben.

Slrtift f;atte bie bringenbften ilrfad)en, ba Seiben be
nicbt in GJcfc^rct au^bred^en 511 laffen. 2Benn aber
ber 2)td;ter bie fo riibrenbe S5erbinbnng bon Sd)mer$ unb 20
Sd;onf;ett in bem $unfttoerfe bor fief) gebabt ^atte, tt>a I)d tte

i^n ebenfo unbermeiblid) notigcn fonncn, bie ^btt toon mann=

Iicf>em
9Cnftanbc unb groftnwtigcr GJcbuIb, n)dd;e au^ biefcr
$erbinbung be Sc^merjc^ unb ber 6d)6nF;eit entfpringt, fo
nnangebcutet ju (affcn, unb un auf cinmal mit bem 25

d;en $efd)rei fcine^ Sao!oon ^u fdjrecfcn? 9?id)arb=

fon fagt: SSirgilg Saofoon mufe fcf)reicn, mcil ber 2)icf)ter nicf)t

foiuof)! 931ttlcib fiir ibn, al Sd)rec!en unb Gntfc^en bci ben

Xrojanern, erregen VoilL ^dj ftnU e ^ugeben, obgleicf) ^id^arbs
fon nicfyt ertDogen ju baben fcfyeint, baf3 bcr icf)ter bie 2k= 30
fcbreibung nid;t in feiner eigncn ^perfon mad>t, fonbern fie ben
madden lafst, unb gegen bie ^)ibo mad;en lafct, beren
 Caofoon VI. 61

nid;t flenug beftiirmen fonnte. Slllein micfy

befrcmbct nid;t bag $efd;rci, fonbcrn ber 9Jtangel allcr GJraba=

tion big 511 bicfem C^cfcbrei, auf toelcbe bag ^unfttoerf ben
3)icbter natiirticfyertoeife l;atte brin^on miiffcn, ircnn er eg,

5 nne fair borau$fe$en, 511 fcincm 3>orbilbe cjefyabt fydtte. ^iidj-

2
arbfon fiii3t I^inju: bie (^)cfd icf>tc bc^3 Saofcon folk blof^ ju
bcr pat()etifd>cn 23efd)rei6ung bcr cnblicf^cn ^crftorun^ Icilcn;
bcr ^ichter babe fie alfo nid^t intcrcffaiitcr timd^cn biirfcn,
unt unfcrc ^htfincvtfanifcit, iucld^c bicfc IcWc fdn-ecflid^e 9iad>t

10 0an^ forbcrc, burd) ba^ Un^Iucf cincs ein^clnen 35iirflcr3 tiid^t

gu jerftrcucn. 3IUein bag bic 6acf^e nu^ einem tnalcvi=
(>ci|5t

fd;en Sdigcupunftc bctrad^tcn u?cHcn, aug iucldictn fie gar

nid;t bctracf)tet njcrbcn faun. Xas Utiflliirf be^ Saofoon unb
bie 3^ r ft orung finb bet bent ^id>ier feine Wemalbe ncbeneitu
15 anber; fie macfycn bcibc fein WaiigeS au^, ba^ unfer 2hi{\e auf
einmal iiberfcben fonntc ober follte; unb nur in biefeni 5s-alle

toare e^ 511 bcforgen, ba& unfcrc Hicfc ntebr auf ben Saofoon
s
al^ auf bie brennenbc Stabt fallen biirftcn. ^etber 53e=

fd^reibunflcn fol^cn anfeinanber, unb idi febe nid>t,

tvcld^cn

20 9^ad;teil eg ber folflenben bringcn fonnte, tocnn ung bie bor=

l;ergef;enbe aucf^ nodi fo febr c\eriibrt batte. C!g fci benn, ba^
bic folflenbe an fid; felbft nicbt riibrenb ^cnug tvarc.

Nod) it>eni(3er llrfad^e iuiirbe ber Xid)ter flebabt baben, bic

3Sinbnnc\en ber Sd^langen u i^eranbern. 6ie befd>afti^en

25 in bent MunftnKrfe bie w ^/

11 unb bcrftricfcn bie
-

5s iif;e. So
fc^r bcm Huge biefe SBerteUunQ ocfdllt, fo lebf;aft ift bag

2
Dela Peinture, Tome III, p. 516. C est 1 horreur que les Troiens
ont torque centre Laocoon, qui etait necessaire a Virgile pour la con-
duite de son poeme; et cela le mene a cette description pathetique
de la destruction de la patrie de son heros. Aussi Virgile n avait
garde de diviser 1 attention sur la derniere nuit, pour une grande
ville entiere, par la peinture d un petit malheur d un particulier.
62 efftng.

tt>eld)e3
in ber inbilbung babon juriirfbleibt. G3 ift fo bcut=

lid) unb rein, baft c fid; burd) 2ortc nidrt biel fd;todd;er bar=

fteften lafct al3 burd) natiirlicfye 3cid;cn.

micat alter, et ipsum

Laocoonta totumque infraque supraque
petit, 5

Implicat et rabido tandem ferit ilia morsu

At serpens lapsu crebro redeunte subintrat

Lubricus, intortoque ligat genua infima nodo.

finb $eilen be Sabolet, bie toon bcm 2ttrcu l oFme

nod) malerifd;cr gcfoinmcn tocircn, n^cnn cin fid^tbare^ 3>or= 10

bilb feinc ^bantafie bcfeuctt fyattc, unb bic al^bann 0e^t)i^

beffer gcrt)efen Vodrcn, aB Voa^ cr un jct^i bafiir c^ibt:

Bis medium amplexi, bis collo squamea circum

Terga dati, superant capite et cervicibus altis.

^)iefe 3UCC fiiWcn unfcrc (S inbi(bnnc\efraft allcrbin^; aber 15

fie mufc nid)t babei Dertoeilcn, fie tnuf^ fie nicbt auf rcine 511

bringen fud?en, fie mufe je^t nut bie ScManflcn, je^t nnr ben
Saofoon fef;cn, fie ntuf^ fid; nidfyt l^crftellen njollen,

gic^ur bcibe jufatnmcn madden. 6obalb fie Oiermtf b

fdngt i^r ba $irgilifd;e 53ilb an 511 inifsfallen, unb fie finbet 20

e l)6d;ft unmalerifcf;.
2Bdrcn aber and; fd;on bie SScranbcrunocn, meldbe Virgil
mit bent if;m c^cliebcncn SBorbilbc $emad;t bdttc, nicft un=

^lucflid;, fo tociren fie bod; blof^ ftnftfiirlid;. 9JJan af;mt nad;,

urn afynlid; ^u merben; fann man aber aFmlid) n^crbcn, n?enn 25
man iiber bie 9^ot berdnbert? SSielmefyr, n^enn man biefe^
tut, ift ber SSorfa^ !lar, bafe man nid)t d[;nlid; n^erben rt)oUen,

bafc man alfo nid)t nadf)geaF)mt F;abe.

yi\d)t bag GJan^e, lonnte man eintoenben, aber n)oF)l biefen
unb jenen Xeil. ut; bocf) toelcfyeS finb benn biefe ein^elnen 30
 Caofoon VII. 63

^Tcilc, bic in ber Sefd^rei&ung nnb in bcm Stunftnjerfe fo cjenau

iibcrcinftimmen, baft ftc bcr icbtcr mt bicfcm cntlcbnt 511

fyaben fcbeinen fbnntc? cn Stater, bic ilinbcr, bic ccManftcn,

ba alle Qab ^ cm id)tcr foiuofyl al3 bent 2(vtiftcn bie Wc=

5 fcfnd>te. 3(uf^cr bcm .fttftorifckn fomnicn fie in nicM3 iibcrcin,

nl^ bavin, bafi fie 5linber nnb 3>ater in eincn

gcnfnotcn bcrftricfcn. 2111cm bcr (5 infall bicrju

au^ bcm tocraubcrtctt fnftorifcfKn Umftanbc, baft ben
ebcu ba^fclbe Un^likf bctroffcn fmbc, aU3 bie Avinbcr. Xiefe
10 SSeranberung abcr, tuie cbcn cnuabiit ^uorbcn, fd^eint ^sircnl

gcinad^t ^n baOcn; benn bic griecfyifcfye ^rabttion fa^t

Acl^lid\ ivcnn in Slnfefyung jener

^crftricfnn^ nuf einev obcr ber anbcrn <ccitc 5f

abmnng fein foil, fo ift ftc atahrfd>cinlidKr anf bcr ccttc ber
15 5liinftlcr al3 bc^ Xid^tcr^ jn tcrmutcn. !Jn allem tit>ri(^en

iueiefit eincr l>on bent anbcrn aL\ nnr nitt bent UntcrfdMcbe,

baft it)cnn c3 bcr .sUinftlcr ift, ber bic 5lbn3eicf)ungen ^entad^t

bat, bcr ^orfatj ben Tidier nad\^nabmen norf^ babet beftcben

fann, iitbcm ibn bic Seftitnmung nnb bie 3diranfen fciner

20 unft ba^it nott^tcn; ift c3 bin^e^en ber Xid^ter, ireldier ben
iliinftlcr nadn^eabmt babcn fell, fo finb alle bic beriibrtcn
s
2lbtt)ctdmnflcn cin ^cU)Cu3 triber biefc fecrmcmtlirfie O^arfv

abmnng, nnb biejeni^cn, tneld^e fie bcmnn^eacbtet bcban^ten,

fonncn lucitcr ntdU^ bamit iuollett, al^ baft ba^ ^nnftroerf
25 alter fei, abS bie ^octtfd)C 53cfd)rei(ning.

VII.

28enn man fac\t, bcr Mi utftler abmc bent ^icf^tcr, ober ber

idHer af)me bem Ai tnftlcr nad\ fo fann bicfe^ jn^eierlet be=

betitcn. ^nt\t}cber bcr cittc mad t A
ba^3 2l^erf be anbern 511

bcm imrflicbcn (^egenftanbe feitter -Nad^abmnna,, ober fie

64 Cefftng.

beibe einerlei Gkgenftdnbe ber ^acfyafymung, unb bet cine cut*

lefynt toon bem anbern bie 3Irt unb 2Beife e3 nad^uafyrnen.

2Bcnn Virgil ben Sd?tlb be3 SneaS befd?reibt, fo afymt er
bem ^iinftler, toelcfyer biefen Sd;ilb gemacfyt fyat, in ber erften

Sebeutung nacfy. $>a

^unfhrert, nidjt ba, toa3 auf bem 5

$unfttoerte borgeftellt morben, ift ber GJc^enftanb fetner yiafy

a^mun^ unb ;
n?enn er aud) fd;on ba rnit befdjreibt, n?ag man
barauf borGefteltt fieF;t, fo befcfyreibt er e^ bod^ nur al3 ein

be^ Sd^ilbe^, unb nid)t at^ bie Sadjie felbft. 2Benn

ingc^en bie $ruppe aofoon nad;aeaF;mt fjcitte, fo <o

t)iirbe biefe^ eine 9Jadbaf;mung toon ber ^oeiten C^attung fcin.

$)enn er ttjiirbe Oruppe, fonbern ba^, n?ag

nid)t bicfe biefe

ruppe borfteUt, nad^ea^mt, unb nur bie $u$t feiner 9^acf>=

a^mung toon ifyr enttef;nt F;aben.

SBei ber erften 9?ad)afymung ift ber fticfyter Original, bci ber 15

anbern ift er ^opift. 5 enc if* e ^ n ^ e ^ ^ er atlgemeinen yiafy

a^mung, ^elc^e bag 5Sefen feiner $unft au^madf)t, unb er

arbettet a(^ (^enie, fein SSormurf mag ein 2Berf anbrcr ^iinfte,

ober ber 9Jatur fein. X)iefe fyingegen fe^t iF)n gan^lic^ toon

feiner 2Burbe F)erab; anftatt ber $)ing,e felbft a^mt er i^re 20

ftacfyafymungen nad), unb gibt un3 rinnerungen toon

!alte

3iigen eine fremben (^enie^, fiir urf^riinglid)e 3 u O e fcine^

eigenen.
2Benn inbe^ $)icfyter unb iliinftler biejenigen Oegenftanbe,

bie fie miteinanber gemein ^aben, nid)t felten au^ bem nam^ 25

lichen efid)t^unfte betracf^ten miiffen, fo !ann e^ nic^t fe^len,

baji if^re 9^acf)af)mungen nid)t in bielen Stiidfen iibereinftim=
men follten, ofyne bafj jn)ifdf)en iF)nen felbft bie geringfte 9?ad^
a^mung ober SBeeiferimg gen?efen. 2)iefe Ubereinftimmungen
fonnen bei jeitbertuanbten ^iinftlern unb X^id^tern, iiber ^Dinge, 30

n?elc^e nid)t mefyr bor^anben finb, ju Voecf)fel^n)eifen Grlaute=

rungen fii^ren; allein bergleid^en @rlauterungen baburcf) auf=

 Caofoon VII. 65

fucfjen, baft man au bem 3 u f au/e Storfafc mad)t,

unb befonberS bem ^oetcn bet jcbcr $leinia,feii ein 2lugcn=
merf auf btefe Statue, ober auf jcne Wemalbe anbid>tet,

I)eif$t ibm cincn fefyr jtocibcutigen Xienft crnxifen. Unb nid?t

5 attein ifym, fonbern aucfy bem Sefer, bem man bie fdionfte
Stetle baburd), toenn (3ott nriH, febr beutlicf), aber anrf; treff=

licfy frofti^ macf^t.

!Diefe^ ift bie 2(bficfyt unb ber gehler eineS beriifjmten eng=
1
lifrficn JBerf^. Spcnce fcfuicb f cincn ^ol^meti^ mit bieler
s
10
f(nffifd;cn C^elcf;rfamfeit unb in einer fehr tertrauten ^cfannt=
fcftaft mit ben UbctgebUebenen S^crfcn ber altcn Munft. Beincn
SSorfa|, au3 biefcn bie rbtnifcftcn ^irf>ter
ju erfltircn, unb au^
ben !Did;tern f;iinr>ieberum 2(uffd>Iiiffe fiir nod; unerflartc
alte ilunftnjcrfc berjubolen, bat er 5ftcr3 gliidlid; errcid^t.

15 3(ber bemungead^tet bebaupte icf), bajj fein 33ud; fiir jcben

efer toon (53efd)madf ein flanj unertraglic^c^ 3}ud) fein mufe.
@^ ift naturlicb, baf^ n?enn ^alcriud ^"^
accu ^ ^ cu flcfliifldtcn

33li^ anf ben rbmifd)cn Sd;ilben befcf>reibt,

(Nee primus radios, miles Romane, corusci

20 Fulminis et rutilas scutis diffuderis alas)

mir bicfe 33efcbreibun$ nxit beutlid^er Unrb, tvcnn icf> bie 5lb=

bilbung einc^ fold^en 6dnlbe auf cinem altcn Xenfmale er*

2
blicfe. $d) gebe e^ ju r baj$, n^enn S^^cnal eincn bornebmen
mit einer erme^faule bergleic^t^an ba^ }U;nlid?e
1
!Dic erjle 5lugabe ift Don 1747 ;
btc jroette con 1755 unb fiitjvt

ben Xitct: Polymetis, or an Enquiry concerning the Agreement

between the Works of the Roman Poets, and the Remains of the
ancient Artists, being an Attempt to illustrate them mutually from
one another. In ten Books, by the Revd. Mr. Spence. London,
printed for Dodsley. fol. 2lud) ein 2lu8$ug, lueldjen W. Xinbat cuts
biefcm SBerfe gemacf)t fyat, ift bercits mcbr a( etnmat gebrncft njorbcn.
*
Val. Flaccus, lib. VI, v. 55, 56; Polymetis, Dial. VI, p. 50.
66 Ccfftng.

in bicfer 3?erQlcirf;wtfl fcfctoerlid) finbcn biirfte, ofyne cine folcfre

Smile 511 fcbcn, ofyne 511 ttnffen, baf} c cin fd;lirf)tcr v^feilcr ift,

bcr blofj ba3 aupt, ^dcfyftenS mit bcm Siumpfc, beg Wottcg
iragt, imb toctl urir toeber dnbe nod; giifte baran erbliden,
3
ben 3?e0riff bcr llntaticj!eit crnxdt. (rlautenmgen Don 5

biefcr 3lrt finb nid>t

511 Dcracfytcn, itjcnn fie and; fcfyon iuebcr
allejcit notiucnbii3, nod; attest fnnldn^lid; fein folltcn.
id)ter battc bag Munftmerf alg ein fiir fid; bcfte^cnbeS
unb nid;t alg ^ad;nl;munfl, Dor 2htgcn; ober Miinftlcr unb

3
luvenalis Sat. VIII, v. 52-55.

---- At tu
Nil nisi Cecropides truncoque simillimus Hermae
;
:

Nullo quippe alio vincis discrimine, qtiam quod

Illi marmoreum caput est, tua vivit imago.

SScnit (gpcncc btc nvicdjtfcfjcu djrtftftcflcr mit in fetncn ^(an gegogcn

gefyabt univbe iljm DieUetcfyt, UifUeidjt abcr and) nid)t cine

Ijiittc, fo ;

attc &fopifdje ^-abcl bfiflefatteu fein, bie and ber $i(bung enter foldjen

^erme^dule ein nod) njcit fd)bnve^, nnb 511 iljvein SSfrftanbniffe tneit
nnentbel)v(id)eve^ ?id)t ert)d(t, als biefe <teUe be ^siiurnal. ^SDiev-

fur/ erjci^lt ^fopuS, ,,ti)otlte gevn erfa()ren, in meldjem 5Infet)en eu

bet ben SJJenfdjen ftitnbe. Gr t>crbarg fetne @ottt)eit nnb fam jn
einent S3itbl)aiter. ^i^r erbHcfte er Me Statue be Snpiter, nnb
fragte ben ^iinfttev, it)te tencr er fte l)alte? (5tne 2)rad)ine, luar bic

Sntnjort. SUierfur Idc^ette : nnb biefe 3nno? fragte er lueiter. Unge^

ftifyr ebenfo Diet. 3nbcm tuarb er fein eigeneS iJ?ilb geiiialjr, nnb bnrijte

bei fid) fetbft: id) bin ber 53ote ber (hotter; t>on mir fomntt alter

etrinn ; mid) mitffen bie SJienfdjen notmcnbig ivett Ijoljer fdja^cn.

SIber l)ier biefer (Sott? ((Sr ttrieS anf fein 3?ilb.)
^3ic tener mod)te

mo^t ber fein? liefer? anttuortete ber ftYmfHrr. O, tuniu il)r mir
jene beiben abfauft, fo follt iljr biefen obenbrein Ijaben." fflfcrfiir Uar

abgefiifyrt. 5lIIein ber 33tlbl)aner fannte il)n nid)t nnb fonnte a(fo and)

nid)t bie 9lbftrf)t ^aben, feine Gtgentiebe $n franfen, fonbcrn e innfjte

in ber 53efd)affent)ett ber tatnen felbft gegriinbet fein, n?arnm er bie

tet5tcre fo geringfdjatng ^telt, ba er fie gur 3gbe bfftimmte. ^ie

geringere S3?iirbe be otte^, uield)en fte twftettte, fonnte babei nid)t
 Caofoon VII. 67

fatten emcrlct angcncmmene 33c$rt[fe, bcnigiifolftc fid)

mid) il&ereinftimmung in iftrcn SBorftcIIungcn seigen tmtfste,

au3 nxld)cr fid) auf bie &ttgemetn$eii jcncr 33cgriffe jurik!*

fcMtcftcn lafet.

5 2Uleiu mcnn ibutt bie GJcftalt bc 3tyolfo malt, line cr ifym

im ^raum erfd)iencn: er [dfyonfte ^iinctfutft, bie GcMafc
mit bem fcnfcfren orbccr unttounben; fyrifdhc 0)eriid>e
buftcn
au^ bem golbenen .^aarc, ba urn ben lan^cn Siacfcu fdninmmt;
nuf bem flan^n
s
QlanjcnbcS 9^ci^ nnb ^ur^urrbtc mifcf>cn fid>

10 Aorper, n?ie anf ber Batten 2Baiu3e ber ^raut, bie je^t ihrcm
GJcIicbtcu 5u0cfiif;rt iuirb: iinirum mit[fcu bicfe $u$t toon

tun, benit ber AitnfHer fd)dtn fciue SBcrfc narf) ber @efri)icflirf)feit f
bent ^ teifje nnb ber Arbeit, lueldje fte crforbern, nub nid)t nad) bent

9?aitfle nnb bent SKerte ber SSJcfen, lueldje (te an^briicfen. Tie Statue
be? 2)?erfnr nutate njeutflcr GVjd)icflid)fett, inentger ^-leifj ttnb Arbeit

nerlannen, luenn fte ioentger fojlcn fotlte, al eine Statue bi <j

3npiter
ober ber 3mio. Unb fo tuare^ tjier lutrflid). Tie Statnen beS 3npi>

ter nnb ber 3nno jctgten bie ubtltne ^orfou biefer (hotter ;
bie Statue
be8 2)ferfnr Ijiitflegen tuar ein idjltdjtcr uterccfifler ^feiler, mit bent
blofjen 33ntftbilbe be^jelben. 2?a? timber aljo, bafj \i? obrnbrcin-
get)en fonnteV 9Jicrfitr iibevjal) bicfcn Uinjlanb, tueil er jetn uerineint=
Itd)e8 fibtmHtgenbfd ^erbienft nnr allctn oor ^tngen I)atte, nub fo ti ar
jeine Tentiitignnn ebenjo natitrlid), al^ uerbient. 9)iatt iuirb ftd) oer-

gebcnS bet ben 9tn^(egerit nnb ilbcviobmt nnb "Jtad)al)inern ^er ^-abeln
be8 S2lfopit nad) ber geringften Spur t>ou
biefer Grfldrnng ninfeljen ;

iuol)l aber foitnte id) ifyrer etne gaitje 9Jeil)e anfiiljren, menu e8 fid) ber

Tliify tofynte, bie ba8 9)inrd)en gerabe^n uerftanben, ba^ tft, gan^ nnb
gar nid)t uerftanben Ijaben. 2ie Ijabeu bie Uitgrrciint()cit, iueld)e barttt
liegt, luenn man bie (Statitcn alle fitr 25?erfe Don einerlei Jlnofiifyrnng
amttntmt, entmeber nid)t gefiitjtt, ober luol)l nod) gar itbertrieben.
2Ba8 fonfl in biefer ^abel anftofjig fetn fonnte, tutire tneUeidjt ber ^rei,
loeldjen ber ^iinftter feinent 3npiter fe^t. ^itr etne Tradjme faint ja

and) tuo^t fein Jbpfer eine ^piippe madjen. Gine T)rad)nte tnnf? atfo
^ter iibertjanpt fitr etn)a fel)r (SerittgcS fleljeit. (Fab. Aesop., 90,
Edit. Haupt., p. 70.)
68 cfftng.

4
alien beritfymten emdlbcn crborgt fein? Dber toenn em
anberer 3Md;>ter
ben Ssulfan ermiibet, unb fein bor bcr (||e

erfyite (Meficfyt rot, brennenb nennt, mufcte er c<3

erft au bem
2$erfe eine3 9)lalcr3 Icrnen, bajs Arbeit ermattet unb ie
5
rbtet? Dber 3sircu l pontem indignatus Araxes, biefe fcor= 5

trefflicbe poetifcbe 53ilb eine iiber feine lifer fid) ercu eftenben

5vluffe, mie er bie iiber if;n Qcfd^Iasene ^riidfe jerreif^i, Derliert

e^ nic^t fcine flan5e Sd^on^eit, Voenn ber 2)irf)ter auf ein Mnnft=
n>erf bamit an^cf^iclt I;at, in it)dci)cm biefer Jyluftflott aB
6
U)ir!licf) eine Sriirfe 5erbrecf)enb borgefteHt toirb? 9Sag follen 10

mit ber^leid;en @rldutemn0en, bie auS ber ftdrften SieUe

tt)ir

ben Derbrdngen, urn ben Ginfall einc^ Miinftlcrg burd;=

)td>tcr

fcf)immern $n laffen?
3d; bebaure, baf5 ein fo nii^licf)e 33nd>,
al^ ^olr;meti8

fonft fein fonntc, bnrd; biefe c^efcfnnacflofe (Grille, ben alien 15

^Did;iern ftaii eic\eniumlid>er ^baniafic, 5kfannifcbafi mit

frembcr unicr^ufcfiieben, fo cfel, unb ben flaffifd^en Scfirifi=

fteUern Vocii nacf^ieilioer ^evoorbcn ift ; alS ibnen bie ^df^rigcn

2lule0ungen bcr fd;alften 2^ortforfcf)er nimmcrmc^r fein

lonncn. 9^od; mebr bebanere icb, baft Spencen felbft 2lbbi= 20

fon bierin borgegangen, bcr an^ loblicber ^ec^ierbe, bie ^lenni=

ni^ ber alien JUmfttocrfe 511 eincm 2ln^Ie^nnoinnttcl 511 cr=

^eben, bie gafle ebenfotucnig unicrfdneben r;at, in h)eld)en bie

9?acbar;mung be^ yiiinfilerg bem 3}id;ier anftanbig, in h)dcf)en
7
fie ifym bcrfleinerlid; ifi. 24

4
Tibullus, Eleg. 4, lib. Ill ;
Polymetis, Dial. VIII, p. 84.
5
Statius, lib. I, Sylv. 5, v. 8
Polymetis, Dial. VIII, p. 81.
;

6
Aeneid. Lib. VIII, v. 728; Polymetis, Dial. XIV, p. 230.
7
3n Derfdjtebenen @tellen feiner 9tcifen unb feiuem efprddje iiber
bie alten
 Caofoon VIII. 69

VIII.

SSon ber 2ibnlid)!eit, toelcbe bie ?>oefie

unb 9Ralerei mit
cinanber fyaben, macbt fief) Spence bie allerfeltfamften 33e=

Qtiffe. @r $laubt, baft beibe Miinfte bei ben SUtcn fo a,enan

berbnnben fletoefen, baft fie beftdnbifl >anb in anb cicflcmflen,

5 unb ber icbtcr nie ben -JWaler, ber tinier nie ben id>ter au
ben SIngen berloren babe. !Daft bie ^oefie bie tueitere Munft
ift, baft if;r 6dionbeitcn 511 Webotc fteben, toeldie bie 5)Jalerei
nirf>t
511 erretcben DermaiV, baft fie bfter3 llrfadhcn baben fann,
bie unmalerifcben Sd>onbetten ben malcrifrfcn l^orjnjieben ;

10 baran fd^eint er c^ar nicbt c^ebad^t 511 babcn, nnb ift baber bet
bent geriit^ften llnterfd>iebe,
ben er untcr ben alten Xid^iern
nnb 3(rtiftett benterft, in einer SSeriegen^eit, bie tbn anf bie

nninberlid^ften 5{nsfliiditc l>on ber $Helt briiu^t.

X>te alten icbter (^cbcn bent ^acduig nieiftenteil^ Corner.

15 @^ ift nnmberbar, fa^t S^cncc, baft man biefe
alfo bod)
1

Corner an feincn Statnen fo felten erblidt. Gr fallt anf

biefe, er fadt anf eine anbere Urfad>c; anf bie Untoiffenbeit

ber Stntiquarc, anf bie Mleinbeit ber Corner felbft, bie ficb

nnter ben ^ranben nnb Gfcnblattern, bem beftanbi^en Mopf;

20 pue be^ C^jotte^, mocbten fcerfnxben baben. Gr minbet fid^
um bie toabre llrfad^e benun, obne fie 511 ari^ubbneit. !l)ie

Corner be natnrlidwt Corner, n^ie

^BacdfuiS n^aren feine fie

eg an ben Jyauncn nnb atiu it iwaren. 6ie ivarcn ein

Stirnfd^mnrf, ben er anffeUen nnb ablec^en fonnte.

25 - Tibi, cum sine cornibus adstas

Virgineum caput est :

-

2
fyeiftt e^ in ber feierlid^en 3(nrufung beg 33acdni3 beint Dbib.
r fonnte fid; alfo and) ofyne Corner jeic^en; unb ^ei^te fid^
1 2
Polymetis, Dial. IX, p. 129. Metamorph. lib. IV, v. 19, 20.
70 Ccfftng.

olme Corner, toenn er in feiner jungfrauUcfyen Scfybnfyeit er*

fdjeinen toottte. Sn ^e f er toottten tyn nun aucf) bie ftimftler

barftetten, unb mufcten baber atte 3ufde *> on u M er SSitfung

an ifym bermeiben. Grin folcber Sufafc facton bie Corner gc=
toefen, bie an bem SMabem bcfcftiflt h>aren,
h>ic man an einem 5
8
^o^fe in bem SlbniaJL ^abinett 511 ^Berlin fehcn !ann. Gin

folder 3 u f fl ^ ir>ar ^a^ ^iabcm fclbft, h)clcf)cg bie fdbbne 6tirnc

berbecfte, unb baber an ben Statuen be 33acrfm cbenfo felten

borfommt, al bie Corner, ob e ibm fdhcn, al f einem (Sr*

finber, l^on ben 3)icMern cbcnfo oft bei^elec^t toirb. ^Dem 10

2)id)ter c^aben bie Corner unb ba^ Xiabem feine 3(nfpiehuuvn

auf bie Xaten unb ben Gbavafter be Wotted: bem ftiinftler
^ingegen ^urben fie inberunc\en, c^rof^ere Srf>onbeiten ju

geigen; unb toenn 33accfni^, fllaube, eben barum ben ir>ie id>

53einamen Biformis, At/xop^o?, batte, iueil er ficb fotuobl 15

fc^on, al^ fd)redflicb sci^cn fonnte, fo irar e3 iuobl natiirlid),

ber ftiinftler btejeni^e Don feiner Weftalt am liebften
bie ber Seftimmung feiner il ituft am meiften ent^

unb Jjuno fcblcubern bei ben romifcficn ^id^tern 20

ofter ben 33li^. 3(bcr toarum nicf)t and; in ifjren 3(bbilbun=

4
gen? fragt S^ence. (5r antluortet: e n)ar ein befonbere^
Sorrecf^t biefer ^r>ei Wottinnen, tuoDon man ben GJrunb biel=

leid)t erft in ben 6amotbrafifcf)en C^ebeimniffen erfubr; itei(

aber bie 2(rtiftcn bei ben alien SRomern al^ gemeine ^eute be= 25

trad)tet, unb baber 511 biefen c^etmntffen felten

tt>urben, fo it)u^ten fie obne 3^ e f^ nidbt babon, unb
fie nid)t toufjtcn, fonnten fie nicf)t borftellen. %d) mbd^te
S^ence bagegen fragen: 5lrbeitetcn btefe gemeincn Seute fiir
i^ren ^lopf ober auf 33efef)l ^ornebmerer, bie fcon ben e= 30
3
Begeri Thes. Brandenb., Vol. Ill, p. 240.
4
Polymetis, Dial. VI, p. 63.
 Caofoon VIII. 71

fyeimniffen imterricfitct fein fonnten? Stanben bie SIrtiften

and) bei bcii ftriecben in biefer SBeracbtnng? SSaren bie

romifcben Slrtiftcn nicbt mebrenteite geborene G5ried;en? Unb

fo faeiter.
5 Statin^ nnb 3>aleriu3 JylaccnS fcbilbern cine er^iirnte 3SennS,
unb mit fo fdwdlicben 3u fl en , baft man fie in biefem 2(na,en=

blide efyer fiir eine Jvnrie, al^ fitr bie Wbttin bet SieOe balten

fctltc. Spcnce fieht fief)

in ben alten ^unfthxtfen

narf; einer fold(>cn

3>cnng inn. W
a^ fdMiefU er
s

10 bem icfrter mebr erlanbt ift al bem S3ilbf>auer nnb dialer?

a batte er baran^ fcdIie|Vn foUcn; aber er bat e^ einmal

fiir aUetnal al^ einen Wrnnbfafc an^enonunen, bafj in einer

^oetifcf)eu Sefd^reibung nirf>t

^nt fei, tt>a3
nnfdndlid) fein

tviirbe, h)cnn man e3 in einem (^cmalbe ober an cincr Statue

15 Dorftettte/ /vol^licf> miiffcn bie Xicf>tcr
c^cfeblt baben. ,,Sta-
tin unb 3>nlcriu3 finb an^ einer fyri, ba bie rbinifcf>e ^ oefie
fd;on in ibrem ^erfalle n^ar. Sic action and) bierin ibrcn
l)erberbten (^efdnnacf, nnb if;re fdilecf^te Seurteilnn^fraft.
33ei ben Tid>tern an^ einer beffern fyit \uirb man ber^Ieid>en
6
20 Skrftofuuuien nnbcr ben malerifd)en 3Cu$btu(f nicf>t
finben."

So ctma^ 511 fa^en, brancf)t e^ tuabrlid; toenift Unterfd^ei=

buiuvSfraft. Jcb mill inbey mid> meber be6 Statin^ nod) be3
SSalcriuS in biefem Jfalle annebmen, fonbern nnr eine all$e=
mcine 5(nmcrfunfl macf>cn. !Die Wbtter nnb c\eiftic^en 3Befen,
25 tuie fie ber Miinftler borftcltt, finb nidrt i)o(li^ ebenbiefelben,
me(cf>c ber id^ter brands, ^ei bem Miinftler finb fie ^erfoni=
fi^icrte 2(bftrafta, bie beftanbi^ bie namlid^c (5barafterific=

rung begotten miiffen, menn fie erfcnntlid; fein foUen. 53ei

5
Polymetis, Dial. XX, p. 311. Scarce anything can be good in
a poetical description, which would appear absurd if represented in
a statue or picture.
6
Polymetis, Dial. VII, p. 74.
72

bem ^icfyter fyingegen finb fie tmrfliefye fyanbclnbe 2Befen, bie

iiber ifyren allcjemeinen Gfyarafter nod) anbere @igenfd;aften
unb Slffefte fyaben, roelcfye nad) (SeleGenfyeit ber Umftanbe
bor jenen toorftecfyen tonnen. Sknul ift bem Silbfyauer nirfrtl

all bie Siebe; er muft ifyr alfo alle bie fittfame, berfcbamte 5

Sc^onbeit, alte bie fyolben S^eije geben, bie unl an geliebten

egenftdnben entjurfen, unb bie fair baber mil in ben ab=

gefonberten 53ec\riff ber Siebe brinc\en. ^ie (^erinc\fte 3(b=

tocidning t>on
biefem Jsbeal laftt unS fein 53ilb bcrfennen.

6cf)6nbett, aber mit mel;r ^ajeftat at^ Scfam, ift fcficn Icinc 10

SBenu^, fonbern cine Juno, ^ei^e, aber tncBr Qebieterifd;e,

mannlidbc al$ bolbe S^eije, gcbcn cine 9Jiincrtoa ftatt einer

SsoIIenbl cine gurnenbe SBcnu^, cine SSenu^ toon

unb 9Sut ^etrieben, ift bem SMlbbauer ein h?abrer

SBiberfprud^ ; benn bie Siebe, al^ ^iebe, $itrnt nie, rnd^t fic^> 15

nie. Sei bem ^id>ter binflCQcn ift 2senu ^r>ar

aucb bie ^iebe,
aber bie GJottin ber Siebe, bie auf;er biefem Gbarafter, ifyre

eigene 2|nbti)ibualit&i bat, unb folctftd; ber Mebe be^ 5lb=

fcfyeuS ebenfo fabic\ fein mu, all ber 3unetgung. 3Bal

2Bunber alfo, baft fie bei i^m in 3^rn unb 3lUit entbrennt, be= 20

fonberl iwcnn el bie beleibigte Siebe felbft ift, bie fie barein

berfe^t?
@l ift ^toar n>a^r, baft aucb ber Sliinftler in 5ufammen0c=
S
fc^ten ffierfen, bie 4senul ober jebe anbere Wottbeit, aufter ibrem
(5f)arafter, all ein toirflicb banbelnbel 29efen, fo cuit itie ber 25

3)irf)ter, einfiif;ren fann. 2lber allbann muff en lueniflften!

il;rc anblungen ibrcm Gfyaratter nicf)t h?iberfpred en, hjenn

fie fcbon feine unmittelbaren 5 ^fl en belfelben finb. Sknul
iibergibt ibrem Sol;nc bie gottlidjien 3Baffen: biefe .C^anbluncj
fann ber .Hiinftler, foVoo^l all ber icbter, borftellen. ^ier 30
fyinbert ibn nicf>tl,
ber 35enul alle bie 5lnmut unb Sdu>nbeit

&u geben, bie il;r all ottin ber Siebe jufommen; bielme^r
 aofoon VIII. 73

toirb fie eben baburd) in feinem 2Berfe urn fotoiel fenntltcfyer.

Slttein toenn fid) SBenuS an ifyren $erad)tern, ben 9Rannern

ju SemnoS racfyen nntt, in toercyr6f3erter nnlber $eftalt, mit
s
flecfigen 3Bangen, in toertoirrtem aare, bie }kdfac!el ergreift,,

5 ein fdfytoar^eS emanb urn fic^ toirft, unb auf einer finftern

2Bolfe ftiirmifcf; f;erabfaf;rt: fo ift ba3 fein 3higenblidt fiir ben

$unftler, n^eil er fie burrf) ntrft3 in biefem 5hiflenblicfe fennt=

licfy madden !ann. @^ ift nur ein 3ht^enb(icf fiir ben Sncfrter,

h?eil biefer ba^ ^Borrec^t I)at, einen anbern, in it)eld)em bie

*o GJottin ganj 3>enu^

ift, fo nahe, fo gcnau bamit jn Uerbinben,
bat3 njir bie 3>enu3 aucf) in ber 5 u w
nid;t au^ ben 5Iugen
berlieren. Xiefe^ tut glaccu^:
- Neque enim alma videri
lam tumet aut tereti crinem subnectitur
; auro,
15 Sidereos diffusa sinus. Eadem effera et ingens
Et maculis suffecta genas pinumque sonantem
;

Virginibus Stygiis, nigramque simillima pallam.7

@benbiefe3 tut Statin^:
Ilia Paphon veterem centumque altaria linquens,
20 Nee vultu nee crine prior, solvisse jugalem

Ceston, et Idalias procul ablegasse volucres

Fertur. Erant certe, media qui noctis in umbra
Divam, alios ignes majoraque tela gerentem,
Tartarias inter thalamis volitasse sorores
25 Vulgarent :
utque implicitis arcana domorum
Anguibus, et saeve formidine cuncta replerit
Limina. 8

Dber man !ann fa$en, ber Xidbter allein befi^t ba3 ^lunft=

ftiicf, mit ne^atiben 3u fl

en 511 fd)ilbern, unb burd) ^ermifdnmcj
30 biefer negatibcn mit ^ofititoen 3w9en, ^h)ei rfc^einungen
7
Argonaut. Lib. II, v. 102-106.
8
Thebaid. Lib. V, v. 61-69.
74 Cefftng.

in einc ju bringen. -fticfyt mefyr bie fyolbe SBenuS, nid)t mefyr

ba aar mit golbenen Spangen gefyeftet, fcon feinem ajurnen
eroanbe umflattcrt, ofyne ifyren GHtrtel; mit anbern glam=
men, mit grofjern ^feilen betoaffnet; in efettfcbaft ifyr af>n=

lid^cr guricn. 2(bcr n)cil ber 3Irtift biefe ilunftftiicfcg ent= 5

bcl)ren mufe, foil fid) fcincr barum aurf) bcr 2)icf)ter cnt[;alten?

SSenn bie DMcrci bic Sd)tucfter bcr id)tfunft fcin \v\ll, fo

[ei fie toeniflftenS

!einc eiferfiid)ti^c Sd^uefter; unb bie jiin^ere

untcrfage ber dlteren nid;t alle ben $u^, ber fie felbft nid;t
lleibet. IG

IX.

JBenn man in ein^elnen gaHen ben Dialer nnb id?tcr mit

einanber Dcr^leid^en unll, fo muf$ man bor alien !Dingcn a>of;l

5ufef;cn, ob fie beibe i()re boHige Jyreibeit gebabt baben, ob fie

o^ne alien aufcerlidien 3^^ n G au f ^ I)5d;fte 2SMrhmQ if;rer

baben arbcitcn fonnen. 15

Gin folcf)er aufierlid^er 3tocmfl inar bem altcn .^iinftler

bie 9{eli^ion. Sein 51>crf
jur ^erebrnng unb 3lnbctung
beftimmt, formic nid)t allejeit fo boHfommcn fein,
er einjig ba3 5Rcrgniic\cn be ^etrad)ter babei 5u

ge^abt f)dtte. ^er 2lbcrglaubc iiberhib bic Obttcr mit Sinn* 20

bilbern, unb bie fdjonften toon ibnen iDitrben nid;t iiberaQ al^
bie fcf)5nftcn Dercf;rt.

33acd;m3 ftanb in feinem ^empel ^u $?emno^, au roeldKm

bie frommc r)pfipiilc ibren Ssater itntcr ber G5eftalt be

rettete/ mit 5rncrn, unb fo erfcfnen er oF>nc

S^cifel 25
1
Valerius Flaccus, Lib. II, Argonaut, v. 265-273.
Serta patri, juvenisque comam vestesque Lyaei
Induit, et medium curru locat; aeraque circum
Tympanaque ct plenas taciti formidine cistas.
Ipsa sinus hederisque ligat famularibus artus:
 aofoon IX. 75

in alien feinen empcln, benn bie Corner roaren ein Sinn*

6Ub, toelcfye^ fein 3Sefen mit be^eidmete. 9?ur ber freie $imft-
ler, ber feinen 53acrf;n fiir feinen Xempel arbeitete, lieft biefeS
Sinnbilb toeg; nnb toenn rmr, unter ben nod) iibrigen Statnen
2
5 toon ifym, f eine mit 6rnern finbcn, fo ift bicfe3 toielleid)t ein

23efr>ei3, baft c3 feine toon ben flebetliflten finb, in tteld)en er

roirflid) toerefyrt toorben. (5^ ift ofmcbem f)bd)ft U>af;rfd;ein=

lid), baft auf bicfe lehteren bie $8ut ber frommcn 3^ r ftorer ^ n
ben erften ^a^unberten be^ Gbriftentuing toornefwtlid; ge=
10 fallen ift, bie nnr Mer nnb ba ein .Munftnjert fd^onte, h)dd^cg

burcf) feine 9(nbctunfl toernnreini^t tuar.

2)a inbe3 unter ben aufgegrabenen 3(ntifcn fid) Gtiicfe fo=

it>of)l toon ber cinen al^ toon ber anbern 3(rt finben, fo u>iinfd>te

id;, baft man ben Stamen ber .Uunfhuerfc nur bcnjenii3en bei=

Pampineamque quatit ventosis ictibus hastam,

Respiciens ; teneat viridos veLitus habenas
Ut pater, et nivea tumeant ut cornua mitra,
Et sacer ut Bacchum referat scyphus.
%
2)a8 S3?ovt tumeant, in ber uovlej3teu ti\t, frf)i tut

bafj man bie ipbnter be8 ^acdjiid nidjt fo flein geuiadjt, a(8 ftd)

etubilbet.
2
25ev fogenaintte ^acd)u8 in bein SDJebiceijdjeu avten ju 9?oin

(betni 9)?ontfaucon,Suppl. aux Ant., T. I, p. 154) fyat Heine, au8 ber

Stirne Ijeruorfproffenbe Corner; aber e8 flibt tenner, bie iljn eben
bannn lieber jn etitent ^vaitne niadjen luollen. 3n ber Xat ftnb jold)e
natiivHdjeii Corner cine Sd)iinbinui ber nieuidjlidjen eftalt, nnb
fbnnen nnr "ilBefen ge^ieinen, benen man eine Oirt uon "JJctttelgeftalt \\vi*

fdjen SDienjdjen nnb Xier erteilte. ^iid) ift bie Stellnng, ber tiiftovne
53(ict nad) ba- fiber fid) flefyaltenen Xranbe, einem 53eflteiter be SBein=

gotten anftiinbtner al3 bem @otte felbft. 3d) evinneve mid) l)ier, tr>a8

s
dlemenS ilJeranbrinu8 uon ^(eyanber bent rollen jagt (Protrept., p.

48, Edit. Pott.): G8 Juar SlleyanberS an^brii(flid)er 2BilIe, baf^ i^n ber

S3ilbl)aucr mit .spornern uorftellen folltc er tuar eS gern jnfrieben, ba^

;

bie menjd)tid)e 3d)bnl)eit in iljm mit .^ovnern bejdjimpft tuarb, luenn

man ifjn nnr eineS gottlidjen UrfprnngeS 311 fein gtaubte.
76 Cefftng.

legen mocfyte, in toelcfyen ftdj ber ^iinftler toirflid) al3 $imftler

geigen fonnen, bet toelcfyen bie Gdjonfyeit feine erfte unb Ic^tc

Slbficfyt getoefen. SlfleS anbere, tooran fid) 511 merflid)e Spnren

gotteSbienftftcfyer 8era6rebungen sei^en, berbient biefen Seamen

nid)t, toeil bie i lunft fyier nicfyt

urn ifyrer felbft rtriUen gearbeitet, 5

fonbern ein blofeeS ilf^nnttcl ber Religion tear, bie bei ben
finnlicben StorfteHitngen, bie fie ibr auf^ab, me^r auf ba^
S3cbeutenbe al auf ba3 Sd^one fab ;
ob id; baburd)
fcf>on
nid>t

fagen ^t>i((, baf^ fie nid)t and; ofter3 alle^ ^ebeutenbe in ba3
6d)5ne c\efei>t,
ober an^ 9iad>fitft fiir bie ilnnft unb ben fei=
10

nern (^efd^macf be 3 a ^ r O un ^ crt ^/ toon jcnem fo biel nad;=

gelaffen F;abe, baf^ biefeS adein 511 berrfd;en fcf^einen fonnen.

yjladjt man feinen fold;en llnterfdneb, fo Voerben ber tenner

unb ber Stntiquar bcftnubifl mit einanber im Streite lie^en,
n)eil fie einanber \\idjt toerftcl;cn. 2Senn jener, nad; feiner 15

infid;t in bie 33eftimmung ber .^nnft, befjan^tet, bafi biefc^

ober jene^ ber atte .^iinftler nie (^emacf^t babe, ntimlid; al^

^tinftler ntrf;t, frchwlttfl nid;t: fo tmrb biefer e^ bal;in au^=

ba^
bel;nen, e3 and) lucber bie Religion, nod) fonft eine anf^er

bem Webiete ber i Uiuft liec^enbe Urfad;e, Don bem .Qiinftler 20

f)abe madden laffen, bon bem iinftler namlid), al anbar=

beiter. @r toirb alfo mit ber erften mit ber beften
tenner it>iberle^cn ^n fonnen glanben, bie biefer ofyne
ten, aber 511 gro^cm Slrgerniffe ber gelebvten 2Belt, n^ieber 511
3
bem Sdnitte berbammt, it>oran
fie c^ejo^en Voorben. 25
3
5t(^ id) obeu be^auptete, ba^ bie attcn $iinft(er fctnc ^urien
gelntbet fatten, toar e mir ntd)t entfallen, baft bie ^itrien meljr al
eiiieu Xempet ge^abt, bie o!)ite ifyre tatueit qetuift nid)t gemejen ftnb.
3u bem ju Sert)nea fanb ^aufauiaS bergletdjen uon 0(5 ; ftc tuaren
tueber groft, noc^ jonft befonbcrS merhniirbin ;
e$ fdjien, baft bie ^unft,
bie ftd) an i^nen $eigeu fonnen, e an ben 23Ubftiu(en iljrer
nicfjt

^ricftevtnnen, bie in ber aUe be^ ^empets ftanben, etnbringen tnollcn,

al^ tnetdje Don tein nnb uon fel)r fcfjoner Arbeit luaren (Pausanias,
 Caofoon IX. 77

!ann man fief;

aber and) ben (Sinflnf} ber Religion
auf bie $unft u grojs borftellen. Spence cu bt fyierfeon ein

fonberbare3 33eifpiel. Gr fanb beim Dfcib, baft isefta in ifyrern

s
STempcl untcr feinem perfbnlicften ilbe fcerefyrt toorben; unb

5 biefe3 bitnfte ifmt Qenug, barau3 511 fd^lieften, baft e3 liber*

fyaupt feine 33ilbfdulen toon biefcr $dttin flegeben babe, unb

ba al(e, n?a^ man bibber bafitr (^cbaltcn, nicbt bie ^efta,
4
fonbern etne SScftalin borftede. (Sine feltfame golge! 3>er-

lor ber Sliinftler barnm fein ^fecfit, cin SBcfcn, bcrn bie !Dicf)ter
10 cine beftimmte ^perfdnlicMcit c^eben, ba3 fie jur ^oc^ter be^
Saiurnug unb ber Dp^ mac^cu, ba3 fie in (3cfaf;r !ommen

Achaic., cap. XXV, p. 589, Edit. Kuhn). 3d) Ijatte cbcufoinenig uer=
gcffcn, ba man ^opfc Don iljncit auf cineni 5Uiraj:a^ bcu (Sljiffletimj
bcfauut genmdjt, unb auf ciucr ^anipe boini Vicotittf }it foljcu glaube
(Dissertat. sur les Furies par Banier, Me moires de 1 Academic des
Inscript., T. V, p. 48). ?lud) fogar bie Unic uou ctritrifrfjcr Arbeit,
betiu oriuS (Tab. 151, Musei Etrusci), auf tueldjcr Cvcftc nub
^tjlabeS erjdjeiucit, luie il)nen yvci guvteu mit (vatfeln sufc^cu, tuar
mir uid)t inibcfanut. 5lUeiu id) rebete uon ^uufttDerfeu, Don mcldjcii

id) alle bicfc ^Stiidc au9fd^Heen }tt fouitcu fllaubte. Hub tudrc and)
ba lefctere ntd)t fotuoljl altf bie iibrigeu bauou auSjitfdjlie^en, fo bieut
e Don eiuer aubevu >2cite, metjr iiioine 1)fotuintg ^it boftdvfeu, als 511

tuiberlegen. Tenn fotvcuig and) bie ctrurtjiijen fttiuftler iibertjaupt auf

ba (d)5ue gcavbcitet, fo fdjeiueit fie bod) and) bie Jyuvieu uidjt foiuol)!

bitrd) fd)verflid)e efidjt^^itge, al\J io(me()r burd) ifjre Xradjt uub

Attribute au^gebriirft 311 Ijaben. 2)iefe ftofjcn mit fo rufyigent @efid)te
bem OrefteS uub ^ijlabeS ttjre ^acfrln uuter bie 2lugeu, bafj fie faft
im ^d)er,e erfdjrerfeu ,it luolleii. SBie fiird)ter(id) fte
fdjeitteu, fie uitr
bem CrefteS uub ^t)tabe^ oorgefomnifit, Idf^t fid) imr au^ i^rer <^urd)t,

feine0ivrg9 aber au^ ber SMlbung ber Jvurieu fetbft abuefymcu. (S fmb
alfo J^urten, unb fmb and) feine ; fte Derridjteu ba$ 9lmt ber fturien,
aber nid)t in ber (Sutftettuug uon riniui uub 35?ut, roeldje roir mit

ttjrem 9?amen $u derbinben gemotjut fmb ; nid)t mit ber *3tirne, bie,
ttue (Satlttt fagt, expirantis praeportat pectoris iras.
*
Polymetis, Dial. VII, p. 81.
78 Cefftng.

laffen, unter bie 9Rif$anblun$en be ^priapu3 $u fallen, unb

fie fonft toon ifyr erjafylen, toerlor cr, fa$e id), barum fein

, biefeS SBefen and) nad) feiner 2lrt 511 ^erfonifi^ieren,

toeil e in e i n e m empel nur unter bem Sinnbilbe be3
veucr toerefyrt toarb? enn Spence be$ef)t babei nod; bie= 5

fen Jv c W er / bflfe er ^ ag ^ ag Ctoib nur toon einem Qe^uiffen

*

5
Xempcl ber $>efta, tuimlicf) toon bcm $a 9^om fa^t, auf alle

Xcnipel biefer (^otttn ol;ne Untcrfd)tcb unb auf ibre 58ere^=

rung iiberbaupt, au^bel;nt. 2Bie fie in biefcm Xem^el ju

^iom toerebrt tnarb, fo tttarb fie nicf>t iibcrall tocrebrt, fo n?ar 10

fie felbft nid;t in !Jtalien toerefyrt U)orben, cf;c if>n Dtuma er=

baute. 92uma Oolite feine GJottfycit in mctifd>lidier ober tieri=

fdjer cftalt toor^eftellt triffen; unb barin bcftanb ol;ne 3^ e ^

fel bte 3>erbeffcrun$, bie cr in bem ienfte ber $efta mad)te,
baJ3 er alle perfonlic^e SSorftellung toon ifyr barau^ toerbannte. 15

Dtoib felbft lebrt un^, bafe eg toor ben ^eitcn bc^ 9hima, 53ilb=

fdulcn ber 5^efta in if;rem Xempel gegeben babe, bie, al3 il;re
^priefterin S\)ltoia Gutter iDarb, toor Sd;am bte junflfrau=
6
licben ^dnbe toor bie Slu^en l)oben. 3 u O e 9 e ^ en ba^ e^ un3 /

jet;t fcfnccr iinrb, cine blofte 3?eftaltn toon einer 5>efta felbft 20

5u unterfcbeiben, beitcift biefeS, ba^ fie aucf) bie 2Uten nic^t

5
Fast. lib. VI, v. 295-98:
Esse diu stultus Vestae simulacra putavi :

Mox didici curvo nulla subesse tholo.

Ignis inexstinctus templo celatur in illo.

Effigiem nullam Vesta, nee ignis, habet.

Ctiib rebet nur uom OotteSbienfte ber 3>e(ta
tit 9?om, nttr tion bcm
Sempel, ben itjr 9iuma bafelbft erbaut ftottc, uou bem er tuq jutjor
(v. 259, 260) fagt :

Regis opus placidi, quo non metuentius ullum

Numinis ingenium terra Sabina tulit.
6
Fast. lib. Ill, v. 45, 46:
Sylvia fit mater ;
Vestae simulacra feruntur
Virgineas oculis opposuisse manus.
 Caofoon X. 79

unterfcfyciben !onnen, obcr too^l gar nicfct unterfcfteiben

etoiffe $ennseirf;>en fpred?en offenbar mefyr fur bic eine,

fitr bie anbere. 3)a3 Scepter, bie Jadfel, bag

laffen fief) nur in ber anb bcr Giottin bcrmutcn.

X.

5 3d) merfe nod) cine 33cfrembunfl bc3 pence an,

beuttirf; jciflt, iuic tucnig cr iibcr bic GJrenscn bcr Ifoefie unb
5}?a(erei mufe nacf>gcbarft haben.

,,58a bic lliufcn iibcrbaupt bctrifft/ fagt cr, ,,fo ift c^ bcc^

fonbcr&ar, bafj bie ^)id;tcr in Sefd^reibung bcrfclbcn fo fpar=

10 fam finb, mcit fparfamcr, alo man e3 bci Wbttinncn, bcnen
1
fie fo grofce SSerbinblid^fcit babcn, crmartcn folltc."

^eifjt ba anbcr^, at^ fid> tminbcrn, baf?, nxnn bie

Don ibnen rcbcn, fie t$ nid^t in bcr ftummcn Sprad>c

bcr H?alcr tun? Urania ift ben ^id>tcrn bic "3)?ufc

bcr 3tcnu
15 tunft; au i!;rcm Xiamen, aihS ibrcn SNcrricfttungcn crfcnnen
tt)ir i^r 2(mt. Xcr Aliinftlcr, nm cy fcnntlid) jn madden, mitfj

5Utf bicfc iBcifp l)iittc ^pcucc ben iTuib uiit firf) fctbft nerfl(cid)eii fallen.
2)er 3)id)tcu vebet Don oeddjiebeiieu ^eitcn. Apter oou bcu ,3citeu uor
bem 9htma, bort uon ten ^eitcu imi) tl)in. on jencn luarb (ie in

3ta(ien itntev perfoutirfjcn ^orftfUiuiflfii ucrctjrt, faune fte in Xroja

mar Devefyvt
s
morbcu, uon iiiannon )lnoa^ itjrcn ottt ^btcnft mit I)f riibcr

gebradjt fjattc.

-- Mnnibus vittas, Vestamque potentem,

Aeternumqtie adytis effert penetralibus
ignem :

fagt i^irflil on bem eifte bei<

Bettor, iinrijbein ev bent ^IneaS jnr
j^ludjt fleraten. AMer tuirb ba^.eunfle Belter yon ber $efta felbft, ober

itjrer 33ilbfdn(e, anobritcflid) nntevfdiiebeii. Spence innf? bie rbmifdjeu

5)td)ter ^u fetneni ^eljitfe bod) nod) ntdit anfinevfiain n enu 9

fjaben, tueil tt)m biefe @telle entuiifd)t ift.

1
Polymetis, Dial. VIII, p. 91.
80 c fling.

fie mit einem Stabe auf eine immetefu0el toeifen laffen ; biefer

Stab, biefe tmmelfugel, biefe ifyre Stellung finb feine

ftaben, au3 toelcfyen er un ben 9?amen Urania g

feen lafet. Slber toenn bcr id)ter fagen will: Urania fyatte
2
feinen ob lamtft au3 ben Stcrnen toorbergefefyen toarum 5

auf ben Staler, bajufct^en: Urania, ben

foil er, in TOcfficbt

$Habiu3 in ber $anb, bie immelhtflcl l^or fief)? 2Bare e^

nic^t, al$ ob ein ^enfcf), ber lant reben lanu nnb barf, fid)

nod? sngleid) ber 3^i*cn bcbiencn follte, tnelcfje bie Stnmmen

im Seraglio be ^Ur!cn, au3 Mangel bcr Stimme, unter fid) 10

erfnnben f^aben?
Gbcnbiefelbc Sefrembung anfiert Spence noc^mat^ bei ben

moralifcfyen SBefen, ober benjcnigcn Wottbcitcn, meld;e bie

Sllten ben ^ugcnbcn nnb bcr Jiibrnng be^ menfd>lid^cn 2eben3

3
borfe^ten. ,,G^ toerbtcnt angcmcrft 511 tvcrbcn/ fa<3t cr, ,,ba^ 15

bie romifcbcn ben beftcn bicfcr moralifc^en 3Befen

^tcf>ter toon

meit njeniger fagcn, al^ man crmarten follte. ^ic Hrtiften

finb in biefcm Stiicfe toiel rcid)cr, nnb tuer nnffcn n?ill,

jebe berfelben fiir cinen Slnfenci oemadH, barf nur bie lift
4
ber romifd^en ^aifcr jn ffiate jieben. Xie Xid^ter fpred>en
ton 20

biefen 3Bcfcn ^t>ar oftcr3 al^ Don ^>erfonen; iiberbaupt abcr

fagen fie toon il;ren Slttribnten, if)rer ^llcibnng unb iibncjein

2lnfel)en fc^r ttjcnifl."

9Benn bcr X>id;ter 2lbftrafta pcrfonifijtert, fo finb fie bnrcfy

ben ^amen, unb burd; ba, h)a^ cr fie tun lafst, genuofam 25

df)araftcrificrt.
$em ^unftler fef;len biefe
S
3)iittcl. Gr muft alfo feinen
perfonifijicrtcn SIbftraften Sinnbilber ^u^eben, burd) hjcldhc
fie tenntlid) n?erben. ^)iefe Sinnbilber, vocil fie ettt?a anber^
2
Statius, Theb. VIII, 551.
3
Tolym., Dial. X, p. 137.
4
Ibid., p. 139.
 Saofoon X. 81

finb, unb ettoaS anberg bebeuten, madjen fie $u allegorifcfyen

giauren.
(Sine 5rauen<8perfon
mit einem 3 aum * n ^ er <*nb;
e i ne

anbere, an eine Saule gelebnt, finb in ber $unft allegorifcfye

5 SBcfcn. SUIein bie ^Rafsiauna,, bic Stanbbaftigfeit bet bem

)icbter finb feine allea,orifd;)cn 2Befen, fonbern blofe perfonifi=

^ierte Slbftrafta.

$>ie Sinnbilbcr biefer SScfcn bei bem ^unftler bat bie ftot

erfunbcn. Tenn er fann fidb burrf) nicf^t^ anber^ i?erftanb=

10 lid) macben, ti?a^ biefe ober jene 5y 9 lir bebeuten foil. 2Boii
aber ben .Vliinftlcr bic 9iot treibt, marum foil ficf>
ba3 ber Xicbter
aiifbringen laffen, ber Don biefer "Diet nid^tg tocifc?

9Sa^ Spcnce fo febr bcfrembet, bcrbient ben ^irfttcrn al^

eine S^egel bor^cfrf>rieben 511 tocrbcn. 6ic miiffen bie 33e=

15 burfniffe ber IKalcrci nirf>t

511 ibrem J)ieidhtumc madden. 6ie
miiffen bie ^Jiittel, mcld>e bie Mnnft erfunben fiat, um ber

^ocfie nad^nfommen, itid>t al^ ^ollfommcnbeiten betraditen,

auf bie fie neibifd) ju fein Urfad>e batten, ^i enn ber Mitnft=
Icr eine Jivjur mit Sinnbilbern au^iert, fo erbebt er eine
20 blofte 5^ ur 5 U einem bobern 9Bcfcn. 33cbicnt fid) aber ber
icbter biefer malerifd^en 2lu3ftaffieruna,en, fo macbt er aug
einem bobern T^cfcn eine ifuppc.
Sovoie biefe 3tei3el bnrd) bie 5kfolgun$ ber 2llten ben?af;rt

ift, fo ift bie gcflif[entIidK libertretung berfelben ein Sieblin^

25 fel;ler ber neuern ^id^tcr. 3UIe ibre SBefen ber Ginbilbung

gel;en in DtaSfe, uttb bie fidi anf biefe ifltosferaben am beften

toerfteben, berfteben fid> mciftentcite auf ba^ .ftaupttocrf am
n)ctu\3ftcn; namlidf), ibre 2efen fjanbeln ju laffen, unb fie

burcb bie oanblunc^en berfelben

. u cbarafterifieren.
30 *od) ftibt e3 unter ben Slttrtbutcn, mit n^eld^en bie ^iinft=

ler il;re 2lbftra!ta bejeid^nen, eine 3lrt, bie beg poetifcben e=

fabiger unb imirbiger ift. 3^ meine biejenigen,

82 Cefftng.

ft>eld)e eigentlid) nid;t 9H(e$orifd)e<3 fyaben, fonbern al

5cuge ju betracfyten finb, bcren ficfy

bie 2Befen, hxldjen fie beU

gelegt toerben, fa(l fie ate toirflidie ^erfonen fyanbeln folltcn,

bebienen ftwrben ober tonnten. S)er 3anm i n ^ cr flnb ber

TOi&tQung, bie Saule, an toelcfye ficfy

bie Stanbfyafticjfeit 5

lefynt, finb lebifllicfy allcgorifcf), fiir ben SMdbtcr alfo i>on fcincm

^iu^en. ie 2Bage in bcr anb ber erecfyttgfeit ift c frf;on

meniger, mil ber red;te (^ebraurf; ber $Ba$c iuirflid; etn Stiicf

ber $ered?ti3!eit ift. !Die Scier ober glotc aber in bcr cmb
einer IRnfe, bie 2an^e in bcr 5)?ar^, anb beg ammcr nnb 10

3angc in ben anben be^ SBulfan, finb Qanj nnb gar fcinc

Sinnbilber, finb blofte Jnftrnmcntc, ol;ne iDelcbe bicfc SBefcn

bie 2Birfungen, bie h)ir i^ncn 5ufrf)rcibcn, nicf)t F^cnjorbrin^cn
fonnen. SSon biefcr 2lrt finb bie 2lttribute, mcld;e bie altcn

$)icfyter in iF)re Sefd^rcibungen ctn?a nod; cinflcdhtcn, nnb bie 15

belmeoen jnm Untcrfd^icbe jener aHccprifcbcn, bie ^>oetifcf)cn

icf)

nennen mod;te. )icfe bebentcn bie Sad;e fclbft, jene nur et=

5
2ftan mag in bcm enmfbe, mdd)e ora^ toon ber 9?otuienbtgfctt
macfjt, uub tuetci)e inetleidjt baS an 3tttvibutcn reidjftc emdlbe bet
alien attcn 3)td)tern ift (Lib. I, Od. 35) :

Te semper anteit saeva Necessitas :

Clavos trabales et cuneos manu

Gestans ahenea nee severus ;

Uncus abest liquidumque plumbum

man mag, fage id), in bicfem ema lbe bie 9?(ioct, bie ^llammern, baS
flte^enbe 53Iei, fur 9)ttttel ber S?e[efttgnng, ober fiir 2Berf$enge ber
JBejlrafung anneljmen, fo getjbren fie bod) iinmer met)r 311 ben poetifc^en,
al8 allegorifd)en Ittributen. Hber and) at? folrfje futb fie 311 feljr
gefya nft, nnb bie @tetle ift eine non ben froftinften be ora$. ^anabon
fagt : J ose dire que ce tableau pris dans le detail sera plus beau sur
la toile que dans une ode hero ique. Je ne puis souffrir cet attirail
patibulaire de clous, de coins, de crocs, et de plomb fondu. J ai cru
en devoir decharger la traduction, en substituant les idees generales
aux idees singulieres. C est dommage que le poete ait eu besoin de
 - fo
Caofoon XI. 83

XI.

2lud) ber Gkaf Gatylug fd)emt 311 fcertanflen, baft ber !Did)ter

feine 28efen ber GinbUbuncj mit aUeQorifd)cn 2lttributcn

1
fd)mucfen folle. er Graf Derftanb fid) beffcr auf bie
s
ret, al3 auf bie oefie.

5 2>od) id) fyabe in fcinem 2$crfe, in U)eld>em cr bicfe3 $er=

s

langen auftert, 2(nlafj 511 erbeKicf^ern ^ctracf)tunflcn flcfun

ben, toobon id) ba^ SScfcntlic^fte 511 tcffcrcr Grti)aQiin0 (>icr

anmer!e.
!Der ^itnftler, ift be^ GJrafcu 5(bfid>t, foil fid) mit bem ^rbfi=
10 ten malcrifdcn ^icfiter, mit bcm Corner, mit biefer gmcitcn

9?atur, ncibcr befannt mad>cn. (fr jciflt ihin, tuetdien reid^en

nod) nic flcuu^teu Stoff 511 ben trcfflid>ften

Scf)ilbcrcien bie

bon bem $ried)cn OeF;anbcltc C^cfdncfite barbiete, unb tt>ic

fo=
biel boUfommner if;m bie 5lu3fu()runfl ^eltn^cn miiffc, je $e=

15 nauer er ftcf) an bie fleinften toon bem icMer bcmcrftcn

Umftanbe ^alten lonnc.

ce correctif. >2anabon l)atte cin feincS unb rid)ttge (^ffiifjl, intr ber

runb, tuomtt er beumtjrni unit, ift ntdjt ber red)te.

e 9iicf)t tueil bie

gebraud)teu Attribute eiu attirail patilmlaire ftnb ; benn e^ ftnnb intr

bet tljm, bie aubere ^tudlenung ait$iuicl)iitfii, nub ba? algeiiflerdte in
bie fefteften S3inbeinittcl ber S?aufunft 511
ttenuanbedt ; fonbern inetl afle

Attribute etgentlid) fiir ba 5titge ; itnb nid)t fiir ba^ et)br gemad)t
ftnb, unb alle 33egriffe, bie iuir bnrd) ba 2Iuge erljalteu foUtett, tnenn
man fie nu6 bnrd) baS eljor beibrtngeu will, eine groj^ere 5tnftrengniig

erforbern, unb einer geringern ft(ar!)eit fiiljig [inb.

1
5(polto itbergibt ben gcreinigten nnb balfainierten I eidjnam be^

<arpebon bem Xobc unb bem <2d)Iafe, it)tt nad) feinem ^aterlanbe 311

bringen. (II., H, 681, 682.)

.iv 7ro/u,7rot(rtv a/xa

Kat avaTO>

Cat)tn etnpficl)(t biefe (Srbicfytnng bem dialer, fitgt aber fjin^u : II est
facheux, qu Hotnere ne nous ait rien laisse sur les attributs qu on
84 off tug.

3n biefem 33orfcr)lcu3e uermifcfyt fief) alfo bie oben getrennte

boppelte 9?acf)ar;tnunc}. T)er -Dialer fott nicfyt attein ba nacfys

afymen, tt)a ber $)id)ter nadicteafymt I)at, fonbern er foil e$

aucf) mit ben ndmlicfyen 3u ft en nacfmfymen ;

er foil ben !Did;ter

nicfyt blofc al rjdbler, er foil U;n al3 nu$en. )icr;ter

)iefe ft>eite 2lrt ber -iRacfyatymung aber, bie fiir ben id)ter

fo toerfleinerlid; ift, hjarum ift fie e3 nid^t aud; fiir ben Sliinft=

Icr? 2Senn bor bem Corner eine foldie 5^3 C bon

al^ ber GJraf GatyluS au^
if;m angibt, borbanben

vodre, unb n)ir vou^ten, ba$ ber T^id^ter an^ biefen

fein 2Berf Qenommen ^dtte, ftnirbe er nid)t bon unfrer 33e=

VDunberung unenblid; berlieren? 2Bie fommt e, ba^ \t)ir bem

$iinftler nid;t^ t>on
unfrer ,s;)od;ad)tun^ entjiefyen, n?enn er

fd)on treiter nid)t3 tut, al^ baf3 er bie 3Borte be^ ^id;ter^ mit
giguren unb J^arben au^briicft?
2)ie Urfad^e fc^eint biefe gu fein. 23ei bem Slrtiften biinft

donnait de son temps au sommeil nous ne connaissons, pour ;

que son action meme, et nous le couronnons de

caracteriser ce dieu,

pavots. Ces idees sont modernes

la premiere est d un mediocre ;

service, ne peut etre employee dans le cas present, ou

mais elle

meme les fleurs me paraissent deplacees, surtout pour une figure qui
groupe avec la mort. (. Tableaux tires de 1 Iliade, de 1 Odyssee
d Homere et de 1 Eneide de Virgile, avec des Observations generales
sur le Costume, a Paris 1757.) 2)aS Ijet^t Don bem Bonier eine toon
ben fleinen ,3^raten uerlanqen, bie am meiften mit fetner grof^en
3Jianier ftreiten. 2)ic fimireid^ften 5lttrilntta, bie er bem 2d)lafe
l)(itte gebeu fomten, tm irben t^n bet luettem nicfjt jo uottfommeu d)araf=
teriftert, bei rueitem feiu fo (ebt)afte 33ilb bet un erregt tjabeu, al3 ber
etnjtge 3ufl, burd) ben er ifyn jum 3 ^i n fl^b ru ^ e r
ll1 oe Xobe mad)t.
2)iefen 3wfl jurf)e ber ^iinftter an^mbriicfen, unb er Unrb alle ^Ittvtbuta

entbel)ren fb nnen. 3)ie alten 5tiinft(er ^aben and) rmrf(td) ben Xob
nnb ben @d)taf mit ber 5tt)nltd)feit nnter ftd) Dorgeftettt, bie mir an

3ixuflinqen fo natiirttd) ertnarten. 2)te nenern ^Irtiften ftnb t)on

biefev ^^nltdjfeit, tretc^e @d)taf nnb Sob bet ben 5Uten mit einanber
n, ga n^Ud) abgegangen, unb ber ebraitd) ift atlgeinetn getoorben,
 Caofoon XI. 85

un3 bie SluSfiifyrung fd)ft>erer,

al3 bie (Srfinbuna,; bet bem
$)icfyter fyingegen ift e umgefefyrt, unb feine 2lufiibrung
biinft un gegen bie rfmbung bag Seicbtere. dtte Virgil

bie Skrftriclung be3 Saofoon unb feiner Alinber fcon ber GJruppe
s genommen, fo nnirbe if;m ba iserbicnft, tocldjeS fair bet bicfem

feinem 33Ube fiir ba fdrtuerere unb grofjcrc batten, feblcn,

unb nur ba geringere iibrig bleiben. >enn
biefe ^erftridfung
in ber @HnbiIbimg3fraft erft fd)affen, ift ^eit n)iditigcr, a\3 fie

in 3Borten au^briicfcn. -Oatte bingegen ber .SUinftler biefe

10 SSerftricfung toon bem icbter entlebnt, fo njiirbe er in unfern

GJebanfen borf; nod)immer ^crbicnft genug bef^atten, ob ibm

fd;on ba^ ^Berbienft ber Grfinbung abgef;t. ^Denn ber 5(u^=
brucf in "IRarmor ift unenblid) fdrtuerer al^ ber 5lu^brucf in

2Borten, unb tt)enn voir Grfinbung unb arfte(lunfl gegenein=

15 anber abvoagen, fo finb n?ir jeberjeit geneigt, bem ^eifter an

ber einen fo Diet mieberum 511 erlaffen, al^ it)ir an ber anbern
5U Diet erf;a(ten ju fyaben meinen.
^ c\ibt fogar ^yride, n)o e fitr ben Aliinftler ein gro^ere^
SSerbienft ift, bie 9?atur burd; ba^ 9)icbium ber 9?acbal)mung

ben Xob a( ein Wett, l)bd)fteit aid ein mit ^ant befletbete ^felett
uorjuflellen. 5>or aflen 2)ingen t)dtte ^atjlu^ bem $iinft(er a(jo l)ier
raten mitffen, ob er in ^orftelhtnn be* XobeS bem alien obev bem
neiien ebrandje folgen folle. 2)od) er fdjeint ftd) fitr ben neuern 511

erftaren, ba er ben Xob at eine $;ifl ur betradjtet, gegen bie eine

anbere, mit SMnmen gefrbnt, nid)t root)! gntppieren modjte. Jpat er

aber and) bebad)t, tuie nnfdjicftid) biefe moberne 3bee in einem
t)ierbei

omerifd)en emcilbe fein biirfte? Unb tuie fyat iljm ba Gfetyafte ber=

felben nid)t anftbfiig fein tinmen? 3d) fann mid) nid)t bereben, baf? ba8
Heine metatlene 5Bi(b in ber ^eqogtidjen alerie 511 ^loren^ iue(d)e*
ein liegenbeS @telett dorftellt, ba mit bem einen 3lrme anf einem
5lfd)enfruge rn^t (Spence s Polymetis, Tab. XLI), eine urirflid)e
Entile fei. 3)en Xob iiberljanpt fann e tt)enigften nid)t uorftetlfn
foUen, tt)eil ifjn bie 9Wten anber* norftetlten. elbft it)re 1)id)ter l)aben

i^n unter biefem tuiberlic^en 53ilbc nie gebadjt.

86 Cefftng.

511 F;aben, alg ofyne bagfelbe.

Dealer, bcr nacfy ber 53efd)reibung eineg bomfon eine fd^one

anbfd;aft barftellt, fyat mefyr getan, alg ber fie gerabe Don ber
ftatur fopiert. liefer fiebt fein Urbilb Dor fid); jener mufj

erft feine (inbilbungfraft fo anftrengen, big er eg Dor fid) 5

$u fefyen glaubt. >tefer

macf)t au lebbaften finnlicfien (Sin-
briicfcn ettoa^ Sd)iJne; jener au3 fd;tT)anfen unb f^Dad^en
SSorftenunc^en VDittfurlidjer 3cicf)en.
@o nattirlid) aber bie 33ereitfrnttu}!eit ift, bem ^liinftler ba3
SSerbienft ber @rfinbunfl s u crlaffcn, ebenfo natiirlicf) F;at 10

barau bie Saui^feit c^cgen ba^felbe bet ihm entfprinc^en

miiffen. !Dcnn ba er faF;, ba^ bie (Srfmbuncj fctne c^tan^enbe

Seite nie voerben fonnc, baf^ fein fltofjtc^ Sob Don ber 3lu&
fuf;runcj abban^c, fo voarb e^ i^m flleidtoiel, ob jene alt ober

ncu, einmal ober unja^ligmal gebrauc^t fei, ob fie ibm ober 15

einem anberen $u(^eF;ore. (Sr blteb in bem enc^en

toenifler, ibm unb bem ^ublifum flela ufici (^emorbener

tt)iirfe, unb lieft feine (^anje (Srfinbfam!eit auf bie blofte

dnberunc\ in bem 35efannten flc^cn, auf neue 3 u f ammen
fe^ungen alter GJcgcnftanbc. T)a ift aud? mirflid; bie 3bee, 20

toeldje bie 2ebrbiid;er ber ^Ralerei mit bem 2Sorte Grfinbung

Derbinben. X)enn ob fie bicfelbe fd;on fogar in malertfcbe
unb bid)terifcf)e einteilcn, fo gef)t bod) and; bie bid;terifd>e nid^t

auf bie ert>or&ringung be^ SSormurfg felbft, fonbern lebiglid^

auf bie Slnorbtumfl ober ben 2lu3brucf. 2 g ift (Jrfinbung, 25

aber nicf>t
Grfinbung beg an^en, fonbern einjelner Xeile, unb
ifyrer Sage untereinanber. @g ift @rfinbun$, aber Don jener
gertngern (Sattung, bie ora$ feincm tragifd;en ^id)ter anriet:
- Tuque
Rectius Iliacum carmen deducis in actus, 30
Quam si proferres ignota indictaque primus.3
2
D. >aflebont, ^Betrad)tuugcn ubcr bie Tlalerei, @. 159 u. f.
3
Ad Pisones, v. 128-130.
 Caofoon XI. 87

5(nriet, fage id), aber nid)t befall. Slnriet, al3 fiir ifyn leid)ter,

bequemer, gutraglicfyer; aber nicfyt befall, ate beffer unb ebler

an fid? felbft.

gn ber Xat fyat ber SMdrter einen gro&en Scbritt borauS,

5 metier eine befannte Gkfcfyicfyte, -befannte Gfyaraftere beban=

belt, Qimbert froftia,e .SUciniflfeiten, bie fonft gum 3>erft(inb=

niffe bc^cyangcn uncntbel;rlid) fein iui trben, faun er iibcrgebcn;

unb je ftefcfynjinber er fcinen ^ufyorern Dcrftcinblid) ^t)irb, befto

(5efd)\uinbcr faun er fie tntereffteren. !Diefen ^orteil ()at and)

10 ber 33taler,
S
menu un fein ^oru)itrf nid>t
fretnb ift, it>enn n)ir

mil bem erften Slicfe bte 2lbfid)t uub.Wcinunfl feiner flaujcu

^ompofition erfcnnen, ^enn ^t)ir auf ein^, feine ^crfoueu

nid)t btof^ fpredjcn fef)en, fonbern and; f)brcn, \v>a$
fie fprccbcu.
3Son bem erften 33licfc F;an^t bic c^rof^te 2Birfutifl ab, unb n>enn

15 un^ biefer 511 miifyfamcm 9iacf>fiuucu unb ${aten noti^t, fo

erfaltet unfere ^Becu crbe, (^eriibrt 511 U)erben; urn un^ an bem
unDcrftdnblid)en .Sviinftler ju rdd^en, i>erbdrten tuir un a.ea,eu

ben 3(u^brucf, unb \teb ibm, n^enn er bie Sd^onbeit bem 3l

brudfe auf^eopfcrt bat! 3iMr finben fobann c^ar uid^t^,

20 un^ reijcn fonnte, Dor feinem SBerfe gu bermeilen; toa3 u)ir

fef^en, c^efddt ung nicbt, unb n?a^ n)tr babei benfen follen,

n)iffen Vuir nid;t.

nef^mc man beibe^ jufammen; einmal, ba^ bie r=

unb SJeubeit beg Sottuurf^ ba fcornebmfte bet tueitem

s
25 nic^t ift, ft>a3 mir toon bem )3Jaler tocrlan^cn; giDCttcng, bafe

ein befannter ^ortmirf bie SBirfung feiner 5lunft beforbert

unb erleid^tert: unb id^ meine, man tm rb bie Urfacbe, tDarum
er ftc^ fo felten 511 neuen 3>orn)iirfen entfdilief^t, nid;t mit bem
rafen Gat)lu^, in feiner 53equemlid>feit, in feiner Untoiffens

30 f>eit ;
in ber Sd)lr)ieri^feit be med)anifd;en ^eile^ ber $unft,
roeld^e alien feinen Sleifi, atte feine 3^ crforbert, fudhcn
biirfcn; fonbern man iuirb fie tiefer a,egrunbet finben, unb
88 Ceffing.

toielleid)t gar, toaS anfangS @infcfyranfung bet &unft, S8er=

fummerung unferS 2krgniigen3, 511 fein fcfyeint, al eine toeife

unb un3 felbft niilid)e @ntl;altfamfeit an bcm 2lrtiften $u

loben geneigt fein. $$ fiircfyte aucfy nid)t, baft mid) bie @r=
fanning toiberlegen toerbe. 3Me 9Mer merben bem Gkafen 5

fiir feinen guten SSiHcit banfen, aber i(>n fcfauerlid) fo allge=

metn nu^en, a!3 er e eriDartet. Wcfrfnibe e3 jcbod;, fo ^t)itrbe

iibcr l)unbert 3a()r ein ncucr Ga^Iu^ nbtig fein, bet bie alien

^orroiirfe voieber in @ebdcf)tni brad>te, unb ben Slimftler

in bag $elb jurucffii^rtc, \vo anbere bor if;m fo nnfterblid^e 10

Sorbeeren gebrod)en F;aben. Dber Derlangt man, baft ba^

^ublifum fo gelef;rt fein foil, al3 ber ilenner au3 feinen 33ii=

c^ern ift? 1>aft if;m alle Scenen ber Giefcfytdjte nnb ber gabet,
bie ein fd^one^ (^cmdlbe geben fonnen, befannt unb gelaufig
fein follen? 3d) gebe e^ 511, baft bie .^lunftler beffer getan 15

fatten, n>enn
fie feit ^affael^ $eiten, anftatt be Dbib, ben
Corner 511 ifjrem anbtnidbc gemad)t batten. 2lber ba e^ nun
eintnal nid)t gefd^eben ift, fo laffe man ba3 ^ublifum in feinem

leife, unb mad)e if;m fein 3>ergnugcn nid;t faurer, al^ ein

$ergniigen 511 ftef;en fommen mufj, urn ba 511 fein, n)a^ e^ 20

fein foil.

^rotogene^ ^atte bie Gutter be 2lriftotele gcmalt. %<fy

njeift nid^t, tt>ic biel if)m ber ^>f;ilofopb bafiir bejablte. 3(ber
entmeber anftatt ber ^ejablung, ober nod; iiber bie

lung, erteilte er il)m einen 9iat, ber mel;r al3 bie

n)ert tear. &enn ic^ faun mir ni<f)t einbtlben, baft fein
eine blofte Srf;meicbelei gen^efen fei. Sonbern tornebmlicf),
U)etl er ba^ $ebiirfni3 ber iluuft ertDog, alien toerftcinblicb ^u
fein, riet er ifym, bie 2:aten bc Sllejanber 511 malen; Xaten,
t)on n)eld)en bamal3 alle 2^elt f^racb, unb Don rt)eld)en er bor=

auSfeben !onnte, baft fie aucf) ber -ftadrtDelt unbergeftlid) fein

miirben. SDocfy ^protogene^ n)ar nid;t gefe^t genug, biefem
 Caofoon XII. 89

3iate ^u folgen; impetus animi, fagt $liniu, et quaedam

artis libido, 4 ein $etoiffer llbermut ber Slunft, cine cjefaiffe

Siifternfyeit nacfc bem Sonberbaren unb Unbefannten, trieben

ifm ju ganj anbern

XII.

5 Corner bearbeitct einc boppelte (fyattung bon 2Sefen unb

anblungen: fidrtbare unb unfidrtbare. iefen Unterfdneb
!ann bie JRalerei nid)t angeben; bei ifyr ift allc^ fid^tbar, unb
auf einerlei 2Irt fiittbar.

2Scnn alfo ber raf ^atilu^ bie Wemalbe ber unficf^tbaren

10
anWungen in unjertrennter Prolge mit ben ficfytbaren fort;

laufen ld{U; tt)enn er in ben Wemdlben ber bermifdfrten .r^anb=

hingen, an meldben ficfrtbare unb unfic^tbare 3Kefen teilncr;=

men, nicfyt angibt unb bielleirf)t nidbt nn^eben !ann, n)ie bie

lectern, melcf^e nur tuir, bie toir ba^ Wemcilbe betrarf)ten, barin
15 entbecfen follten, fo anjubrinc^en finb, baf^ bie ^erfonen be^
emalbeS fie nicf;t fe()en, meniiiften^ fie nicbt notmenbiii fehen

ju miiffen frf)einen fonnen: fo mufe nohuenbifl fon)of)l bie

gan^e Solge al3 and; mancf)eg ein^elne Stitdt baburd) d ufierft

bernjirrt, unbe(\reifli(f) unb unberfyrecbenb rt>erben.

20 ^Dodb biefem ^yefyler mare, mit bem ^Budbe in ber wtb, nod^
enblid) ab^ufyelfen. 2)a ScMimmfte babet ift nur biefe3,

ba^ burd; bie malerifck 3hifbebunc^ be^ Unterfc^iebe^ ber

fid)tbaren unb unfiditbaren 2Befen, jugleicf) aUe bie cbaraf^

teriftifdben 3 U 9^ berloren ^eben, burd^ n)eld)e fid) biefe fyofyere

35 attung tiber jene gerin^ere erbebt.

3- @. 2enn enblid; bie iiber bag Sdbidfal ber Xrojaner

geteilten otter unter fief) felbft f)anbgemein Voerben, fo gefyt

4 Lib. XXXV, sect. 36, p. 700, Edit. Hard.

90 Ceffing.

1
bei bem ^icbter biefer ganje $ampf unficfytbar fcor, unb bicfc

Unficfytbarfeit erlaubt bcr @inbilbung3fraft,

bie Scene 311 er=

toeitern, unb lafct il)r freie3 Spiel, fid; bie ^erfonen ber otter

unb ifyre anblungen fo flroft, unb iiber ba3 gemeine 9JJenfcfy=

lidje fo toeit erfyaben gu benfen, al fie nur immer mill )ie 5

9Merei aber mufj eine ficbtbare Scene annelmten, beren ber-

fcbiebene notvuenbige XeUe ber 5D]af5ftab fiir bie barauf ban=

belnben ^erfonen merben; ein 5)iaf5ftab, ben bag Huge Qleicfy

baneben F;at, unb beffen Unproportion ciegen bie bof;ern SBefen

biefe fyofyern SSefcn, bie bei bem Xicfyter grof^ n)aren r auf ber 10

glarf)e be^ ^iinftler^ un$ebeuer macbt.

5}|inert)a, auf h)elcf;e 9Rar3 in bicfem ^lampfe ben erften

2lngriff Voagt, tritt jurucf, unb fafct mit marf^tiger anb fcon

bem 33oben einen fd^uar^en, rauben, c^rofien Stein auf, ben

fcor alten 3 e ^ en ^ereini^te 9)iannerba nbe 311111 Wren^fteine 15
F)inc\en3al5t batten. Urn bie Gkofce biefe^ Steine^ o e fyo r t
c; ju
fd)d^en, erinnere man ficb, baf^ Corner feine ^elben nocb ein=
mat fo ftar! macbt, al3 bie fta rfften Scanner feiner 3^it, jene
aber toon ben 9Ra nnern, h)ie fie 9ieftor in feiner 3 u 9^ n ^ W s

lannt fyatte, nod; tueit an Starfe iibertreffen laf^t. 97un frage 20

icfy, h>enn 5l?inerDa einen Stein, ben nicfyt e i n 5)cann, ben
banner au 3^eftor 3uc\enbjabren gum rensfteine aufge=
ricbtet batten, luenn 5)?inerl)a einen fold^en Stein Qe$en ben
5Jiar^ fcbleubert, bon tuelcfier Statur foil bie ottin fein?
Soli ibre Statur ber Girbfee be Steine^ proportioniert fein, 25

fo fattt ba^ SSunberbare tt)eg. (^in ^Dienfcb, ber breimal

grower al^ icf), mufc natiirlic^ern^eife aucb einen breimal
ift

arbftern Stein fd^leubern fonnen. Soil aber bie Statur ber

bttin ber ($rbfte be Steine^ nicbt an$emeffcn fein, fo ent=

ftel^t eine anfcbaulid)e Ilnn3abrfd>einlid^feit in bem Gkmalbe, 30

beren 5{nftbfeic\feit burd) bie lalte Uberlegung, ba^ eine bttin
1
Iliad. *, 385 et s.
 Caofoou XII. 91

iibermenfcf:)lid;e Starte fyaben miiffe, nidjt gefyoben toirb. 9So

id) cine grofeere 2Birfung fefye, toill id? aucfy grofsere SBerfjeuge

toafyrnefymen.
Unb 33to, toon biefem getoaltigen Stcinc niebergetoorfen,

5 bebedte fieben ufen. Unmoglid) tann ber 93taler bem G5otte

biefc aufterorbentlid^e GJrbjje geben. $ibt er fie if>m abcr

nid^t, fo liegt nirf)t 5Jlar ju 5Jobcn, nidjt ber f)omcrifrf)c WavZ,

fonbcrn cin cjcmciner ilrieflcr.
Songin fagt, e foinme ibm bfter^ bor, al3 babe Corner fcinc
s
10 9Jlenfdjen ju GJottcrn crheben, unb fetnc Hotter 511 )3?enfif en

^crabfe^cn toottcn. Xie Waterei boHfiibrt biefe erabfe^ung.

3n i^r bcrfd;h)inbct DoIIcub^ aHeS, h)a^ bei beni Tidier bic
s
otter nod) iiber bie gottlid^cn )3ienfd>cn felU. Wrofec, Starfe,
Sd)netligfeit, moDon joiner nod; innner einen fyobern, tinin=
15 berbarern (9rab fiir fetne (Hotter in ^orrat bat, al er feinen

t)orjiiglid)ften bem Wemalbe auf ba^3

elben bcilcgt, muffcn in

gemeine 9Kafe ber 3ftenfd)fyeit berabfinfen, unb !Ju^iter unb

Slgamemnon, 2IpoIIo unb 2IdnHe^, 3(jaj unb 5)iar^ u>evbcn

boUfommcn einerlei 2Bcfcn, bie tvcitcr an nicMS al^ an au|5cr=

20 lid)en berabrebetcn ^erfmalen ju fennen finb.
2)a SUiittel, beffen fid) bie ^alerei bebient, un 511 ber-

ftef;en ju geben, baf^ in ifyren ^lompofitionen biefe^ ober jeneS

al^ unfic^tbar betrad)tet merben miiffe, ift eine biinne 2BoIfe,

in toelcfye fie e^ toon ber 6eite ber mitbanbelnben ^erfonen

25 einfyiUlt. !Diefe 3Bolfe fd>eint au3 bem Corner felbft entlebnt ju

fein. X)enn tuenn im C^etummel ber Sd;Iad)t einer toon ben

toid^tigern elben in efaf;r fommt, au ber if)n feine anbere,

al^ gbttlid>e 5l?ac^t retten fann, fo lafst ber X)ia^ter ibn bon
ber fc^ii^enben ottf;eit in einen biden DJebel, ober in

30 ber^uUen, unb fo bafcon fiif)ren ;

al^ ben $ari3 toon ber
3 4
ben 3bau3 toom SSuIfan ben eftor bom 2lpollo. Unb biefen
3
Iliad, r, 381. Iliad. E, 23. Iliad. Y, 444.
92 Cefftng.

, GatyluS nie bercjeffen, bem $iinftler

biefe 2Bolte, toirb

beftenS ju empfefylen, toenn er ifym bie emalbe bon bergleid)en

23e$ebenl)eiten boreid)net. 28er fiefyt aber nicf)t, bafc bei bem

2)icf)ter baS dinfmllen in 9?ebel unb -ftacfyt toeiter nicfytS, al

cine poetifcfye ffiebenSart fiir unficfytbar madden, fein foil? 5

@3 fyat micf) baber jeberjeit befrembct, biefen ^oetifd)en 5In^=

bruc! reattfiert, unb eine U)irflirf)e 2BoI!e in bem emalbe an-
gebracf>t ^u finbcn, F;inter tDeld)er ber elb, toie ^inter einer

fpanifcf)en anb, bor feinem )yeinbe Derborcien ftef)t. )a3

nidbt bie ^Reinnn^ be3 !Da^ F;eifet au^ ben

id>ter^. 10

n ber SDtalerei F;crauc\ef;en; benn biefe 2Bolfe ift fyier

eine tt)al;re ^ieroc^hiprje, ein blofceS f^mbolifd)e^ 3 c ^ en /

ba
ben befreiten ^clben nic^t nnfid)tbar mad^t, fonbern ben 33e=

trad)tern ^uruft: ifyr miif^t ibn end; al^ unficbibar borftellen.

Sie ift bier nicbt3 beffcr, al^ bie befd^riebenen 3rttelcfyen, ^e I5

auf alten $otifd>en

Wemdlben ben ^erfonen ang bem 9Jhmbe

@g ift toafyr, Corner lafet ben ^(d^Uleg, inbem i^m

ben eftor entriicft, nod; breimat nacf) bem biden 92ebel mit
ber Sanje ftoften. 5 3IIIein aucb ba^ beif^t in ber Sprad^e be 20

)id)ter ^eiter nid)t^ ; al baf5 Wd)\lk$ fo n)iitenb gemefen,

bajs er nod; breimal ^eftof^en, ebe er e3 c^emerft, baJ5 er feinen

geinb nic^t mcl;r bor fief) f;abe. (Sinen ^irfltd^en ^ebel fafy

2lcf)i(Ie^ nic^t, nnb ba ganje 5lunftftitd, Voomit bie (Hotter

unfid)tbar marten, beftanb aud; nicbt in bem 9?ebel ; fonbern 25
in ber fdmetten (Sntrurfung. Shir nm 5iic\leid) mit anjujeigen,

baJ3 bie Gmtriktnng fo fd)ne(( gefcf)eF;en, ba fein menfcblicbe^

Sluge bem entriidten .^orper nacf)folc^en fonnen, ^iUIt ibn ber

^id;ter borber in ;Jtebel ein; nicf)t n?eil man anftatt be ent=

riicften ^orper^ einen D^ebel G^f^b^/ fonbern n?eil n)ir bag, 30

in einem 9?ebel ift, al nicf)t ficfytbar ben!en. 2)a^er fe^rt
s
Iliad. Y, 446.
 aofoon XII. 93

er eg aud) bigfaeilen urn, unb Icijst, anftatt bag Dbjeft unficr)t=

bar $u mad)en, bag Subjeft mit $3linbf;eit gefcfylagen toerben.

60 toerfinftert ^eptun bie Slugcu beg 9ld;illeg, toenn er ben

Sneag aug feinen morberifd)en >anbcn errcttct, ben er mit

5 einem S^ucfe mitten aug bent (9ettriif;Ie auf einmal in bag in=

tcrtrcffcn bcrfettf. 3n ^ cr ^ at a ^ cr ful ^ ^ c ^ 5(cfnHeg Sliiflcn

^ter ebenfomenifl i>crfinftcrt,

alg bcrt bic cntriicftcn .
pelben in
9?ebel rebuilt; fonbcrn ber X^icf^tcr fct^t bag cine nnb bag anbcre
nut blofe f;inju, utn bie auf^erftc 6cf>nc((t^feit ber (?ntriicfunfl,

10 icelc^e tt>ir bag ^crfdnninbcn ncnnen, baburd; finnlicbcr ju

madden.
X>en
f;omerifrf)cn Stcbcl aber baben ficb bic JKaler nirf^t blofi

in ben fallen ju ci^en c^emadf^t, ^o ibn Corner felbft c^ebraud^t

bat, ober gebraud^t f;aben luiirbe, bei UnfUfytbartoerbungen,

15 bei ^erfd^xnnbun^en ; fonbcrn iibcrall tto ber ^ctracf^ter

in bcm Wcmalbe crfennen foil, toag bie ^erfoncn beg

malbcg entmeber ade, obcr jum ^eil, nicftt crfennen.
marb bem 5(dn(leg nnr allcin ficbtbar, alg fie ibn jnritcfHclt,
fief)
mit ati$feitcn flcc^cn ben 2la,amemnon 511

20 X>iefeg angjnbriicfen, fac^t (Jawing, tDeif^ id> feinen anbern

a(g baf^ man fie toon ber Scite ber iibri^cn SRatSberfammhmg
in cine olfe tocrf)ul(e. G)an5 unbcr ben Gkift beg !Did^terg.
Unfid^tbar fein, ift ber natiirlidK 3 u ftan ^ fcincr Wetter; eg

bebarf feincr ^Icnbun^, fcincr 9lbfdwcibnm3 ber Sicf^tftraWcn,

7
25 ba$ fie nid)t gefeF;en merbcn; fonbcrn eg bebarf einer fc
IcucMunfl, einer @rf;6^ung beg ftcrblid^en CJefidjtg, tvenn fie

Qefe^en tnerben fotlen. 9^id)t genug alfo, ba^ bie 2Bolfe ein

n?UIfurlicf)eg unb fein natiirlicfyeg 3 e ^ en bti ben 9ftalern ift;

6
Iliad. Y, 321.
7
3tuar Id^t Corner auc^ ottfjeiten fid) banti unb irann in cine
2Bo(fe t)iiflen aber nnr atSbann, tnenn fie Don anbern
f ottfyciten nic^t
tuoUen gefetjen rcerben. 3 @ Iliad. H } 282, 344, E, 845.
94 Cefftng.

biefeg n)ittfiirlid;e 3 e ^enand? nid)t einmal bie beftimmte

fyat

eiitlid;feit, bie eg alg ein folcfyeg fyaben !6nnte; benn fie bran-

d)en e^ ebenfomofyl, urn bag Siefytbare nnficfytbar, alg urn bag

llnficfytbare fid?tbar $n macben.

XIII.

2Benn ,*pomerg 2Serfe $an$lid) berloren h>aren, trenn rrir 5

toon feiner 3^^ un^ Dbtyffee nicbtg iibric^ fatten alg eine af?n=
licbe Jyo^c toon Gkmalbcn, ber^leicben (5at)lug baraug t>orge=

fcfylaflen, rt)iirben vuir )r)obl aug biefen emalben, fie follen

toon bet anb beg Dodfommeuftcn 9J?eifterg fein, id) tuiH

nicf)t fagen, toon bcm flangcn Xid^ter, fonbcrn blofe toon feinem 10
malerifd;en Xalente, ung ben Segriff bilben tbnnen, ben h)ir

je^t toon il)m f>aben?

5Ran macf^e einen Tserfud) mit bem erften bem beften tiirfe.
1
Gg fei bag emcilbe ber ^cft. 2l^ag erbticfen n>ir
auf ber
^(ac^e beg $iinftlerg? Xote Seicbname, brennenbe 6cf^eiter= 15

baufen, Sterbenbe mit GJeftorbenen befd^aftiflt, ben er^iirnten

s
G5ott auf einer 2Solfe, feine ^fcilc abbriicfenb. Ter {^ro^te
9ieid)tiim biefeg Giemalbeg ift 5Irmut beg ^id^terg. Xenn follte
man ben omer ang biefem emalbe tvieberberflellen, n?ag
fonntc man ifm fac^en laffen? ^ieranf er^rimmte 2IpoIIo 20
nnb fcbo^ fcine ^Pfeile nnter bag ^^ r ^r ^3ried;en.
(^riedien ftarben nnb ifyre eicbname Mirben toerbrannt.

lefe man ben omer felbft:

Br/ 8c Kar OvXv/XTroto Kaprjviov ^<oo/xcvo5 K^p,

Td^ tofjiOL<TLV lx (OV
a/i^7p<^ai
TC ^aperpT/v. 25

*EKAayav 8 ap ot(7Toi CTT CJ/AWP

AvTot) KivrjOevros 6 8 r/i
e WKTI e

1
Iliad. ^1, 44-53. Tableaux tires de 1
Iliade, p. 7.
 Saofoon XIII. 95

*
7TIT OLTTO.Vf.v6f. VU)J/, /JLtTO. 8 IOV tr)K

K\ayyrj yeVer apyvpfoio /3toto.

Ovpfjas fj.cv Trpwrov eVa^cro, Kat Kvras dpyovs

Avrap ITTCIT aurotcrt /Jt Ao? e^eTrevKt? edicts

BaAA cua 8c Trvpal VCKVWV KU.IOVTO

@o toeit ba^ Seben iiber ba3 C^emdlbe ift, fo roeit ift ber irf)ter

f^ier iiber ben "Diftaler. (5rc\rimmt, mit 53oc^en unb ^oc^er, fteigt

SIpollo bon ben ^innen beg D(t^mpu. 3^ fe ^ e ^n irft allein

f>erabfteigen, id) fyore if;n. SJJit jebem Xritte erflinc^en bie

10
^Pfeile urn bie rfmltern be^ 3 orn *9 cn - @r e ^ tinker gleic^
ber !ftad)t. 9hm fi^t er ben dbiffen flcflcniibcr, unb fcf^nedt

f iircfyterltrf) erfliiu^t ber filbcrne 33o$en ben erften ^pfeil

auf bie ^aultiere unb uubc. Sobann faftt er mit bcm flifti=

(^crn ^Pfcile bie Wcnfcften felbft; unb iiberall Icbern unauf(;5r=

15 lid) .^ol^ftofce
mit Scicftnamcn. (5$ ift unmofllid), bie mufifa=

lifc^e Jllalerei, melcf>e bie $ttorte be^ Xic^ter^ mit^oren laffen,

in eine anbere 6prarf)C 511 iibcrtra^en. (5^ ift ebenfo unmb^
licfy, fie au^ bem matcricHcn Wcmalbc ju bermuten, ob fie fcbon
nur ber aderfleinfte Sorjug ift, ben bag poetifche (^emcilbe bor
20 felbigem f^at. Dcr >aupttoor&iifl ift biefer, bafi ung ber ^icbter
^u bem, mag bag materielle Wemalbe aug if;m $eigt, burd) eine

ganje (Valerie toon Wemalben fiibrt.

2lber bie(leid)t ift bie ^eft !ein borteilf;after SBortmirf fiir bie

5J?alerei. ier ift ein anberer, ber meF)r S^eije fiir bag 3(u(^e
2
25 fyat. ^ie ratpflcgcnbcn, trinfenben (hotter. (Jin flolbner,

offener ^alaft, millfiir(icf)e (%uppen ber fd;onften unb bcre^

runggttnirbiflften C^eftalten, ben ^3ofal in ber anb, toon ebe,
ber etoigen 39^nb, bebient. 2Belcf>e 3Ird)iteftur,

fen toon 2id)t unb Sd)atten, rt>elcf)e

^lontrafte, toelcfye

30 fattigfeit beg Slugbrudeg! 2Bo fange icf) an, too fyore id) auf,

2
Iliad. A, 1-4. Tableaux tires de 1 Iliade, p. 30.
96 Ccfftng.

mem 3lu$e u toeibcn? 2Benn mid; ber Ifialer fo be$aubert,

toie bid mcfyr toirb eg ber $>icf)ter tun! 3d; fcfylage ifyn auf,
unb id; 3d) finbe bier flute plane 3ei=
finbe mid) betro$en.

len, bie jur Untcrfcfyrift eineg GJemdlbcS bienen fonncn, in toek

d)en ber Stoff 511 etnem (5)emdlbe liegt, aber bie felbft fein e= 5

mdlbe finb.

Ot ^eot Trap Zrjvi K(iOijfJivoL rj

Ne/crap ewvo^det rot

TrdAiv citropdoovTCS- 10
dAA7yAovs, Tpwow

nriirbe ein 2(poIIoniu^, ober ein nod; mittelmaftigerer

T)icf)ter f nid)t fd;Ied;ter cjcfagt ^aben; unb omer bleibt tyier

ebenfo tr>eit unter bem ^Raler, al^ ber Dialer bort unter if>m

blieb.

yiofy baju finbet (5at;lu^ in bem flatten fcicrtcn 33ud)e ber 15

3Ua^ fonft fcin cinji^e^ C^emdlbe aU nur eben in biefen toier

geilen. 60 fef)r fid), fac\t er, ba3 Diertc Sud; burd; bie mannu3=
faltic\en (Srmunterunflen jum ^Inftriffc, burd) bie 5rucbtbar=
!eit gldn^enber unb abftcd)enber Gf)araftere, unb burd) bie ftunft

au^nimmt, mit n?eld)er un^ ber ^id;ter bie JRenfle, bie er in 53e= 20

hxcum$ fe^cn n^ill, jeiflt: fo ift e bod) fiir bie 93talerei fldnjlicf)

unbraud;bar. Sr fyatte ba^ufe^cn fonncn: fo reicf) e3 and;

fonft an bem ift, n)a3 man poetifc^e GJemdlbe ncnnt. ^cnn
n)af)rlid), e^ fommcn berer in bem fcierten 5Bud;e fo bdufiflc unb
fo Doflfommene t>or,
al^ nur in irc^cnb einem anbern. 2$o ift 25

ein augflefufyrtereS, tdufcbenbere^ CJemdlbe al^ bag bom ^an=

baru^, rt>ie er auf 5lnreijen ber ^Rinerba ben 2Baffenftittftanb
bricf)t ; unb feinen $fetl auf ben 5J?eneIau^ lo^briidt? 511^ bag,

bon bem 5tnrliden beg grierfnfcben eereg? 3(lg bag, bon bem
beiberfeiti$en Slngriffc? 2(Ig bag, bon ber at beg Utyffeg, 30

burd; bie er ben ob feineg Seucug rdd;t?

 Caofoon XIV. 97

folgt abet fyieraug, bafi nicfyt toenigc ber fd)onften Gte

mdlbe be omer feine cmdlbe fitr ben 2lrtiften geben? )afe

ber Slrtift (Semdlbe au ifym ^iefyen fann, mo cr felbft !eine fyat?

S)afj bie, toelcfye er fyat, unb ber Slrtift gebraucfyen fann, nur

5 fefyr armfelige (^emalbe fein rt)iirben, menu fie nic^t mefyr jcigtcu,
al ber 5(rtift ^cigt? 2Ba^ fonft, al^ bie 33crneimmg meiuer
obigen ^rage? 2)a^ au ben matcricUcn Wcmdlben, ju \vd-

c^en bie ebid^te be omer Stoff (^eben, mcnn i^rer and? nod?

fo biele, menn fie avid? nod? fo fcortrefflid; tudren, fid; bcnnod?

10 auf ba3 malerifd^e Xalent be^ !Dicf)ter^ nid>t3 fc^lie^en

XIV.

3ft bem aber fo, unb fann em ebidf)t fe^>r ergtebig fiir ben
9Mer, bennoc^ aber
felbft malerifc^, Fjimmeberum ein
nicbt

anbere^ fefyr malerifd) unb bennocf) nid)t ergiebig fiir ben 5Raler

fein, fo ift e3 aucf) urn ben (Sinfall be^ (^rafen (Ja\)lu^ gctan,

15 tt>eld)er bie 53raucf)barfeit fiir ben 5RaIer jum ^Brobierfteine ber

T)icfyter madden, unb i^re 3tongorbnun$ nac^ ber Slnja^l ber

1
emdlbe, bie fie bem Slrtiften barbieten, beftimmen Pollen.
gern fei e3, biefen (Sinfall, auc^ nur burcfy unfer Sti(Ifc^n)ei=
gen, ba^ 5lnfefyen einer 9legel geminnen 511 laffen. Hilton
20 n)iirbe al^ ba3 erfte unfc^ulbige D^fcr berfelben fallen. $)enn
e^ fc^eint mirflid^, bafj ba^ berdd)tlid)e Urteil, n?elcf)e^

1
Tableaux tires de Plliade, Avert., p. v. On est toujours con-

venu, que plus un fournissait d images et d actions, plus il

poeme
avait de superiorite en poesie. Cette reflexion avait conduit & m
penser que le calcul des differents tableaux, qu offrent les poemes,
pouvait servir k comparer le merite respectif des
poemes et des
poetes. Le nombre
genre des tableaux que presentent ces
et le

grands ouvrages, auraient etc* une espece de pierre de touche, ou

plutot une balance certaine du merite de ces poemes et du genie de
leurs auteurs.
98 Cefftng.

iiber ifm fprid)t,nid)t fotoofyl <ftationalgcfd)mac!, alg einc golge

feiner toermeinten S^egel getoefen. Der $erluft beg Gkfid)tg,

fagt mag toofyl bie groftte Sfynlidjfeit fein, bie Hilton mit
er,

bem ,omer gefyabt fyat. greilid? faun Hilton feine GJalerien

fiillen. 5lber miifcte, folange id) bag leiblicbe 5luge fyatte, bie 5

Spfyare begfelben aud) bie Spectre meined innem 2lu$e fein,

fo miirbe irf), urn bon biefer (Sinfcbranfung frei 511 Voerben, einen
2Bert auf ben SRerluft be^ erften legen.
3>erlorne ^arabie^ ift barum nid)t rt)eniger bie er[te

(Spopoe nacf) bem Corner, rueil e3 rt>enig

Wemalbe liefert, al^ 10

bie Setbcnggcfd^id^tc Gbrifti be^t>cgen em ipocm ift, treil man

faum ben $opf einer S^abel in fie feen fann, obne auf cine
s
Stelle ju treffen, bie nicfyt eine )31enge ber grbfeteii 5(rtiften be=

fcf^aftigt ^dtte. 2)ie (Sbangeliften crjablen bag ^aftum mit

alter mbglicfyen trocfenen Ginfalt, unb ber 3(rtift nutjt bie man= 15

nigfaltigen Xeile be^felben, obne baft fie ben gerin$=

ibrerfeits

ften Junfen bon malerifcbem (Petite babei gcjeigt babcn. @^

flibt malbare unb unmalbare ^afta, unb ber Gkfcbicbtfcfyreiber
fann bie malbarften ebenfo unmalcrifd; erjablen, al^ ber T)id;ter
bie unmalbarften materifrf) barjuftellen ttermogenb ift.
20

5Ran Icifct fid; blofe bon ber ^toeibcutigfeit bc 3Sorte^ ber=

fii^ren, toenn man bie Sad;e anber^ nimmt. (5in poetifd;e^

emcilbe ift nid;t nottoenbig ba^, mag in ein materietteS c=

malbe ju berftanbeln ift; fonbern jcber Quc(, jcbe S^erbinbung

meF)rerer 3 u 9 e ^ urc^ /
^^ e un ^ ^* er ^id;ter feinen C^egenftanb fo 25
finnlicf) mad;t, baft toir ung biefeg egenftanbeg bcutlicber be=
n?uftt tt>erben alg feiner 2Borte, Fjeiftt malerifd), beiftt ein (9e=
malbe, rt>eil eg ung bem rabe ber g^ufion nafyer bringt, beffen
bag materielle (Semalbe befonberg faf)ig ift, ber fid) toon bem
materiellen emalbe am erften unb leicfyteften abftraf)ieren 30
2
laffcn.
2
3So tntr poetifcfye @emalbe nenncn, nannten bie 9Htcn ^^antaftcn,
rt)ic man ftd^ au bem ?ongin erinncrn tuirb. Unb ma mir bie Sttnfton,
 Caofoon XV. 99

XV.

fann ber id)ter 511 biefem (Mrabe ber Jttufion, tote bic

(Srfafyrimg jcigt, and; bie SSorftettungen anbercr alg ficbtbarer

(Segenftanbe erbeben. ft-olfllicb miifjcn notroenbig bcm 2(rti=

ften gan^e Ktajfen bon Wcmdlbctt abflefyen, bie bcr icbter bor

5 ifym boraug l)at. rtybeng Dbe auf ben Gdcilien^ta^ ift bolter
s

miififalifcber Wcmcilbc, bie ben |Mnfel miifji^ laffen. ^ocf) irf>

mill micb in bergleicbcn Grem^el niebt berlieren, au^ melcben

man am (Snbe bod; mobl nid)t bid mel)r lernt, al^ bafj bie $far=
ben feine 26ne, unb bie Dbrcn feine 3(uc\cn finb.
10 5^ toitt bti ben Wcmdlben bloft fid>tbarcr egenftanbe fteben
bleiben, bie bem Did)ter unb Water flemein finb. 3i>oran lieflt

e^, ba(5 mancftc poetifd)e Wcmalbc bon biefer 5(rt, fiir ben Dialer
iinbraud)bar finb, unb bintoieberum tnandbe eigentlid^e (^e=

malbe unter bcr s$ebanblun$ be^ !Dicbtcr^ ben groftten ^etl

15 if)rcr SBirfung bcrlieren?
(Sjcm^el mb^cn micb leiten. 3^? ^bicberbolc e: ba^ Wcmalbe
^anbaru^ im bierten $ud;e bcr JliaS ift eine^ bon ben au&
s
be^

gefii^rteften, taufd^enbften im flanjcn Corner, ^on bem Qr-

greifen bc^ Sogcng big ju bem Jylugc beg ^feitcg, ift jeber 2(u-
20 genbticf gemalt, unb atte bicfe 3hi^cnbtirfe finb fo nabc unb
bod; fo unterfcfyicbcn angcnommcn, baf5, tbcnn man nid)t

X(iufd)cnbe bicfcr ($fiim(be fjoifKit, t)icfe bet i()iini bic Gnarpir.

^atte eiucr, uric ^lutarcf)ii^ niclbct (Erot., T. II, edit. Henr.
Steph., p. 1351), flffaflt: bie pocttfd)en ^(jaiitaftcu tuaren, lucflfit itjrer

(Suargie, Xrdume bcr SBac^cnben. 3d) luiiujdjtc fct)r, bic ncitcnt i cl)v

biid)cr ber 2)id)tfunft tjdttcu ftd) biefer 33enenituitgen bcbienen, unb be^
SSorteS emd(bc ganoid) cntljattcn tuotten. @ie tinirben itnS cine
s
2J?enge lja(buia()rer J?ege(n ertyart ^aben, beren nontct)mftcr runb bic

Ubereinfttmmung eine^ unUfiirlirfjcit 92anifit@ ift. ^oetifdje ^tjantaften

tuiirbe fein 2ftenfd) fo tcid)t ben @d)ranfeu eineS matertetlcn cmdlbeS
unterroorfen ^aben; aber fobatb man bie
s

|^antaften poetifdje emdtbc

nonnte, fo mar ber runb jnr ^erfu^rung gctegt.
100 Coffin^.

toiifcte, tote mit bem 23ogen umjugefyen ftdre, man e au3 bie=
1
fern Gkmdlbe aftein (crnen fonnte. ^3anbaru giefyt feinen
33ogen fyerbor, legt bie Sefme an, offnet ben $od)cr, toafylt
einen nod) ungebraucftten toofylbefiebertcn ^Pfcil, fettf ben Spfeit
an bie Sebne, $iel)t bie Sefyne mitfamt bem ^feile unten an 5

bem @infd;nitte ^uriic!, bie

Se^ne na^t fic^ ber SBruft, bie

eiferne Spii^e be^ ^Pfeilc^ bem 23ogen, ber o r 6 e Qcriinbcte

fcf)ldc;t tonenb an^einanber, bie SeFme fc^toirrt, ab

er ^feU, unb gieric^ flicgt er nacfy feincm gicle.

Ubcrfe^en lann GatyluS biefeg toorirefflicbe (^emalbe nirf)t 10

^aben. 2Ba^ fanb er alfo barin, toarum er e fiir unfafyig

ad;tete, feinen 3lrtiften $u befd^aftigen? Unb toa^ toar e3,

toarum itjm bie SBerfammlung ber ratpflegenben 5erf)enben
otter 511 biefer 2(bficbt tauglicfjer biinfte? $m fotoo^ al^
bort finb ftd;tbare Ssorftnirfe, unb toa s
braurf)t ber JRaler mef;r, 15

a(g ficbtbare SSortoiirfe, urn feine gldrf)e 511 fiillcn ?

X)er ^noten mufj biefer fein: Dbfcbon beibe SLsortoiirfe, al3

ficf)tbar, ber eioentlid^en 5)^alerci fllcicfy fdbi^ ftnb, fo finbet fid)

bod) biefer toefentlicfye Unterfdneb unter if)nen, ba^ jener cine

fid)tbare fortfd;reitenbe anblung ift, beren berfcfnebene Xeite 20

fid; nad; unb nad), in ber 5^ e ber $t\t, ereignen, biefer (>in=

gegen eine fic^tbare ftef;enbe ^anblunfl, beren fccrfdnebene

2:eUe fic^ ncbencinanbcr im Canine enttoideln. 2Benn nun
abcr bie JRalcrei, ijcrmoge i(>rer 3^id)cn obcr ber Dlittel i()rer

^ad^afymung, nur im Canine berbinbcn fann, ber $t\t

bie fie 25

ganoid; cntfagen mu^, fo fonnen fortfdneitenbe anblungcn,

aU fortfd^reitenb, unter ifyre nicf)t ge^oren, fon=
cgenftanbe
bern fie mu^ fid^ mit anblungen nebeneinanber, ober mit
blofcen ^orpern, bie burcf) if)re Stellungen eine anblung ber*
muten laffen, begniigen. 2)ie ^oefie ^ingegen
- 30
1
Iliad. A, 105-112.
 aofoon XVI. 101

XVI.

T)od; id) vmtt berfud)en, bic 6ad)e au3 ifyren erften riinben

fyerjuleiten.

3d) fd;Iiefie fo. 2Benn e3 toafyr ift, baft bie Walerei 511 il)ren

!ftac$a$mungen ganj anberc 9Jlittel, ober 3^^^n gebraucM,

5
s
al3 bie poefie; jcne ndm(id) Atouiren unb ^arben in bem Nan=
me, biefe aDer artihitierte Xone in ber .3^^; tuenn unftreituj

bie 3^^ u m * bcqucmeS $erf>altm3 511 bem ^3eeid^neten habcn

miiffcn: fo fonncn nebeneinanber c^eorbnete 3*icficn, nur nucf>

GJeflenftdnbe, bie ncbcneinanber, obcr beren ^cilc neOcncinanber

10 anfeinanbcr fol^enbc 3eid)cn after, and) nur Wcficn*
ejiftiercn,

ftdnbe an^britcfcn, bie anfeinanbcr, ober beren Xeile aufcin*

anber fol^en.
egenftanbe, bie nebeneinanber, ober beren ^eile nebenein=
anber eriftieren, F;ci|Vn .Siorpcr. ^oWid) ftnb Abrpcr mit
15 U;ren ficf)tbaren Gi^enfdniftcn, bic ei^cnttidien Wcgcnftanbc
bcr ^alcrci.

egenftanbe, bie anfeinanber, ober beren ^eile aufcinanber

folgcn, heiften iiber^aupt anblungen. ^oUjlid) finb anb
s
lungcn ber eic\entlid)c Wcgcnftanb ber poefte.
20 T)oc^ alle Korper eirtfticren nid)t allein in bem 9laume, fon-
bcrn and) in bcr fyit. Sic banern jcbem
fort, unb fonncn in

5lugenblicfe ibrcr Waiter anbcr^ erfd)eincn unb in anbrcr -8er=

s

binbuncj ftchcn. Jebc bicfcr augenblidlid^en Grfdbeinnn^en

unb SSerbinbungen ift bic ^irfung einer ttorhcr^ebcnben unb
25 fann bie Urfad^e einer folgcnbcn, unb fonacfy ^(cicbfam bao
s
3entrum einer ^anblung fein. 3olglidf>
fann bic IRalerei auc^
anblungen nad;af;mcn, aber nur anbeutunc^toeife burcf) ^or=
perT
5(uf ber anbern Seite fonnen anblungen nid^t fiir ftc^ felbft
30 bcftefyen, fonbern mitffcn getoiffen 3Befen anr;angen. 3nf ;
 r^w^ A^
tf*^. p^e
cx^ -"^ f. ^a <r
r
^ ^reo-J-^v fa I &*.

102 efftng.

fern nun biefe 2Befen Slorper finb, ober al3 Slorper betradbtet

toerben, fd;tlbert bie ^oefie aud; $orper, aber nur anbeutung^

toeife burcfy .v>anblungen.
*& *"/$!%_

2)ie ^aleret fann in i^ren toqifticrcnben M.oinpofitionen nur

einen einsigen Sluflenblirf ber anbhinc\ ini^cn, unb mufe ba= 5

I;er ben pragnanteften \x>af)len, au^ tDeldhetn ba^ 3>orf;ergebenbe

unb 5otG en ^ e am bct3reiflid)ften toirb.

(Sbenfo fann and; bie ^>oefie

in if;ren fortfcf^reitenben 9^ad;=

afymungen nur eine einjiflc i(5enfcf>aft

bcr .Uor^er nutjen, unb
mu^ bafyer biejeni^e toaMen, it?eld;e ba^ ftnnlicfyfte ^Bilb be5 xo

toon ber Seite erU)ecft, bon tt>eld)er

fie ibn braudbt.

flieftt bie ^legel t)on bcr (Sinfycit ber malerifd)en ?\ei=

ivortcr, unb ber 6parfamfeit in ben Sdn lberungen forperli^er

egenftdnbe.
^cf>
it)iirbe in biefe trodene Sd>(u^fette tr)eni(^er 9>crtrauen
15

fe^en, menu ic^> fie nicbt burd) bie ^>rari^

be3 Bonier
men beftati^t fa nbe, ober tucnn e nic^t bielmefyr bie
be^ omer fclbft n?dre r bie mid; barauf c\ebrad;t f;dtte.

aul biefen runbfafcen Idfti fid) bie c^rof^c ^Dianier be^

beftimmen unb erfltiren, foiuie ber entgegengefe^ten Dcanier 20

fo Dieler ncuern 1)id)ter il)r 9ied)t erteilen, bie in einem 6tiide

mil bem ^aler toettcifcrn Vooden, in tt>e(d)em
fie nottvenbig Don
t^m iiberivunben ivcrben miiffen.
3c^ finbe, $omer malt nid?t3 al fortfd>reitenbe .^anblungen,
unb alle Morper, nur burd) ifjren
alte ein^elnen Dinge malt er
25
Slnteil an biefen .^anblungen, gemeiniglid) nur mit einem

3uge. 3Sa^ timber alfo, ba& ber Dialer, ba mo Corner malt,

toenig ober nid;t fiir fid; ju tun fiel^t, unb bafe feine rnte nur
ba ift, mo bie efcbicf^te eine D^enge fd)oner ^orper, in fcbonen

SteQungen, in einem ber $unft borteilbaften Dannie jufam= 30

menbringt, ber $)id)ter felbft mag biefe ilorper, biefe Stellungen,
biefen 9fiaum fo toenig malen, al$ er mill? 9Jian ge^e bie
 Caofoon XVI. 103

ganje 5^0 e ^ er emalbe, tme fie GafcluS au3 ifym toorfdrtdgt,

tiicf fur tiicf burcfy, unb man toirb in jebem ben 23eft>ei3 toon

biefer 9lnmertung finben.

$$ laffe alfo fyier ben rafen, ber ben Jarbenftein beg
jum ^robierfteine be3 1)icf)ter3 macften Will, um v bie
be Corner ndber ju erfldren.
ein Sinfl, fage icb, bat Corner gemeiniglid) nur cinen
3ug. @tn Srf)iff ift if;m balb ba^ fdnuarje dnff, balb ba^

F)of;le Sd)iff, balb ba3 fcftnelle Sdnff, borf^ftcn^ ba^ ii)oblbe=

10 ruberte fcbmarje d^iff. S&eiter Idftt er fid) in bie 5Kalerei be^

6cf)tffe^ ein. 2(ber mobl ba^ Scf)iffen, ba3 Hbfabren,

nid>t

ba^ 5(nlanben be^ 3cbiffe3, mad>t er 511 einem au3fiibrlid>en

emdlbe, 511 einem (^Jemdlbe, auS lueld^em ber Waler fiinf,
fe^ befonbere C^emdlbe mad>en mii^te, er e^ ganj auf u>enn

15 feme Seintoanb briiuien mollte.

3n)tngen ben Corner ja befonbere Umftanbc, unfern 35Iicf
auf einen einjelnen forperlid^en Wcgenftanb Idtujer jn beften,
fo mirb bcmun^eaditet fetn (ikmalbe barau^, bem ber ^Jialer
mit bem s
$infel folgen fonntc ; fonbern er mcift burd) unja^Iige
20 ^unftgriffe biefen einjelnen egenftanb in cine 5^9 e bon
5luflenblidfen 511 fetjen, in bercn jebem er anber3 erfcf^eint, unb

in beren lectern if;n ber "JRaler ertuarten mufy, um un ent=

ftanben ju jeigen, h)a^ toir bei bem !Did>ter

entfteben fefyn. 3-
6. 2SiU joiner unS ben 5Bagcn ber 3no feben lafjen, fo mufe
25 ifm $ebe toor unfern 3Uu3en Stiicf fiir Stiidt jufammenfe^en,
2Btr feben bie 9taber, bie 3Id)fen, ben Sifc, bie !Deid)fel unb
Piemen unb Strange, nid^t fomobl Voie e^ beifammen ift, al^
ttrie e^ unter ben .^dnben ber ebe jufammcn !ommt. 5(uf
bie 3?dber aUein toeduenbet ber id)ter mebr al einen 3^G/
30 unb toeift un^ bie ebernen adbt 6^>eid>en,
bie golbenen 3 e ^9 en /

bie Sc^ienen toon (Sr^, bie filberne 9?abe, alle in^befonbere.

9Jfan follte fagen: ba ber ^Hdber me^r al^ eine^ n?ar, fo mufcte
104 Ccffing.

in bcr 33efd)retbnng ebenfoDiel 3 e ^ me ^ r au f ft e ^ c ^ en / a ^ ^ re

1
befonbere 2lnlecumg beren in ber 9iatur felbft mefyr erforberte.

2BUI ung omer ^eicjen, toie 3Igamemnon befleibet getoefen, fo

mnfj fid) ber $onig fcor

unfern 2lngen feine bbllige ^tleibnng
Stiic! fiir Stiicf umtun; bag toeick Untorfleib, ben grof^en 5

Mantel, bie fcftoncn albfticfel, ben !Degen; nnb fo ift er ferti$,

unb ergreift bag Scepter. SSir fe^en bie Mleiber, inborn ber

$)id)ter bie ^anblnng beg ^Befleibeng malt; ein anberer nnirbe

bie ^lleiber big anf bie geringfte Jyranfe (\emalt haben, nnb nur
2
toon ber anblung fatten rt)ir nicf)tg 511 fe^en befommon. 1

o tvovve

KaXov, VTjydreov, TTC/JI

8 /w-e ya ySaAAtro
IToo"crt 8 VTTO \L7ra.pOLcriv ory(raro KaXa TrtotAa
o L<J>O<;
apyvporjXov,
EiAcro 8e (TKrjTrrpov -TraT/jtoiov, a^Ot/rov a.ltL ^^^ 15

Unb tooim ^i)ir l>on

biefem Scepter, ^eldn^g bier blof^ bag
nnDerganglicbe Scepter f^eif^t,
licfye, foir>ie
ein abnlicbeg ibm an
einem anbern Drte blofi xp vo t ot? bag mit
"

>}A.oto-t Tre-rrap^vov,

(jolbonon Stiften befcblagene Scepter ift, n>enn

tt)ir, fage icb,

Don biefem roicbtigen Scepter ein fcollftanbigereg, genauerog 20

53ilb baben foden: tvag tut fobann joiner? ^?alt er nng

anjser ben golbenen SMgoIn, nun ancb bag 0(5, ben gefcf)ni^

ten$nopf ? %a, \w\\n bie Sefcfyreibung in eine .sjoralbi! follte,

bamit einmal in ben folgonbon ty ittn ein anbereg gonau ba=
nacb gemacf)t n^erben tonne. Unb bod) bin icb flortjifi, ba$ 25

mancf)er nenere !I)icbter eine folcbe 2Bappon!5niggbofd)roibung

barang n^iirbe
s
gemacbt ^aben, in bcr trcnberjigcn D?cinun$,
ba^ er U)irHid) felber gematt babe, meil ber ^Raler if;m nadv

malen !ann. 3Sag befiimmert ficb aber omer, n?ie faeit er

ben ^Jialer ^inter ficfy lafet? Statt einer 9lbbilbung gibt er 30

1 2
Iliad. E, 722-731. Iliad. B, 43-47.
 Caofoon XVI. 105

ung bie efdjicfyte beg Scepterg: crft ift eg untcr ber 9lrbeit be3

33ul!an; nun gldngt eg in ben anben beg Jupiter; nun fre=

mertt eg bie 2Biirbe 9Jterfurg; nun ift eg ber $ommanboftab beg

triegerifcfyen $elopg; nun ber irtenftab beg frieblidfjen SItreug,

3
5 u. f. h). So fenne id) enblid) biefeg Scepter beffer, alg mir eg
ber Staler bor Slugen legen, ober ein gmeiter S^ulfan in bie
anbe liefern fonnte. ^ toiirbe m\dj nid^t befremben, it>enn

id) ftinbe, ba^ einer toon ben alten 3(u^le(^ern be^ Corner bicfe

Stelle a(^ bie bollfommenfte SUleojorie Don bem Urfprunc^e,

10 bem gortgange, ber 55efe[tigung unb cnblicr)cn Seerbfolgung
ber foniglicfjen C^eiDalt untcr ben 5Jlcnfcf)cn bctvunbcrt f)dtte.

5>d)
n)iirbe Idcf^eln, ic^>
ttiirbe aber bemungeacfytet in meiner

5lrf)tunfl fiir ben !Dic^ter beftdrft merben, bem man fo biele^

(ei^en tann. 2)ocfy biefe^ Hcgt aufter mcincm 3l^e(^e, unb irf;

15 betrarf;te je^t bie GJcfc^icbtc be3 Scepter^ bloft al^ einen ihmft*

griff, un^ bei einem cinjclucn X)inge bcnocilcn gu madden, ofyne

fid^ in bie froftige 93efd?retbung feiner ^eile eingulaffen. 3lurf>

n?enn 3lc^i(Ie bei feinem Scepter fd^tuort, bie Weringfd>n^ung,

mit n)eld)er U;m Agamemnon begegnet, ju rdcf^en, gibt un^

20 omer bie $efd?id;te bicfe^ Scepter^. 9Bir feben ibn auf ben

Sergen griinen, bag @ifen trennt ibn toon bem Stamme, ent^
bldttert unb entrinbetifyn, unb macbt ibn frequent, ben ^Hiditern

beg SSolfeg gum 3 c ^ en ^ rer gottlid)en SlUirbe gu bienen.

4

2)em Corner n)ar nid;t fon?obl baran gelcgen, gmei Stdbe toon
25 Uerfd)iebner "JRaterie unb 5^S ur ^ u fdnlbern, alg imS toon ber

3Serfd)iebenf)eit ber 5)?ad)t, beren 3 e ^ en ^i e f e Stdbe faaren,

ein ftnnlic^eg 53ilb ju madjen. 3 ener / e " 1 er ^ ^ e ^ S5ul!anu3;

btefer, toon einer unbefannten anb auf ben ^Bergen gefcf>nit=

ten: jener ber alte 33efi^ eincg ebeln aufeg; biefer beftimmt,
30 bie erfte bie befte ^auft ju fiillen: jener, toon einem 9ftonard>en

iiber toiele ^nfeln unb iiber ganj 5Irgog erftrecft; biefer toon
3 4
Iliad. B, 101-108. Iliad. A, 234-239.
106 Ccfftng.

cinem aug bem 9ftittel ber riedjen gefufyrt, bem man nebft
anbern bie Setoafyrung ber efee anbertraut fyatte. 2)iefeg
toar toirftid; ber Slbftanb, in toeldjem fid) Slgamemnon unb
2ld)itt fconeinanber befanben; ein SIbftanb, ben 2ld)ill felbft,

bet allem feinem blinben 3orne, einjitgeftefyen, nicfyt umfyin 5

tonnte.

3)od) nicfyt blo ba, too omer mit feinen 23e[rf;reibunGen

bergleid^en n)eitere 3(bftc^ten Derbinbet, fonbern aucf) ba, n?o

e i^m urn ba^ blojje Silb 511 tun ift, mirb er biefe3 33itb in etnc

10
2lrt toon $efcfyicfyte be egenftanbe^ berftrcucn, urn bie Xetle
S
be^felben, bie fair in ber 3iatur nebeneinanber fc^cn, in feinem
(SJemdtbe cbenfo natiirltd; aufcinanber folcjcn, unb mit bem
s
gluffe ber Jtebe ctfeidifam Sc^ritt fatten 511 laffen. 3. @. @r
\v\li un^ ben Soflcn be^ ^anbaru^ malcn; eincn 33ogcn toon
s

orn, Don ber unb ber Scinge, n)of;l poliert unb an beiben 15

6pien mit (^Jolbblcd; befd^laflen. 2fia^ tut er? Q&ljlt er

un alle biefe tgcnfd^aften fo trocfen cine nad; ber anbern

bor? 5Rit ntd^ten; bag tuitrbe einen folcben ^Bogen angcbcn,
borfd^rcibcn, aber nid;t malen F^eifjcn. dr fanc^t mit ber 3flb
beg Steinbocfeg an, aug beffen orncrn ber Soften flcmadj)t 20

morben; ^anbarug ^>atte

ibm in ben Jelfcn aufflepafjt unb
i^n erlegt; bie Corner maren t>on
aufierorbentlic^er ro^e,
begtoegen beftimmte er fie u einem 33oflen; fie fommen in bie

2lrbeit, ber ^tunftter Derbinbet fie, poliert fie, befcf)lagt fie. Unb
fo, u)ie gefagt, feben fair bei bem 2)id;ter cntftc^cn, ft>ag n?ir 25
5
bei bem 9Jlaler nid)t anberg alg entftanben feben tonnen.
gcf) miirbe nid)t fertig menu id; alle jempel biefer
ir>erben,

Slrt augfcf>reiben U)oUte. Sie toerben jebem, ber feinen omer

inne ^at, in DJienge beifaften.
s
Iliad. A, 105-111.
 Caofoon XVII. 107

XVII.

3lber, fairb man einftenben, bie 3?icben bet *poefie finb nidit

6(0(3 aufeinanber folcjenb, fie finb aud; rotllfiirlicb; unb al3

toillfurliebe gcid^cn finb fie allerbincjg fafyia,, ttorper, fotoie fie

im 3?aume erjftieren, au^ubhicfen. 3n ^ em omer felbft

5 fdnben fief; bierbon @jempel, an beffen Sdnlb beg HcbUleg man

s
fid)nur erinnern biirfe, urn bag entfebeibenbftc ^eifpiel gu
fyaben, U)ie meitlaufiti unb bod) poetifd), man ein etn^clne^

2)ing nad) feinen Xeilen nebeneinanber fdnlbern fonne.

^cf) rt)iU auf biefen boppclten (5immirf antmorten. %<fy

10 nenne if;n boppelt, n^eil ein ricftticjer 2dilnft and) ofmc (5jempel

gelten muf^, unb c\e^cnteil ba^ (fjrcmpel be^ joiner bet mir
toon 9Sid)tiflfctt ift, aud; menu id) e^ nocf) burd; feinen ScMujj
gu ted^tfertigen tnetf?.

G^ ift ttjaf;r; ba bie 3^ rf^^ ^r ^cbe tt)iHfiirIui>

finb, fo ift

15 e^ $ar mobl mbctficfi, ba}^ man burd>

fie bie Xeile eineg Mergers
s
ebenfortjobl aufeinanber fol^en lajfen faun, alv fie in ber j?atur

nebeneinanber befinblicb finb. 9lHcin biefeg ift eine (5"i^en=

fcbaft ber ^Kebe unb ibrer 3^i4 >en

uberbaupt, nid>t aber info=

fern fie ber 9lbfidht ber s^ oefie am bequemften finb. Der ^oets

20 n?ill nid)t bloft Derftdnblid> n>erben, feine SorfteUungen follen

nid;t blof^ flar unb beutlicf) fein; biermit be^nii^t fief)

ber s^ro=

faift. Sonbern er toifl bie ^sbeen, bie er in un3 eriredt, fo leb*

f;aft maef)en, bafe toir in ber Wefdnuinbiiifeit bie mabren finn=

lid)en (Jinbriirfe ibrer (
S
5e^enftdnbe gu empfinben ^lauben, nnb
s
25 in btefem 9(u^enblide ber Xdufdnine\ nn ber )^ittel, bie er
s
ba$u an^enbet, feiner iBorle betDuf^t ju fein aufboren. ier=

auf lief obcn bie (^rflarunc^ beg poetifeben (^)emalbeg f;inaug.

5(ber ber >ief>ter
foil immer malen, unb nun tooffen tm r feben,
inmiefern $orper nad) ibren ^eilen nebeneinanber fid; ju biefet
s
3o Dialerei fd;iden.
108 effing.

3&ie gelangen rtrir 311 ber bentltcfyen STsorftellung eineg $)ingeg

im bourne? @rft betracfyten fair bie eile begfelben ein^eln,
fyierauf bie Sfierbmbung biefev eile, unb enblicE) bag ($an$e.
Unfere Sinne berricfyten biefe berfcfnebenen Dperationen mit
einer fo erftaunlid)en Sdfmelligfeit, baft fie ung nur eine ein^ige 5

gu fcin bebiinfen, unb biefe 6dmelligfeit ift unumganglicr; nok

it>enbig,
h)cun yi?ir einen 35egriff toon bem an^en, rtelrf)er nicfytS

mebr al^ ba^ ^Kefultat toon ben 53egriffen ber Xeile unb ifyrer

$Berbinbuno ift, befommen follen. (Sefc^t nun alfo aucf), ber

2)irf)ter fiif)re un^ in ber fefyonften Drbnung toon einem eile 10

be^ egenftanbe^ ^u bem anbern ; gefe^t, er h^iffe ung bie

binbung biefer Xeile aucf) nod^ fo tlar gu macf)en: h)ie biel

gebraud;t er baju? 2Ba^ bag Sluge mit einmal iiberfie^t,

^tifylt er ung merflid; langfam nacr) unb narf) ju, unb oft ge=
fc^iebt eg, ba^ fair bei bem letjten 3^0^ ben erften fcfyon n)ieber= 15

um bergeffen F>aben. X)ennocf) follen fair ung aug biefen 3u en

ein $an$eg bilben. !Dem Singe bleiben bie betracfyteten Xeile
beftcinbig gegeniudrtig; eg fann fie abermalg unb abermalg

iiberlaufen: fiir bag Dfyr f^ingegen finb bie bernommenen eile

berloren, menn fie nicf)t in bem ebacbtniffe ^uriicfbleiben. 20

Unb bleiben fie fcfton ba juriicf, Voelc^e 5Rii^e, n?eld;e 2lnftren=

gung foftet eg, i^re Gtnbritcfe atte in eben ber Drbnung fo Ieb=

I;aft 511 erneuern, fie nur mit einer mafjigm Gkfdbtoinbigteit

auf einmal ju iiberbenfen, um ju einem ettraigen Segriffe beg
u gelangen! Cc^^^, u. c ^cW^ 25

berfud;c eg an einem SBeifpiele, ^eld;eg ein 5Keifterftiidt

1
in feiner 3(rt l)ei^en fann.

$)ort racjt bag !^o^e mupt bom ebeln @njiane

28eit itbern niebern S^or ber ^obclfrciuter !^in,

@in gau^eg S3luincnt)olf bient unter feiner $af)ne,

ein blatter SBruber felbft biicft fid^, unb e^ret i^n.

1
@. -s^errn D. .^aflerS ?llpcn.
 Caofoon XVII. 109

$er S3Iumen rjcfleS (Mb, in rra^fen umgebogen,

Xurmt fief) am Stengel auf, unb front fein grau ettxmb,
$er flatter g(attc3 58eifj, mit tiefem rim burcfj^ogen,
traljlt Don bem bunten 33li$ toon fencfjtem Tiamant.

ered)teftc efe$ !
bafe flraft fief) Bier t>ermaf)Ie ;

$n einem frfjonen 2eib tuofynt cine fdjb nre @ee(e.

^)ier frierf)t ein niebrig rattt, gleict) eincm graitcn 9?cbel,

2)em bie S^atur jein ^latt tm JTveit^c ^ingelegt ;

2)ie ^olbe 93(ume jeigt bie jmei uergolbten Scfjnabel,

S)ie cin Oon ?(met^i)[t gebtlbter SSogel tragt.
2)ort mirft ein gldn^cnb 33Iatt, in finger an^geferbet,
3luf einen ^etten 53ad) ben gritnen 28tbcrjrf)ein ;

5)er S3 lumen jarten Srf)nce, ben matter ^urpur fa rbet,

^tiefet ein geftreifter Stern in tueifje Straiten ein.

Smaragb unb JHofen blitf)n and) auf ^ertretner

Unb ^elfen becfen fic^ mtt einem ^uvpnrfleibe.

@ ftnb 5!rautcr unb 33lumen, tuclcfje ber fleIeF)rte ^id)ter mit

grower ^unft unb nacf) ber ^atur malt, ^att, aber o^ne alle
Xaufcr;ung malt. %d) fagcn, ba^ roer btefe $rauter
\v\ll nicfyt

20 unb 33lumen ntc gefefyen, ficr;

au^ fctncm emalbe fo gut al^
gar !eine SSorftellung babon macben tonne. (S^ mag fein, baft
atte ^oetifcf;en C^emalbe etne torlaufige 35efanntfcr)aft mit ifyren

cgenftanben erforbern. %<fy

\v\il aucb nidjt leugncn, ba^

bemjenigen, bem eine folcr;c33cfanntfcr;aft bier 511 ftatten fommt,

25 ber !T)icf)ter nicfyt toon einigen Steilen eine lebfyaftere 3^ e ^ er=

roedfen fbnnte. 3$ frage ir;n nur, rote ftefyt e^ um ben 33e=

griff be^ anjen? 2Benn auc^ biefer Iebr;after fein foW, fo

miiffen feine einjelnen Xeile barin borftecfyen, fonbern bag

Cohere Stc^t miife auf alle gleic^ toerteilt fcfyeinen; unfere @in*
30 bilbung!raft muf} gleic^ fd;ne(I iiberlaufen tonnen, um
alle

ftcr;
ba^ au^ U;nen mit ein^ jufammenjufe^en, roa^ in ber 9totur
mit eing gefer;en roirb. 3f* ^ ie ^ ier ** r 3 a ^ I? H
ift er Urit>
110 Cefftng.

c nid)t, toie r)at man fagen fonnen, ,,baj$ bte aFmlid)fte fyify
nung etneS 9Jlaler gegen biefe poetifd)e Sd;ilberei gan^ matt
2
unb biifter fetn totirbe?" 6ie bleibt unenblid) unter bem,
teas? Sinien unb Jyarben auf ber Jlacfye au3briicfen fonnen, unb
ber $uuftrid)ter, bcr if;r bicfe iibertrtebene Sob erteilt, mufe fie 5

au3 cinem gan^ falfdjen efid^t^unfte betrad;tct I)abcn; er

mufj incF;r auf bie frcmben 3^ rfl *cn, bie bcr Xic^tcr barein

t^crtuebt f;at, auf bie Sr^o^ung iibcr ba^ De(3ctattDe Seben, auf
bie nttmdfelimg ber tnnern ^Bollfommcnbcttcn, ^clcfjen bie
duf3cre Sd)bnF;eit nur $ur Sc^ale bicnt, a( auf bicfc Sd^bnfyeit 10

felbft unb auf ben rab ber 2ebf;aftic3!cit unb Sfmlicbfett be

53Ubc^, meld)e^ un3 ber "JRaler, unb ineld)e^ un3 bcr Xtcf)tcr
babcn gc\t)d^rcn fann, gcfcf;en I;abcn. G5Icicbn)obI fommt e3

F)icr Icbtc^licf) nur auf ba Ic^tcre an, unb n?cr ba fa$t, ba^ bic

,5
blo^cn ^erten:

Xer 35lumen t)etle^ olb, in Straiten itmgebocjcn,

Xiivmt fid) am tcnget auf, unb front fcin flvn

^er ^Matter glattc^ cifj r
mil tiefcm vim bitvcl^ogen,
(5tvnl)lt t)on bcm buntcn S3li^ tion feudjtem ^iamnnt

bicfe 3eilen in 5InfeF)ung ifyrcS inbrucfg mit bcr 97ad^- 20

fl
cinc^ ut)fum rocttcifcrn fonncn, muft fcinc (5mpfin=
bung nic bcfragt F)aben, obcr fie borfa^Hd) bcrlcugncn roollcn.
Sic mogcn fid), toenn man bie ^Blume felbft in bcr anb F)at,
f ebr fcbon bagcgen rejiticrcn laffen ;
nur f iir fief) allcin fagcn fie

mcnig obcr nid)t^. gd) ^orc in jcbcm SBortc ben arbcitcnbcn 25

T>id)ter,
abcr ba ^Dtng felbft bin icr)
toett cntfcrnt ju fcf;cn.
^odjmal^ alfo: icr) fprecfye nicbt bcr 9^cbe iibcrbaupt ba^
58crtnogcn ab, cin torperlid)e (^an^c nacr) fcinen ^cilen u
fcbtlbcrn; fie fann e3, roeil ir)rc 3eicr)cn, ob fie fd)on aufeinanber
folc^cn, bennocf) rmnfiirlicfye 3eid)en ftnb: fonbern ic^ fpred)e 30
2
S3rdtinger (Sritijdje 2)td)tfunft, . II, @. 407.
 aofoon XVII. Ill

eS ber 9?ebe al bem ^Rittel ber ^oefie ab, faeil bergleicfyen

licfyen Scfyilberungen ber $orper ba aufcfyenbe gebricfyt,

toorauf bie ^oefie bornefymlicfy gcbt; unb biefe3 aufd)enbe,

fage id), muf} ifynen barum gebredien, toeil bag $oerjftierenbe
5 be3 &drper mil bem ^onfefutitoen ber ^Hebe babei in ftollifion

tommt, unb tnbem jene^ in biefeS aufgeloft mirb, un^ bie 3er=

glieberung be^ anjen in feine ^eile jrnar erleirfjtert, aber bie

enblicfye 2Biebetjufammcnfe^ung biefer ^cile in ba3 anjc
ungemein frf)n)er, unb nid)t felten unmbglid) gcmac^t n?irb.

10 itbcrall, tt)o e^ bafyer auf ba^3 ^Tdufrf)enbe nicbt anfommt,

iv>o man nur mit bem SSerftanbc feiner $?efer ju tun f)at, unb

nur auf beutltcfye unb fotoiel mbglid) tollftanbtflc Segriffe oef)t,

!onnen biefe au ber ^oefie au^gefdjloffencn Scf^ilberungen ber
$orper gar n^o^I ^]Ia^ babcn, unb nicbt adein ber ^rofaift,

15 fonbern aucf> ber bcgmatifd^c tcbter (benn ba n)o er

fiert, ift er fein icbter), fonnen ficb ibrcr mit bielem

bebienen. So fdnlbert 5. G. Virgil in feinem (^ebicfyte bom

3
Sanbbaue eine jur ^uftt tiidUige Alub, ober ein fdone3 AiUIen.
2)enn n?er fiebt nid;t, ba^ bem Xid^tcr bier mebr an ber 3lu^
x>
einanberfetjung ber ^cile al an bem Wanjen gelegen ge^refen?
@r hritt un^ bie ^ennjcicben eine^ fcf^oncn JuHcn^, einer tiid>ti^

gen Rut) gu^ablen, um un in ben Stanb ju feften, nad^bem

fair beren me^rere obcr menigere antreffen, ton ber Wiite ber
cinen ober be3 anbcrn urteilen &u fonnen ;
ob fid>
aber alle biefe
s
25 ^enn^eicben in ein lebbafteS ^ilb (eid^t fcufammenfaffen laffen,

ober nidH, ba^ !onnte if)m fef;r gleid^gultig fein.

2luj$er biefem ebraucbe finb bie au3fiibrlicben Gskmalbc

!orpcrlicf)er (^Jegenftanbe, obne ben oben ertDdf)nten f)omeri-

fd)en $unftgriff, ba^ ^oeriftierenbe bcrfelben in ein fairHicbe3

30 6ucceffit)e ju berfaanbeln, jeberjeit bon ben feinften ^icbtern
fiir ein froftige^ S^ie(rt?erf erfannt tuorben, ju hjelcfiem mentg
3
Georg., lib III, v. 51 et 79.
112 Ceffing.

ober gar fein Gknie gefyort. 2Benn ber poetifdje Stumper,

fagt oraj, nidjt metier farm, fo fdngt er an, einen $ain, einen
2Htar, einen burd) annuitize ftluren fief) fd;lan$clnben 33ad),
4
einen raufc^enben Strom, einen 5Re0enbo0en $u malen. $)er

mannliebe ^ope fafy auf bie malerifcben ^erfucfye feiner poeti* 5

fcfyen ^inbfyeit mit Crofter Wcrincifcbafcimci juriicf. Gr ber*

lanflte au3brikflid), baft, nxr ben Xiamen eine^ !I)irf)ter^ nicfyt

unmurbio fu^rcn molle, bcr Scfyilbcrnn^fucht fo frii^ n)ie mog=

licfy entfa^en miiffe,
nnb crfldrte em bloft malenbe^ 0ebirf)t fiir
5
ein (Sjaftgebot auf tauter 33riiben. $ou bem errn Don 5lleift
10

fann ic^ toerfidicrn, baft er fid) auf feincn grueling ba3 hjcuigfte
einbilbete. atte er langcr c^elebt, fo anirbe cr if)m cine ganj
anbere (Seftalt gegebcn f)aben. (?r bad)te barauf, einen pan
s
binein$ule$en, unb fann auf )Jiittel, ane er bie ^JJenge bon 33il=

bern, bie er au3 bem unenblicf^en 9laumc bcr tocrjiingten Sd)bp= 15

* De A. P, v. 16.
5
Prologue to the Satires, v. 340:
That not in Fancy s maze he wander d long
But stoop d to Truth, and moraliz d his song.
Ibid., v. 147 :

who could take offence,

While pure Description held the place of Sense ?

3)if ^umerfung, tuelrfjc Savburton fiber bie lejjte Stetle inarf)t r

fann
fiir rflarung be^ 2)irf)ter felbft gclten.
etnc ant^entlfcfje He uses
pure equivocally, to signify either chaste or empty and has given in ;

this line what he esteemed the true character of Descriptive Poetry,

as it is called. A
composition, in his opinion, as absurd as a feast
made up The use of a picturesque imagination is to
of sauces.

brighten and adorn good sense so that to employ it only in descrip

;

tion is like children s delighting in a prism for the sake of its gaudy
colours; which when frugally managed, and artfully disposed, might
be made to represent and illustrate the noblest objects in nature.

<Sorool)f ber 2)id)ter al8 Commentator fcfyeinen $tnar bie <Sad)e mef)r anf
ber moraU^en, a{ fnnftma^ifleit @ette betradjtet jit fjaben ; bocf) befto
beffer, bafj fte con ber einen ebenjo mcfjtig al8 Don ber anbern erfdjetnt.
 Caofoon XVIII. 113

fung, auf erateftofyl, balb fyier balb ba, geriffen &u fyaben

fcfyien, in einer natiirlidjen Drbnung bor fcinen 2lugen entftefyen

unb aufeinanber folgen laffen tootte. @r tourbe jugleicf) bag
getan fyaben, ft>a3
9Dtemontel, ofyne 3^ e ^ m^ au f 2k*an-
laffung feiner flogen, me^rcren beutfcben T>icf>tern
geraten
^at : cr toiirbe au^ einer mit mpfinbungen nur fparfam burrf>=

mcbten 9^eiF;e toon 33ilbern, eine mit 53ilbern nur fparfam

floc^tene Jolge fcon Gmpfinbungen gemarf^t

XVIII.

Unb bennocfy follte felbft Corner in biefc froftigen 3Iu^matun=

10 gen !orperlicfyer OJegenftcinbe berfallen fein?

2$ n)ill ^offen, bafs e^ nur fefyr menige Stcllen finb, auf bie

man fid} be3fall3 berufcn fann; unb id; bin berfidjert, baj^ auc^

biefe n?enigen Stellcn ton ber 2lrt finb, baft fie bie ^Hegel, toon
ber fie einc 2lu3nabme 511 fein fcfyeinen, bielmebr beftatigcn.

15 (S3 blcibt babci: bie 3eitfolge ift ba3 6ebiet

fotoie ber 5laum ba3 ebict bc3

3rt)ei notmenbig entfernte

felbe (^emalbe bringen, fo n?ie r. ^Ra^uoli ben 3^aub ber
fabinifd;en 3 un Gf raucn un ^ ^ berfelben 2(u^fobnung ibrer @f)e=
20 manner mit ifyren 2tni?errt>anbtcn ;
ober n)ie Fijian bie ganje
efcbic^te be3 berlornen SofyneS, fein liebcrlic^e^ Seben unb
fein (Slenb unb feine 3^eue: fyeijjt ein (Singriff be 9^aler3 in
6
Poetique Fran9aise, T. II, p. 501 J ecrivais ces reflexions :

avant que les essais des Allemands dans ce genre (l Eglogue)fussent

connus parmi nous. Us ont execute ce que j avais con9\i; et s ils
parvlonnent k donner plus au moral et moins au detail des peintures
physiques, ils excelleront dans ce genre, plus riche, plus vaste, plus
fecond, et infiniment plus naturel et plus moral que celui de la
galanterie champetre.
114 Ceffhig.

bag $ebiet beg $)tcfyterg, ben ber gute efrf)mac? me bifligen

roirb.

9ftef>rere eile ober &inge, bie icf) notvoenbig in ber 9?atur

auf einmal iiberfefyen muft, ftenn fie ein an$eg fyerborbringen
follen, bem Sefer nacfy unb nad) ^ablen, urn ifmt baburd) ein 5

33ilb toon bem (San^en mad)en ju tooUen: bciftt ein @ingriff beg
2)icf)terg in bag ebiet beg 9Merg, mobei ber

gination oF>ne alien !Ru^cn fccrfcbtoenbet.

2)0^, fon)ie ^t)ei biilige frennbfdjaftlicbe

nirf)t berftattcn, ba$ firf) einer in beg anbern inncrftcm 9leid;e 10

unge^iemenbe greifyeitcn f^eraugnebme, VooW aber auf ben

aufcerften renjen einc n?erf)felfeitige 9?adbficftt [;errfcf>en laffen,

n?elc^e bie flcinen Gingriffe, bie ber eine in beg anbern erecf)k

fame in ber 0efcbft>inbigtcit fief) burrf^ feine Umftdnbe ju tun

genotigt fiefyt, frieblid) toon beiben ^eilen fompenfiert: fo aud; 15

bie ^Ralcrei unb ^cefie.

^c^ mill in biefer Slbficbt nid)t anfiiF)ren, baft in groften F)ifto=

rifcf)en 0emalben, ber eittjige 2lugenblic! faft immer urn eirt)ag

ermeitcrt ift, unb baft fief) metteicfyt fcin cin^igeg an Jiguren fef^r

reicfjeg 6tiicf finbet, in meld^em jebe Jigur bollfommen bie 53e= 20

tocgung unb Steflung ^at, bie fie in bem 5(ugenblicfe ber ,aupt;
^anblung F;aben folfte; bie eine fyat eine etmag frii^ere, bie

anbere eine ettoag fpdtere. @g ift biefeg eine 5 r ^i^it, bie ber

5fteifter burdi gemiffe Jyeinbeitcn in ber 2(norbnung red^tfcrtigcn

muft, burd) bie 58ermenbung ober Gntfernung feiner ^erfonen, 25

bie ifmen an bem voag borgeE^t, einen mebr ober meniger augen=

blirflicfyen Slnteil ju nef)men erlaubt. ^dj n?ifl mid) bloft einer

3(nmer!ung bebienen, rt)elc(>e

err ^Rengg iiber bie ^raperic
beg S^affael macfyt. 1 W 3((le fatten/ fagt er, ,,l)aben bei if)tn if>re

Urfacf)en, eg fei burcfy i^r eigen (%n)id)t ober burcf) bie 3^f>wng 30
1
ebanfen iibcr bie cfybnfyeit unb iiber ben efdjmacf in
rei, @. 69.
 Caofoon XVIII. 115

ber lieber. 9ftancf>mal fiefyt man in ibnen, toie fie border ge=
toefcn; Sfaffael fyat aud) fogar in bicfem 5kbeutung gefucfyt.

Wan fiefyt an ben galten, 06 ein 33ein ober 3lrm bor biefer

ffiegung, fcor ober fyinten geftanben, ob bag Gttieb toon $rumme

5 gur Slugftrecfung gegangen, ober gcbt, ober ob eg auggcftrccft
gettjefcn, unb fid; frummt." Q$ ift unftrcitig, ba^ bcr 5tiinft=

ler in bicfem Jallc jmci berfrfucbcne 3(ugcnbncfc in einen cin=

jigen jufammcnbringt. Xenn ba bcm 5 u f>
e /
^elcf^cr hinten

geftanben unb fid; toorbctoegt, ber ^eil beg GktoanbS, mclc^e^

10 auf if;m licgt,unmittelbar fol^t, ba^ Wcluanb toare benn Don

fef>r ftcifcm 3 CU $ C ^ cr a ^ cr C ^1CU barum $ur IKalerci ganj un=

bequem ift: fo gibt e^ feinen Huflcnblicf, in treld>em ba GJc^

nxmb im geringften eine anbere Jyaltc mad>te, al^ e^ bcr jcUigc

6tanb bc (^licbc^ crforbcrt; fonbcrn lafit man co cine anbere

15 5 a ^ te niad^en, fo ift e3 ber borige 3(u0cnWicf be3 (Mcttjanbc^

unb ber je|ige bc3 Wliebc^. Demungeac^tet, mcr mirb e3 mit

s
bem 3(rtiftcn fo genau nebmen, bcr fcincn ^ortcil babci finbct,

bicfe beiben 3lugcnblicfe sugteid) ju ^eigen ? 2er tuirb ibn

biclmcbr riibmcn, baf^ cr ben 3>crftanb unb ba3 .

ocrj gc=
20 fyabt T;at, eincn fold^cn gcringcn Jycblcr 511 bcgcbcn, um cine

grojjcre 3Son!ommcnbcit bc^ 3(u^brucfc^ 511 errcirfjcn?

97acbficbt bcrbicnt bcr Xtcbter. Seine fortfd^rcitcnbe

crlaubt ibm cigentlidi, auf cinmal nur cine cin=
jige Seite, eine ein^ige C igcnfd^aft fciner forpcrlicbcn Wcgciu
25 ftanbe 511 beruf;rcn. 3Ibcr hienn bie glitcflid^c C^inriditung fciner

Sprad)e ir;m bicfc^ mit cincm cinjigcn ^orte 511 tun bcrftattet,
toarum foUte and) bann unb tnann, cin ^ucitc^ folcbc3
cr nid)t

2Sort ^in^ufugen biirfen? 3Barum nidit aucb, n?cnn e ber

TObe berlobnt, ein britteg? Cbcr toobl gar ein bicrtc? Jcf)
30 fyabe gefagt, bcm Corner fei 3. (5. ein 8d)iff, enttoeber nur
ba fcbnjarjc Scbiff, ober ba3 bofile 6cf)iff, ober bag fcfmefle
ag toofylberuberte f^njar^e Sd)iff. 3U ***
116 Cefftng.

ftefyen bon feiner Center iiberfyaupt. ier unb ba finbet

fid) cine Stelle, too er bag britte malcnbc pitfyeton fyinaufetjt:

2
Ka/xTTvAa /cvKAa, xaAKea, oKTaKvrjfjM, runbe, efyerne, ad)tfpei=
d)ige 9?dber. 3lud) bag biertC: do-7rt8a Travroo-c To-^v, KaArJv,
3
xaXKctr/v, c^Xarov, etticn uberall flatten, fcfydnen, efyernen, 5

getriebenen Scf)ilb. 2Ber tDtrb ibn bamm tabeln? 2Ber iDirb

i^m biefe Heine Uppigfeit nic^t beilme^r an! iuiffcit, tt>enn

er empfinbet, toclcfye o^te SBirfung fie an toenigen fc^icflic^en

6tellen f)aben fann?
2)e3 X>icf)terg fon30^)I alg beS balers eigentlic^e 3^erf)tferti0ung 10

^icriiber, toill ic^ aber nic^t aug bem borangefdncften leic^=

niffe bon ^toei fveunbfc^aftlic^en S^ac^barn F)ergeleitet n)iffen.

@in blo^cg OleidMiig ben?eift unb red;tfertigt nicf^tg. 6onbern
biefeg mu^ fie recfytf ertigen :
fon)ie bort bei bem "JRaler bie ^toet

bcrfd;iebenen 3Utgenblic!e fo na^e unb unmittelbar aneinanber 15

gren^en, bafj fie of>ne

5(nftoJ5 fiir einen einjigen gelten fcnnen;

fo folgen and) bier bet bem !I)id)ter bie mefyrern 3^9^ fiir bie

fcerfcfyiebnen Xeile unb @igenfd)aften im 9?aume in etner fo(cf)en

t^ebrangtcn ^iir^e fo fcbnefl aufeinanber, baf$ roir fie alle auf

einmal u f)oren glauben. 20

Unb fyierin, fage icf), fommt bem omer feine bortreffli(^e

Spracbe ungemein &u ftatten. 6ie lafet ibm nid)t allein atle

moglicbe greifyeit in aufung unb 3 u f amm ^nfe^ung ber 33ei=

h)5rter, fonbern fie fyat aud^ fiir biefe ge^duften 23ein)drter eine
fo gltic!Iicf)e Drbnung, ba$ bcr nac^teiligen Sugpenfion if)rer 25

33e^ieF)ung baburd) abge^olfcn n?irb. 2(n einer ober me^reren

biefer 23equemlirf>feiten feF)lt eg ben neuern Spracben burcf)=

gdngig. ^)iejenigen, alg bie fran$6fifd;e, n)elcf>e

g. (5. jeneS
Ka/xTrvAa KVKAa, ^aA/cea, 6KTa.Krr)/j.a umfd^reiben mu ffen: ,,bie

runben ^Hdber, bon @rj inaren unb acfyt Speid^en fatten/

toehfye 3

briidten ben Sinn aug, aber bernidjien bag Gkmalbe.

3
Iliad. E, 722. ^
Iliad> x t 296<
 aofoon XVIII. 117

toofyl ift ber inn fyier nid)t3, ba3 emdlbe alleS; unb jener
ofme biefeS macfyt ben lebfyafteften icfcter jum langtoeiligften

cf)toder. in d)icffal, ba3 ben guten omer unter ber

geber ber geroiffenfyaften grau Racier oft betroffen fyat.
5 Unfere beutfd)e prad)e fyingegen !ann jtoar bie fyomerifcben
33ein)drter meiften3 in eben fo fur^e gleicbGeltenbe 33eitrorter
bermanblen, aber bie borteil^afte Drbnung berfelben fann fie

ber gried)ifd;en nifyt nadf)macf)en. 2Bir fagen jtoar ,,bie runben,

e^ernen, acf)tfpeicf)igen" aber ,,ffiaber" fcbleppt ^intcnnadh.
10 2Ber empfinbet brei toerfdnebne ^rdbifate, tcir
nirf)!, ba^ ef)e

ba 6ubjeft erfaf>ren,
nur ein fel)r f^t)anfe bern^irrte^ 53ilb

macfjen fonncn? ^)er riecf)e toerbinbet ba Subjcft gleidb mit

bem erften ^]rdbifate unb lafct bie anbern nacf)folgen; er fagt:

^runbe 9?aber, e^erne, acfytfpeid)ige." 60 miffen mir mit etn3,

15 h)obon er rebet, imb h)erben, ber natiirlid^en Crbnung be3
2)enfen^ gemdfs, erft mit bem inge, unb bann mit feinen $&
fdlligfeiten befannt. T iefen 23ortetl (;at unfere 6prarf;e nicftt.

Dber fol( id) fagen, fie fyat ibn unb fann ihn nur felten of)ne

3n)eibeutigfeit nu^en? 33eibe3 ift ein^. ^enn tuenn ft>ir ^cu

20 h)6rter ^intennacf) fe^en tuonen, fo miiffen fie im statu absolute
ftefjen; tt)ir
miiffen fagen: runbe ^Hdber, ebern unb acfytfpeicbig.
Slllein in biefem statu tommen unfere 2tbjeftit>e t5Ilig mit ben
5lbberbien iiberein, unb miiffen, n)enn man fie al^ folcbe 511 bem
ndd^ften 3^^c>rte, baS bon bem !Dinge ^rdbi^iert voirb, ^ief)t,

25 nic^t felten einen ganj falfc^en, allejeit aber einen fefyr fcf)ielen=

ben inn toerurfacfyen.

2)ocr; id) balte midb bei $leinig!eiten auf, unb fcbeine ben
dn lb bergeffen ju VooHen, ben cfyilb be^ 3IcbiIIeg; biefe be=

riiF?mte emdlbe, in beffen ^iidfic^t Dornef)mlic^, Corner bor

4
30 alters al ein Se^rer ber ^Ralerei betracf)tet tuurbe. Gin cbilb,

4
Dionysius Halicarnass. in Vita Homeri apud Th. Gale in Opusc.
Mythol., p. 401.
118

toirb man faa,en, ift bod) toobl ein ein&elner fdrperlicfar

ftanb, beffen SBefdjreUntncj nacft feinen eilen nebeneinanber,

bem $td)ter ntcfyt Dergonnt fein foil? Unb biefen 8d)ilb fyat

omer, in mefyr al3 fynnbert pracfytigen S&erfen, nad; feiner

gorm, nad; alien ^ignren, toehfye bie un-
9Jlaterie, nacfy feiner 5

gef)enre ^liitfyt be^felben fiillten, fo umftdnblidi, fo c^enan be=

fc^rieben, baJ3 e3 neuern ^iinftlern nid)t fd)n)er Befallen, eine in

alien Stiicfeu ubcrcinftimmenbe 3^^wwng barnad; jn madden.
3c^ antmorte anf biefen befonbern Gwunirf baf^ ia) be=
reit^ barauf c^eant^ortct l;abe. omcr malt namlid; ben 10

Sd^ilb nicht al^ einen fcrtic\cn, toollcnbeten, fonbern al^ einen

n)erbenben Sdnlb. C5r f;at alfo auc^ l;ier fid) be3 gepriefenen

^unftQttffeg bebient, ba3 iioerifticrenbe feine^ ^oirtDurfS in ein

$onfefuth)e3 ^n lemmnbeln, nnb baburd) an^ ber laiuV^eili^en
9)ialerei eine3 Morper^, ba^ lebenbiv^e Wemdlbe einer .^oanblnng 15

gu madden. 3iMr fel;en nid)t ben Sd)ilb, fonbern ben ^6ttlid;en

s
D?eifter, n)te er ben Sdjilb berferti^t. (5r tritt mil jammer
nnb ,3 an ^ e fc r feinen Slmbof^, nnb nad)bem er bie flatten an^
bem flrobften ^efdmiiebet, fd^vellen bie ^ilber, bie er $n beffen

5(u^iemn^ beftimmt, bor nnfern Slugen, eine nadj bem an= 20

bern, nnter feinen feinern 6d)ldc^en an^ bem @r$e F;erk)or.

@^>er
terlieren toir il)n nirt^t n)ieber an^ bem (^eficbte, bi^ alle^

fertic\ ift. ift 9?un erftannen iiber ba^ 2Berf,

e^ fertic^, nnb ii)ir

aber mit bem gldubigcn (Srftannen eine^ Hn^enjeu^en, ber eg

madden fel)en. 25

^)iefe^ Icifjt fid; toon bem Gd>ilbe be^ SneaS beim 5sir^il nicf)t

fagen. 5)er romifcbe 1)i^ter empfanb enttneber bie Jyeinbeit

feine^ ^Rnfter^ f;ier nid)t, ober bie ^in^c, bie er auf feinen
Scf)ilb bringen luollte, fdbicncn if;m bon ber 5(rt ^u fein, baf3 fie

bie 2lu3fttfyrung bor nnfern Slnojen nid;t n>ol)l

berftatteten. (S^ 30

n)aren ^Prop^ejeiungcn, Don Vrelcf>en e^ freilid) nnfdncflid) ge-

h?efen ^udre, iuenn fie ber C^ott in unferer (^eQenioart ebenfo

 Caofoon XVIII. 119

beutlid) geaufcert fyatte, al3 fie ber )icbter bernad) auSlegt.

^propfyejetungen, al ^3ropl)eseiungen, berlangen einc bunfe=
lere Sprad)e, in toelcfye bie eigentlicben ^amen ber ^erfonen
au ber $ufunft, bie fie betreffen, nid)t paffen. (Jjleicfytoofyl

5 lag an biefen toafyrbaften -ftarnen, allem 2lnfeben nadj), bem

3)id)ter unb ofmanne fyier ba3 meifte. SSenn ibn aber biefeS

entfd^ulbigt, fo f;ebt e^ barum nicbt aucb bie iible SBirfung auf,

n)elrf)e feine 3Ibn)eic^unn toon bem f)omerifcf)en 3Bcge ^at. Sefer
on einem feinern efc^madte, toerben mir recbt geben. ^)ie

2(nftalten, n)e(rf;e Sultan 311 feiner 3(rbeit marfit, finb bet bem
10

SBirgil ungefcibr eben bte, toelcbe ibn Corner macf^en (afst. 5(ber

anftatt baf^ n)ir bei bem Corner nicf>t

blcf^ bie 5(nftalten jur
2(rbeit, fonbern aitrf) bie 5Irbeit felbft befcmmen, Icif^t511 fef;en

Virgil, nad)bem er un3 nur ben gefd)dftigen Wott mit feinen

5
15 ^t)flopen iiberbaupt gejeigt, ben S^orbang auf enimal nieber=

fallen, unb
ucrfe^t unS in eine ganj anbere Scene, toon ba er
un allmablid) in ba3 Xal bringt, in ftelcfyem bie 3senu^ mit ben
inbe^ fertig gen?orbenen Si^affen bei bem &nea$ anlangt. Sic
le(>nt fie an ben Stamm einer (S idie, unb nad^bem fie ber i^elb

20 genug begafft, unb beftaunt, unb betaftet, unb toerfudvt, bebt

fic^ bie 53efdireibung, ober ba3 C^emalbe be^ Scbilbe^ an,
toelcfyeS burd) ba^ en^ige: ier ift, unb 2)a ift, ??af)e babei ftef)t,

unb S^icbt rtcit babon fief;t man fo fait unb langnxilig mirb,
ba^ atte ber poetifd>e Sdnnucf, ben ibm ein Virgil geben fonnte,
25 notig ttar, urn e^ un3 nidit unertraglid) finben 511 laffen. Qa
biefe^ emalbe f;ierndd;ft nicbt iHnea^ macfjt, al^ n)elcber fid>

an ben blofeen ^iguren ergotjt. unb toon ber 53ebeutung ber=

felben nic^t^ n)ei^,

6
rerumque ignarus imagine gaudet ;

30 aud? nid)t SSenu^, ob fie fd)on toon ben fiinftigen Scfyicffalen

ifjrer lieben (Snfel toermutlid; ebenfobiel n^iffen mu^te, al^ ber
s 6
Aeneid. lib. VIII, v. 447-454. Ibid. v. 730.
120 Sefftng.

@f;emann; fonbcrn ba e3 au3 bcm eicjenen 9Jhmbe

be3 3)icbter3 fommt: fo bleibt bie >anbluncj offenbar faafyrenb

beSfelben ftefyen. $eine einjige bon feincn ^erfonen nimmt

baran teil ;
e3 fyat aud; auf bag golcjenbe nicfyt ben cjeringften
(Sinfhijj, ob auf bem Sdnlbe biefc3, ober ettoaS anber, i)or= 5

gefteUt ift; ber vmfcu\e .ftofmann Ieud;tet iiberall burc^, ber mit
aderlci fdnneicf-e(baften 5(nfpiehinc\en feiue 9J?aterie aufftu^t,

abcr nicbt ba^ grofte (^enic, ba^ fid) auf bie eigene innere Starfe

feinc^ ^Serfy berlajst, uub aHe au|crcn SJfittel, intereffant ju

, ucrad)tct. $)er od^ilb bc^ 2Inea^ ift folglicf) eiu rt)a^>re
10

eiujtg unb adein bcftimmt, bem Siationalfto^e

ber Joiner ^u fdnneid^eln; em frembe^ Sdc^Uin, ba^ ber Xic^tcr
in fetnen Strom leitet, um if;n eht>a^
reger 511 macbcn. !I)er

6d)ilb bc 5(dnlle fymflegen ift 3 urt)n ^ ^ e ^ cigcneu frucf)t=

barcu ^obcn; bcnn etn Scbilb nutfjtc gcmad^t iuerbcn, uub 15

ba baS ^otiocnbigc aug ber aub ber Wottbeit uic ofyuc 3(n-

mut fomint, fo muftte ber Sd^ilb and; SSerjierungcn (;abeu.

3lber bie Aunft ttar, biefe ^er^ierungeu al^ blof^e ^er^ieruugeu

$u bebaubelu, fie in ben Stoff cinjutDcbcn, um fie unS nur bei

cydcgcuhcit be^ Stoff cS ju jciijcn; unb biefe^ licfi fid; allein in 20

ber jfJianicr be omcr tun. Corner Itifrt ben 2>ulfan

3^ratcn
fiinfteln, toeil unb inbem er einen 6d)ilb madden foil, ber feiner

ift. Ssirgil f)ingegen fdbeint ibn ben Scbilb n?egen ber

madden ^u laffen, ba er bie .gieraten fiir VDtd^tig flemicj

F)alt, um fie befonber^ s u befd^reiben, nad)bem ber Sd;ilb lange 25

fcrtig ift.

XIX.

T)ie (5inn)iirfe, n^elc^e ber altere Scaliger, ^errault, ^erraf=

fon unb anbeve gegen ben Scbilb .^Somerg macfyen, fiub befannt.
Racier, 53oit)in unb ^ope barauf
s
(Sbcufo befaunt ift ba, \v>a$

s
antmorien. JJiid; biinft aber, ba^ biefe lectern fid; mand;= 30
 taofoon XIX. 121

tnal su toeit einlaffen, unb, in gufeerficfyt auf ifyre gate Sadfye,

2)inge befyaupten, bic ebenfo unricfytig finb, al3 toenig fie jur
3fied)tfertigung be3 2)id;ter3 beitragen.
Urn bem aupteinftwrfe ju begegnen, baft omer ben Scfyilb
5 mit einer 9Jtenge Jiguren anfulle, bie auf bem Umfange be3=

felben unmoglicfy 9faum ^aben fonnten, uuterna^m 53oiDin,

ifyn mit Semerfung ber erforberlirf)en SDiajie, jcid;ncn 511 laffen.

Sein @infa(l mit ben berfcbiebenen foujentrifcfjen

fe^r finnreicf), obfcf)on bie SSorte be^ Dicbter^ ben nuf>t

10 baju geben, aucf) fid) fonft feine Spur finbet, bafe bie
ften 5(nlafe
9Uten auf biefe 3(rt abgeteilte Scfyilbe oef;abt ^aben. ^)a e^
omer felbft O-UKO? Travroo-c Se&xiSaX/AtVov, eiiien auf alien Sei=
ten funftlicf) au^gcarbeiteten Sc^ilb nennt, fo uriirbe id; lieber,
um 9?aum au^jufparen, bie fonfabe tfladjt mit
meF>r
311 ."pilfe

15 Qenommen fyaben; benn e^ ift befannt, bafc bie alten Miinftler

biefe nid)t leer liefien, n>ic ber 6d;ilb ber 3JiinerDa

s
bom
1
betoeift. 2)ocf) nid>t
flenug, baft fid; SBoitoin biefe^
nicf)t bebienen mollte; er berme^rte aud; ofyne Wot bie

ftellungen felbft, benen er auf bem fonacf) um bie alfte ber=

20
ringerten S taume ^pla^ berfcbaffen mu^te, inbem er ba^,
bet bem $)id;ter offenbar nur ein einjige^ 53ilb ift, in jtoei

brei befonbere 33ilber jerteilte. 3<^

^ ei 6 *o^I, m
ben)og; aber e^ fytitte i^n nid)t bevuegen follen: fonbern, an=
ftatt ba^ er fid; bemiifyte, ben J-orberungen feiner (^egner eine
25 eniige ju leiften, ^dtte er il;nen ^eigen follen, bafc if)re S r=

berungen unrecbtmajjig tDdren.

3c^ tuerbe micf) an einem ^Beifpiele fayid)er erflaren tonnen.
2Benn omer Don ber einen Stabt fagt: 2

quo Amazonum praelium caelavit intumescente

1
Scuto eius, in
ambitu parmae ;
eiusdem concava parte Deorum et Gigantum
dimicationem. Plinius, lib. XXXVI, Sect. 4, p. 726. Edit. Hard.
Iliad. 2, 497-508.
122 Cefftng.

Aaoi 8 dv ayopf) laav aOpooi tv&a Se

wpci 8uo 8 ai/Spes evetKeov efi/CKu

os d.7ro(t>6ifjitvov
o /x

/xJuxrKwv o o dvuiVcTO, ^tr^ocv eAeo C Uij

fTTL
Lt<rOr)V l(TTOpl
Aaot 8 a

K^pvKcs 8 a/3tt
Aaov cpr/rvov ot 8c e

Etar CTTI

e IKUOV. 10

Kelro 8 d^)
ev /xe crcroicri di>o>

^pvcroLO raXavTa

fo olaube id), bat or nicfct mehr a( ctn cm^i^cS Wemalbe an*

gebcn Pollen: ba Wcmalbe cincg bffcntlid^cn ^crf>t^f>anbell

iiber bie ftreiti^e Grle^tn^ einer anfel)nlicf)en Cs klbtmfte fiir

ctnen tocriibtcn ^otfd>lac\.

cr .Ui mftlcr, bcr bicfcn 5sorUnirf 15

auSfiifyren foil, fanu ftd> auf cinniat nid^t incf>r al^ cincn ein=

jii3en 5(u^cnblicf bc^fclbcu 511 milje mad>cn ;

cnt^cbcr beu 9higcns
Hicf ber 9(nfla^c, obcr ber 9lM6run(i bcr 3cuflen, obcr bc^ \\r-

tettfprucf)c5, ober toelckn cr fonft, l>or obcr nadb, obcr jtDtfcftcn

bicfcn 2lugcnMicfcn, fiir ben bequcmftcn bait. Xicfcn cinjigcn 20

5Iuc;cn[>(icf macftt cr fo pra flnant iuic mb^Iidb, unb fuf;rt ihn tnit

alien ben ^aufdnin^cn au^, mclcbc

Aunft in bic arfteMuna,
fic^tbarcr 6)c^cnftanbe i^or bcr ^ocfic borau bat. Sson bicfcr
6eitc aber uncnblidf) juriicfgelaffcn, toa faun bcr !Dicbtcr, bcr
cbcn bicfcn 5>ormurf
mit Morten inatcn foil, unb nid^t ivin^licf) 25

berimcilikfen \v\li, anbcr^ tnn, at^ ba^ cr fid) (^Icid)fan6 fcincr

ci^cnttimlicbcn 3>ortcilc bcbicnt? Unb U)eld)e3 ftnb bicfc?

2)ic Jfrcibcit fid; fotuobl iibcr bag ^scrc\anc\cnc al iibcr bag
Jolgenbc beg cin^igen 2lugenblicfcg in bcm ^unftrt>erfe aug=
jubreiten, unb bag ^Benno^cn, fonad) ung nid)t aUein bag ju 30

^cic^cn, ^ag ung bcr .Hiinftlcr tf \c\t, fonbern aud) bag, toag ung

biefcr nur faiw erraten lajjcn. ^urd; bicfc grci^eit,

 Caofoon XIX, 123

biefe SSermogen allein, fommt ber icbter bem $iinftler iineber

bet, unb ifyre 28erfe tverben cinanbcr alsbann am abnlicbften,

toenn bie 2Birfun$ berfelben gleieb lebbaft ift ;
nicbt after, team
bal eine ber Seele burcf) ba3 Cbr iricbt mefyr ober nxnia,er bei*
5 brtngt, al3 ba3 anberc bent 2hu3e barftcMcn !ann. ^acfi bie=
fern runbfa^e F)dtte Soilnn bie 6telle be Corner beurteilen
follen, unb er iuiirbe nidht fo tnel befonbcrc ctnalbe barau^
gemacf)t fyaben, al^ terfcfnebne 3^itpunftc er barm 511 benier*

fen glaubte. @3 ift roabr, e^ fonntc mcfct tt>obl

alle, h)a^
10 Corner facjt, in eincm etnji^en (55cmalbc berbunbcn fein; bie

33efd)ulbigung unb Slbleugnung, bie ^nrftcUunfl ber 3 cu fl cn

unb ber 3 uru f ^ fletcUtcn ^olfe^, ba^ ^eftreben ber .sjcrolbe

ben tumult u ftillen unb bie xHufterunflen ber d>ieb^rid>tcr,

finb ^Dinge, bie aufeinanber folflcn, unb nid>t nebeneinanber

15 befteben fonnen. Qod) n)a^, urn micf) tmt ber Sd>ule au^n=
briiden, nicbt actu in bem (Mctndlbe entbalten iuar, ba lag
virtute barin, unb bie cinjiflc ^abre 3(rt, ein materielle^ We=
malbe mit Shorten nadijufdntbern ift bie, baf^ man ba^ Ic^tcrc
mit bem linrflicb Sicf>tbaren lierbinbet, unb fid} nid>t in ben
20 Scfyranten ber Aunft bait, innerbalb toeldkr ber Xicf>ter
g^at
bie 2)ata gu einem Wemalbc berjablen, aber nimmermebr ein
GTemcilbe felbft fyertoorbringen fann.

leid^ermeife gerteilt 53oit)in ba^ CJemalbe ber bela^erten

3
Stabt in brei berfcf)iebne C^emalbe. Gr batte t$ ebenfo^obl

25 in ju)blfe teilen fonnen al^ in brei. enn ba er ben Gkift be^

X)id;ter einmal nid)t fa^te unb bon ibm berlana,te, bafi er ben

6inf;eiten be3 materiellen emalbe^ fief) untertuerfen miijfe,

fo f;atte er roeit mel)r Ubertretungen btefer 6inf;eiten finben
fonnen, baft e faft notig getocfcn jebem befonbern ft\ic\t
\v>an,

30 be^ !I)ic^ter^ ein befonbere^ gelb auf bem Sd;ilbe ju beftimmen.

rad)ten^ aber ^at omer uberfjaupt nid)t mef;r al^
v. 509-540.
124 Ccfftng.

gefyn berfdn ebene emdlbc auf bem flanjen Sd;ilbe ;

beren jebeS
Ct mtt cinem V /xcv ereve, ober cv & Troi ^o-e, obet ev 8 crt 0ei,
4
obcr V iroiKtAAe A/z<iyvi7s anfdnflt. 2Bo biefe Gin=

$ang3n)orte nid)t ftefyen, I;at man tein 9ied)t, ein befonbere3

GJemdlbe anjunefnnen; im (^eflenteil mufc alleS, ft>a3
fie t>erbin=

ben, al^ ein einjigeS Cetracf)tet tuerben, bem nur Olofi bie ti)ill--

fiirlidbe Concentration in cinen cinjiflcn 3citpunft niangelt, al^

h)eld)e bcr ^idUer an$uflc&en feine5h)e0eS c\c()alten amr. 2siel=

mef;r, bdtte er if;n anc\coieben, hdtte er fidf> c\enau barnn fle-

F;alten, f)dtte er nid>t ben (\eringften 3u fl cinfiicfecn laffen, ber

in ber mirflid^cn 2lu3fufyrung nicht bantit ju berbinben n?cire;

nut cincm 9.Borte, F;dtte er fo ucrfahrcn, line feiue fabler e^

Dcrlangcn: e^ ift n)al>r, fo tt>iirben

bicfe perron Her an ihm
nid)t au^ufelu n, aber in ber Tat and) fein
S
3)ienfd>
bon (^e=

fifinadf ctn>a3
jit beu>unbcrn c\efunben haben.

XX.

3d; lenfe mid) nun U)ieber in meinen 2Beg, hJcnn ein

anbcr3 einen Sika; fyat.

id; toon forperlicften egcnftanben iiberr;aupt

F;abe, ba^ (jilt Don !orperlid)en fd;ouen C^eflenftdnben urn fo
bid mel;r. 20

6d;onf;eit entfjpringt au^ ber iibereinftimmenben

ovfte faiiflt an mit bcr is;}tfii Reilt, nub gol)t bi8 jitr 48i)ten ;

ba jtueite uou 4 .)0 (

509 ;
ba^ brttte uon 510 540 ;
ba8 uicrtc oon
541 549; batf fiiufte uon 550 500; ba3 fed)fte yon 561572; batf

fioluMite uon 57:i 58r>

;
ba\J ad)te uon 587 589 ;
bad nennte uon 590
605 ;
nnb ba* ^etjnte uon 606608. 53iofj bad britte eindfbe l)at bie

angegebenen @ingangdtvorte nidjt ;

e8 ift aber and ben bet bnn ^uriten,
cV Sc 8va>
TTooytrc TroAa?, nnb and ber 53efrf)affent)ett ber @arf)f felbfl
bentlui) gcuug, bafj ed ein bffonberd enuilbe jein inn|j.
 Caofoon XX. 125

2Sirfung manniftfoltiget Xeilc, bic fid) auf cinmal uberfefyen

laffen. Sie erforbert alfo, bajj biefe eile nebeneinanbcr

liecjen miiffen; unb ba Xin^e, bcrcn ^Jeile nebeneinanber liegen,

ber eigentlid^e (9egenftanb ber 9ftaleret finb, fo !ann fie, unb
5 nur fie allcin, torperlicfye 6cf)dnf;eit nacfyafymen.

$)er >icf>ter,
ber bie @lementc ber Scfyortfyeit nur nad)einanber
5ei$en fonnte, entfydlt fid? baf;er ber Scfnlberung !orperlid)er

Sc^on^eit, al^ Srf)5n^eit, ganoid), r fuf>lt e5, ba^ biefe

(Slemente nac^einanber georbnet, unntoftlid) bie 2$irfun$ I)aben
10 fonncn, bie fie nebeneinanber ^corbnet f)aben; bajj ber Ion-
^entrierenbc 53Iicf, ben unr nad; ifjrcr numeration auf fie ju=
Qleid) juriicffcnben faolten, un^ bod) fein iibereinftimmenbe^
33ilb gert)d^rt; ba e^ iibcr bte menfd^Iidie inbilbun^ ^ef)t,

fief) fcorjuftencn, h?a^ biefer 9Jhtnb, unb biefe 9afe, unb biefe

15 2lu$cn jufammen fiir cincn @ffcft fyaben, trenn man fid) nic^t

au ber 5?atur ober ^unft cincr a^>nlid;en ilompofition folder

Xeile erinnern faun.
Unb aud) f)ier ift Corner ba^ Shifter alter JKufter. @r fagt:
?Rireu^ mar fd)6n, 3(dnlle^ h?ar nodi fcboner, Helena bcfaf^ einc
20
gbttlic^e Sdpnbeit. 3(ber nir^enb^ lafU er fid? in bie um=
ftdnblid^ere 8dMlbcrun$ biefer d)5nbeiten ein. G)Icid)tt>oy

ift ba3 ganje C^ebicf)t auf bie Scfyonbeit ber ^elena oebaut.
2Bie fef;r n3iirbc ein neucrcr Xiditer bariiber lujuriert ^aben!
Sd)on ein <Ronftantinug 5Ranaffe^ Oolite feine fafyle (J(;ronif

25 mit cincm (33emalbe ber .^elcna au^icren. %d) mufc ifjm fiir

feinen SSerfud) banfen. mu^tc ^enn id; mirflic^ nicfyt, h)o ic^>

fonft ein jempel auftreiben follte, au^ n>eld^em aua,enfd)ein=

lid)er erf)e(Ie, n)ie t^)5ricf)t e8 fei, etn>a^
ju magen, ba3 omer
*
fo n)ei^lid) unterlaffen fyat. 2Benn ic^ bei i^m left:

30 v

Evrra/ayos, V7rpd<r (OTTOS, /?oa>7ri5,

1
Constantinus Manasses Compend. Chron., p. 20, Edit. Venct.
 126 Ccjfing.

, aftpa, ^tipLrwv ytpov

AeiKO/:fyxi;( .W> Tpv<f>epd,
KaAAos avTLKpvs Z/JLTTVOVV,

To TrpocnoTrov KUTaAeuKov, rj Traptia.

To 7rp6(T(DTTOV 7

KttAAo? df7

"E/JtiTTTC TT)V ACVKOTT/TO. po^o^poui TrvpcrtVr;,

fis et ris roy eAe^ai/ra (3auf/ci Aaftirpa 7rop(j>vpa.

Aeipr; /xaKpa, KarciAevKO?, o^cv efj,v6ovpyrj6r]

rrjv VOTTTOV

fo biinft mid;, left

fcf;e Stcine auf cincu ^cr^ tvnljcn, any n d= 10

dbcn auf ber Sv>i^c bc3felbcrt cin prad)ti(^c Wcbnubc aufiK=

fiibrt ^crbcn foil, bie abcr atte toon bcr aiibcrn cite Don fclljt

tricbcr bcrabroHen. 2Ba^ fiir cin $Wb hintcrlnf^t cr, bicfcr

6d)n3aU Don Morten? 3lMe faf; Helena nun au? 2ll crbcu

nid;t, voenn taufcnb 5UJcnfd>cn bicfc^ Icfcn, fid) allc taufcnb 15

cine ciflene 5>orftcnung Don iF>r mad>cn?

ift n?aBr, politifdie 55crfc cinc^ 5)iond^c finb fcinc

f;ore alfo ben SIrioft, n>cnn cr fcine bejaubcrnbe

2
5tlcina fchilbert:
2
Orlando Furioso, Canto VII, St. 11-15. ,^ u 33Ubling ifjver

cflalt tuar fo rei^nb, a\$ inir fiinftltdjf iUalcr fie biiijteu fbnnen.
egen il)r btonbe^, longed, aufgefuiipftcs Apaar ift fciit (Mb, ba^ nid)t
fctncn @ton$ tterfim. liber iljre jarten SBangen Derbreitcte fid) bie

tieriuifd)te (farbe ber Ofofen unb bcr Wien. 3l)re frbl)lid)e ^tirn, in Me
geljortgen 8d)raufen gejd)(of|eit, tuar won fllattcni (glfenbein. llutcr

jtuci fd)Uiar,en, iiu^erft feinen 33ogen gldir^eii jtuci fd)tuar^e 5lugeu, ober
inctnu tjr $iufi teiidjtenbe (Sonneu, bie niit ^olbfeligfeit lint fid) blicften
uub fid) langfam bre^ten. 9iing6 urn fie tyv fdjten Elinor 511 fpielen unb
jit fliegen; non ba fdjien er feinen gon^en Jlodjer ab^nfdjie^en, unb
bie ^>erjen fidjtbar ^u ranben. 59eiter ^inab fteigt bie 9?afe mitten

bnrd^ ba8 @efid)t, an n?eld)er fetbft ber 9?eib nid)ti? ^n beffern finbet.
Unter it)r jeigt fid) ber SDhmb, mie ^nifdjen ;mei ffeinen Xalern, niit

feinem eigentumlidjen 3"

in ober beberft ; l)ior fteljen }iuei 9Jeil)en

lefeiu-r ^erlen, bie eine f^bne fanfte ?ippe oerfd)liefjt unb offnet.
 Caofoon XX. 127

Di persona era tanto ben formata,

Quanto me finger san pittori industri :

Con bionda chioma, lunga e annodata,

Oro non e che piu risplenda e lustri,

5 Spargcasi per la guancia delicata

Misto color di rose e di ligustri.
Di terso avorio era la fronte lieta,
Che lo spazio finia con giusta meta.

Sotto duo negri e sottilissimi archi

10 Son duo negri occhi, anzi duo chiari soli,
Pietosi a riguardare, a mover parchi,
Intorno a cui par ch Amor scherzi e voli,
E ch indi tutta la faretra scarchi,
E che visibilmente i cori involi,

15 Quindi naso per mezzo il viso scende,

il

Che non trova PInvidia ove 1 emende.

Sotto quel sta, quasi fra due vallette,

La bocca sparsa di natio cinabro,

auS fommcn bie fyotbfeHgeu 28orte, bie jebes ranlje, fd)tinblid)e eq

erroeidjen ; fyier nrirb jene Heblid)e i acfyeln Qebilbet, meldjeS fiir ftd)

jdjon ein ^arables auf (Srben eroffnet. SBeifjer <Sd)nee iff ber jdjone

al$, itnb Sflitd) bie 33ruft, ber $al8 rnnb, bie Srujt oU unb breit.

wei jarte, Don Gtfeubeiu geriinbete ^ugeln tuallen jauft anf nnb
nieber, line bie JBetteu am du^erften 9fanbe be lifers, tnenu etn fpielen-
ber 3 e P^) r ^ c e ^ bejfacitet." (35ie itbrigeu Xetle tDitrbe 51rfliiS felbft

nid)t Ijabeu feljen fonnen. 2)od) tuar teid)t ^u urteilen, baf^ ba^, tt?a8
uerftecft mar, in it bent, tvaS bem ^Inge blo ftanb, iibereinftimnie.)
,,3)ic 5trme ^etgen fid) in itjrer gebbrigen Wnne, bie trei^e .^anb ettuaS

IcingHd), nnb fd)mal in ifyrcr 3Sreite, bnrd)an eben, feine Slber tritt
iiber i^re glatte ^(dd)e. 5tm (Snbe biefer t)err(id)en eftalt ftef)t man
ben fleinen, trorfnen, geriinbeten ^n^. ie englifdjen 9ftienen, bie

an bem $imme( ftamwnt, fann fein ed)Ieier nerberqen." (9?ad) ber

Uberfetjnng be^ /perrn 9)Zetnt)arb in bem i>erfnd)e
iiber ben Otfyarafter
unb bie $3erfe ber beften ita(. 2)ic^ter, 58. II, @. 228.)
128 Ccfftng.

Quivi due filze son di perle elette,

Che chiude et apre un bello e dolce labro ;

Quindi escon le cortesi parolette

Da render molle ogni cor rozzo e scabro ;

Quivi si forma quel soave riso, 5

Ch apre a sua posta in terra il
paradise.

Bianca nieve c il l>el

collo, e l
petto latte,
II collo e tondo, petto colmo e largo;
il

Due pome acerbe, e pur d avorio fatte,

Vengono e van, come onda al primo margo, 10

Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte.

Non potriaaltre parti veder Argo,
1

Ben si puo giudicar che corrisponde

A quel ch appar di fuor, quel che s asconde.

Monstran le braccia sua misura giusta, 15

Et la Candida man spesso si vede,
Lunghetta alquanto, e di larghezza angusta,

Dove ne nodo appar, ne vena eccede.

Si vede al fin della persona augusta~
II breve, asciutto e ritondetto piede. 20

Gli angelici sembianti nati in cielo

Non si ponno celar sotto alcun velo.

5Rilton faou"
bei elegenfyett be3 SpanbamoniumS: einifle lobten
bag 2Berf, anbcrc ben 9fteifter beg SBerfg. ag Sob beg einen
ift alfo nicfrt allejcit aud) bag ob be anberiu Gin ftunft* 25
VDerffann aUcu 33eifaU tocrbiencu, of;ne ba^ fid; gum 9?uf)me
be^ ^iinftlerg mel 53efonberg fagen lafit. 2Bieberum fann em
^iin[tler mit 9?ecf)t unfere 23elminberung berlan^en, aucf) tr>enn

fein 2Berf ung bie bollige eniige nicbt tut. 2)tefeg berc\effe
man me, unb e n?erben fid) ofterg gang n)iberfprerf)enbe Ur= 30
tetle bergleic^en laffen. ben toie F;ier. ^Dolce, in feinem (Se=

fprad^e Don ber ^alerci, la fct ben Slretino bon ben angefiifyrten
 Caofoon XX. 129

3
Stan^en beg 2lrioft ein auf$erorbentlid;eg Sluffyeben macfcen;

id) fyingcgen todfyle fie alg ein @rempel eineg cmalbeg ofyne
emalbe. 3Bir (;aben bcibc red;t. Xolce befrwnbert barin
bie $enntnifje, toeld;e bet id)tcr toon ber forpcrlid^en <8d)5n=

5 fyeit ^u fyaben jeigt; id) aber fcbe blo$ auf bic i 3irfunc\, s

biefe Aletmtniffc, in SBorte au^^ebriidt, auf meinc

fraft baben fonncn. Xolcc fd^liefit an^ jenen Menntnifjen,
ba gutc ^)id;ter nid;t minber c^ute Dialer finb; unb id^ au^

biefer 5lUrfunc\ ; baf5 fid) ba3, tua^ bie Dialer burdi Smicn unb
10 garben am beften au^briiden fcnnen, burd) 2i>orte
^rabe am
fcf)lcd;teftcn au^briidcn laftt. Xolcc empfieblt bie Bdnlbcruna
be^ 2lrioft alien DJalern a(g bag bollfommenfte ^orbilb einer

fd;bnen ^rau; unb icf) empfeble eg alien icbtcrn alg bie lel;r=

reid)fte iBarnuiu^ tuag eincm 3Irioft miftlinflen miiffen, nicht

15 nod; unftliidlicbcr ju bcrfmten. (S g mag fein, baf5 twcnn 2lricft

fagi:
Di persona era tanto ben formata,
Quanto me finger san pittori industri,

er bie Sebre toon ben Sproportionen, fottoic fie nur immer ber
20 fleifii^ftc Miinftler in ber 9iatur unb aug ben 3(ntifcn ftubiert,

toollfommen fcerftanben 511 babcn, baburd>

betDeift. (S r mag
fic^ immcrF;in, in ben bloftcn Morten:

Spargeasi per la guancia dclicata

Misto color di rose e di ligustri,

25 alg ben toollfommcnften Koloriften, alg einen Fijian,

DIan mag baraug, baf^ er bag ,s)aar ber 2Ilcina nur mit bem
(s)olbe toergleid)t, nidit aber golbeneg aar nennt, nod) fo beut=
lid) fd)lie^en, ba^ er ben Gkbraud? beg voirflic^en Oolbeg in ber

garbengebung gemi^billigt. ^Slan mag fogar in feiner fyerab-

30 fteigenben 9?afe,

3
Dialogo della Pittura, intitolato 1 Aretino : Firenze 1735, ? 7^-
130 Ccffing.

Quindi il naso per mezzo il viso scende,

ba3 fcfyone $rofil jcncr alten oricd)ifd;cn, nnb toon $ried;ifd)en

$nnftlcrn and) 3iomcru fleliefycncn 9?afen finbcn. %$a$ nntjt

alle biefe elefyrfatnfeit unb (Sitifidjt nn efern, bie toir cine

fcfyone $ran ju fefyen $lanbcn Pollen, bic toir ettoaS toon bcr 5

fanften 3Banung be^3 (^cbliitS babet cm^finben Pollen, bic ben

trirflid;eti 3ltiblicf bcr Gdjonfyeit bcglcitct? 28enn bcr 2)irf;tcr

n)ci^, au^ mcld;cn 3>crf;altniffcn

cine fd;one C^cftalt entfpringt,

h)iffcn fair e3 barnm aurfj? Unb tocnn n?ir c^ auc^ iDiifitcn,

lafct cr ung bier biefc SBerfyaltniffe fef;en? Dber crlciditert er ic

andf) nnr im gcringftcn bic SDJii^c, ung if;rcr anf cine Icb=

c anfc^aucnbe 5lrt 511 erinnern? Sine Stirn, in bic fle*

Sd;ranfcn cjcfcfyloffen,

la fronte

Che lo spazio finia con giusta meta ; 15

eine S^afe, an n)dd;er fclbft bcr 9Jcib nid;t^ ^u bcffern finbet,

Che non trova T Invidia ove 1

emende;
cine anb, ctlt>a^
langlid; unb fd;mal in if;rcr 33rcite,

Lunghetta alquanto, e di larghezza angusta :

fiir cin 53ilb gcbcn biefe allgemeinen ^ormcln? ^n bem 20

nc^ 3 e ^ enmc ^ter ^/ fecr f cuie cf;iilcr anf bic Scf)5n=

F^citcn bc afabemifcf)cn 5)tobc(I^ anfmcrffam marfjcn \v\ll,

mocf)tcn fie nod) etn?a3 fa^cn; benn cin 33licf anf biefe^ Diobclt,
nnb fie fefyen bie geF)origen @cf)ranfen bcr frbblid)en Stirnc,

fie fe(>cn
ben fcfyonften 6cf)nitt ber ^afe, bie fcbmale 33rcite bcr 25

nieblid)en anb. Slbcr bei bcm $)icbter fe^e id^ nid)t, nnb
empfinbe mil SScrbru^ bic 3scrgcblid)feit meiner bcftcn 2ln=

ftrenc^nng, etn>a^
fefyen jn VooHen.

3n biefem ^nntte, in h)dd)em ^irc^il bcm Corner burd) ^icbt^

tnn nadja^mcn fonnen, ift aucf) SSir^U jiemlicf) oliicflid) gcn)efcn. 30
 aofoon XX. 131

2(ud) feme >ibo

ift if;m faeiter nid;t<?
als pulcherrima Dido.
SBenn er ja umftanblicfyer ettoaS an ifyr befd)rcibt, fo ift e3 ifyr

reid)cr ^u, U;r prad;tiger 2Iufsug.

4
Oolite man barum auf
ifm antoenbcn, fr>a
jener alte iUinftlcr 511 cinem eF;rlina,e faa,te,

5 ber einefefyr a,efdwutcfte Helena gemalt (mtte: ,,ba bu fie nttft

fd)6n maten fonnen, baft bu fie reicb c^cmalt" fo faitrbe Wu(\\[ ;

antmorten, ,,e^ lic$t nid^t an mir, bafe id) fie nirft malen fd>on

fonnen; ber Xabcl trifft bie Sd>ranfen ineiner Munft; mein ob

fei, mid; innerfyalb btefer Sd)ranfen flebaltcn 511 baben."

10 3^ b ar f ^ er ^ er ^eibcn Sieber bcS 2(nafreon nid^t ter=

s
fleffen, in toelcfycn cr unS bie Sdibnbcit feine^ )3iabd>cng unb
5
feinc^ 33atF;t)lI jenjltcbert. ^Dic ^cnbun^, bie er babei nimmt,
macfit adcg gut. Gr glaubt cincn dialer ttor fief) ju I)aben, unb
lafst ibn untcr fcinen 5liu^cn arbciten. So, fagt er, mad)C mir
s
15 ba^ aar, fo bie Stirne, fo bie 5luc\en, fo ben Dhwb, fo al^
unb 53ufen, fo iift unb >tinbc! ^n^ ber Miinftler nur teiU

tueife jufammcnfet^cn fann, fonnte ibm ber Xid)tcr auc^ nur

teilmeife Dorfd)rciben. Seine 3lbfid)t ift nid)t, baf^ anr in biefer
S
miinblid;en 2)ircftion be^ 33ialer^, bie flange Sd)5nbeit ber ge=
20 liebtcn OJegcnftanbc erfennen unb fiiblen follen ;
er felbft emp=
finbet bie Unfd^igfeit be^ ^brtlid^en 2lu3brurf3, unb nimmt
ebcn baf>er ben 2Iu3brucf ber Munft 511 .\Mlfe, beren ^dufd)ung
er fo fefyr er^ebt, baft bag o an 5 e 2icb m ^;r ein Sobgebid;t auf
bie $unft, al^ auf fein Ulabcbcn u fcin fd)cint. (5r fiebt nid;t

25 ba^ 33ilb, er fiebt fie felbft, unb glaubt, baft e nun eben ben
5Runb jum 9ieben eroffnen toerbe:

yew yap avrvyv.

Ta^a, Krjpt)
KOL AxtA.7/o-i5.

2lud) in ber 5lngabe be^ 53atf;i)U ift bie 2(npreifung be fcbonen

3 ^naben mit ber 9(npreifun$ ber ilunft unb be $iinftler3 fo in*
*
Aeneid. IV, v. 136. *
Qd. XXVIII, XXIX.
132 Cefftng.

eincmber geflocfyten, baft eg fctoeifelfyaft nrirb, toem ju ^rcn

9lnafreon bag Sicb eigentlicf) bcftimmt @t fammelt bic
f>abe.

fcfyonften Xeile aug toerfd^iebnen emalben, an toeldjen eben

bie toor^uglicfye Scfyonfyeit biefer Xeile bag (5I)arafteriftifcf)e

tear; ben alg nimmt er toon einem 5lbonig, 33ruft unb anbe .>

toon einem 5Rerfur, bie iifte toon einem ^ofluj, ben 53aucfy bon
einem 33acrf>ug; big er ben Qanjen 53at^l>II
in einem bollenbeten

3lpoIIo beg $iin[tlerg erblicft.

So n?ei^ aucf) Sudan Don ber Scfyonfyeit ber ^pantfyea anberg
10
feinen 53ec\riff ju macfyen, alg burrf? SSertneifung auf bie fcfybn=
8
[ten mciblirf)en SWbfaulen alter ^unftler. 2Bag ^eifet aber

biefeg fonft, alg befcnnen, baft bie Spracfye fiir fid) felbft fyier

o^ne 5lraft ift; baft bie ^ocjte ftammelt, unb bie 53erebfam!eit

berftummt, tucnn if;nen nid)t bie 5lunft nod) einigermafeen jur

2)olmetfd;erin bient ? 15

XXI.

2Jber berliert bie ^3oefie nicfyt gu biel, h)enn man i^r alle
33Uber !6rperlid)er Sd^on^eit nefymen mill ? 2Ber mill ifyr bie

ne^mcn? 2Benn man il)r einen einjigen 2Beg 511 berleiben fud)t,

auf melc^em fie ju folc^en Silbern ^u gelangen gebenh, inbem

fie bie Jufjftapfen einer berfcf^mifterten ^unft auffuc^t, in benen 20
fie tinflftlid) fyerumirrt, o^ne jemalg mit if)r bag $leicfye $\tl ju
erreic^en: berfcfyliefjt man i^r barum aucf) jeben anbern 2Seg,
VDO bie 3tunft l;inrt)ieberum i^r nad)fe^)en muft?
dben ber omer, melcfier fief) aller ftiicfmeifen Sc^ilberung
forperlicf)er Scf)bnf)eiten fo gefliffentlicf) ent^alt, bon bem toir 25
faum einmal im SBorbeigefyen erfaF)ren, baft elena meifte
1
unb fcf)6neg aar 2 0ef)abt; eben ber icf)ter meift betm
6 T.
Etxove?, 3, II, p. 461, Edit. Reitz.
1 a
Iliad, r, 121. Ibid., 329.
 Coofoon XXI. 133

ungeacfytet un bon ifyrer Sd^onfyeit einen Segriff ju mad)en,

bcr alleS toeit uberfteigt, n?a3 bic unft in bicfcr 2lbfid)t ju

leiften imftanbc ift. 5Ran erinnere fief) ber Stelle, too elena
in bit JBcrfammlung ber Slteften be trojantfcfcen $8olfe3 tritt.

3>ie
efyrtttiirbigen reife feben fie, unb einer fpracf) ju ben an=
3
bern:
Ov vc /xtcri?, Tpaici? Kai cuKvry/xioas A^aioik
Toii^S a/j.<f>l yvvu.LKL TroXvv xpovov aAyta
AlVtU? aOcLVOLTrjCTL ^7^5 t? OJTTa COt/CCV.

10 a fann eine lebf)aftere 3bee i)on Sc^onbeit

ba3 falte filter fie be M riege3 tt)0 W ^^^ crfcnnen laffen, ber

fo biel Slut ub fo biele Xrancn foftet ?

2Ba3 Corner nid;t nacf) feineu Scftanbtcilen befcbreiben

s
(onnte, lafet er un^ in f einer 2iJirfunfl erfennen. )Jtalt un^,
15 ^ic^ter, ba^ 2BofylgefaHen, bic 3^fUW"flf ^^ e iiicbe, ba^ Gnt=
jiicfen, rt>elcf)e^ bie Sd^onbeit bcrurfad)t, unb i^r babt bie 6d?dn^
^eit felbft gemalt. 2Ber fann ficb ben c^eliebten egenftanb ber
6ap^[;o, bei beffen (Srblidtung fie Sinne unb C^Jebanfen ^u i>er-

lieren befennt, al3 btifeltd? benfen? 2Ser glaubt nid^t bic

20 fdjonfte, bottfommenftc Oeftalt $u feben, fobalb er mit bem

efiifyle fi)mpatbifiert, tt)eld^e^ nur eine folcbe eftalt erregen
fann?
@in anbrer SSeg, auf meld>em bie ^oefie bie 5lunft in ScbiU
berung forperlidn r 2d)6nbeit Rjieberum einbolt, ift biefer, ba^
25 fie Sd)5nbeit in ^Kei^ Dermanbelt. ^Keij ift Sd)6nl;eit in 53e-
toeguna,, unb eben barum bem Dialer ftjeniflcr bequem al^ bem
2)id)ter. ^er dialer fann bie Setoecuwfl nur erraten laffen,
in ber ^at aber finb feine Jyicuiren vfynt SetDcgung. S^^^
U)irb ber 9teij bei ibm JUT (^rimaffe. 21 ber in ber ^]oefie bleibt

30 er tt)a^ er ift: ein tranfitorifd?e3 Sc^one^, ba^ rt)ir

tuieber^olt

Iliad, r, 156-158.
134

$u fefyen ftmnfdben. @3 f ommt unb ftefyt ;

unb ba fair un3 liber*

fyaupt einer Setoecuang leister unb lebfyafter erinnern fonnen,

al3 blower "Jormen bem na nu
ober ^arben, fo mufc ber 9ieij in

licfyen SBerfydltnijfe ftdrfer auf un toirfen, al bie 8d)onl)eit.

9ttle3, nod) in bem Gkmalbe ber 3llcina c^efciQt unb riibrt,
ft>a3 5

ift 9^eij. ^)er inbrucf, ben 5(u^en macben, fommt nicfyt

if>re

baf)er, bafe fie fcf)n)arj unb feurig finb, fonbern ba^er, bafj fie,

Pietosi a riguardare, a mover parchi,

mit olbfelig!eit urn fief) blicfen, unb fid; lanflfam breben, ba^
5lmor fie umflattert unb feinen gan^en il6cf)er au3 if>nen ab* 10

fc^ie^t. 3^ ^unb r ent^iicft, nicf)t n?eil bon eigentumlid^em ^\n--

nober bebecfte
Sippen jmei 9ltif)tn au^erlefener ^erlen berfcfylie*
fecn; fonbern tDeil ^ier ba3 lieblicf^e Sdcbeln gebilbet rmrb,
toelcbeS, fiir fief) fc^on, ein ^arabie3 auf (Srben eroffnet; Voeil
er e ift, au^ bem bie freunblicben 3^orte tonen, bie jebe rauf)C 15

erj er^eicf)en. !J$ r 53ufen be^aubert, rtenic\er h?eil Wild) unb

(Slfenbein unb S^fel, un feine 2Beif^e unb nieblid;e ^icuir bor^

bilben, al^ bietmeF)r toeil n)ir i^n fanft auf unb nieber n^aQen

fe^en, n>ie bie 2Betten am auf^erften $Hanbe be Uferg, menn ein

f^ielenber 3 e P^ r ^^ e ^ ee beftreitet: 20

Due pome acerbe, e pur d avorio fatte,

Vengono come onda al primo margo,
e van,

Quando piacevole aura il mar combatte.

Qrf) bin berficbert, baft lauter fold;e 3u ^e ^ ^ei^eS in eine

ober 5rt)ei Stanjen sufammenc^ebrdn^t, n^eitme^r tun nnirben, 25

al^ bie fiinfe alle, in melcf^e fie 5(rioft jerftreut, unb mit fatten

3uQen ber fcfyonen gorm, biel ju gelefyrt fiir unfere 6m^)fin=

bunc^en, burcfyflocfyten ^at.

Selbft 2(na!reon h>oHte lieber in bie anfcbeinenbe Unfd^icf-

licfyfeit Derfallen, eine Untulicf)leit bon bem Dialer ju berlangen, 30

 Caofoon XXII. 135

al bag 33ilb feineg 9Kabcfyeng nicfyt mit $ei$ beleben.

fanfteg ^inn, befiefylt er bem &iinftler, ifyren marmornen

la& aWe $ra$ien umflattcrn! 2Bie bag? -ftad) bem genane=
[ten 2Bortfcerftanbe? $)er ift feiner malerifcben 2lngfiil?rnng

5 fafyig. )er 9Mer fonnte bem ^linne bie fcfyonfte Sliinbung,

ba^ fd;6nftc GJriibcfyen,
Amoris digitulo impressum, -- er
fonnte bem alfc bie fc^onfte tarnation c^eben; aber n?eiter

fonnte er nid)t3. SBcnbungcn 2)ie biefe^ fdbonen alfe$, bag

Spiel ber Dtefeln, burd^ bag jeneg OJrubcften balb mebr balb
10
tueniger ficfytbar tmrb,bcr cigcntlicfic 9iei^ mar iiber feine .Mrafte.

2)er T>irf)ter fa^te bag .^orf)fte, moburcb ung

feine $unft bie

Srf)6nf;eit finnlirf) $u macftcn bcrmag, bamit and) bcr Dialer ben

3(ngbrncf in feiner $nnft fncben mo^e. Gin neneg
511 ber obia,en ^Ininerfnn^, bafi ber ^id;ter and) luenn ;

5 er Don .ftnnfthjerfcn rebet, bennod) nid)t Derbnnben ift, fid) mit

feiner 93efd)reibtmg in ben d;ranfen ber Adinft ju f;alten.

XXII.

3eurig malte cine -ftelena, nnb batte bag .fterj, jene beriif>m=

ten $t\ltn beg Bonier, in melcf)en bie cntjiirfteti Wreife ibre (Smp=
s
finbiuu^ befennen, barnnter 511 fetjcn. 5?ie finb H?alerei nnb
20 ^Soefie in einen c\leicf)ern ge^oc\en morben. er
ettftreit Sieg
blieb nnentfd)ieben / nnb beibe Derbienten gefront jn n^erben.

T)enn fotnie ber meifc Did)ter nng bie 6cf)bnbeit / bie er nad)
s
if;ren ^eftanbteilen nid)t fd)ilbern 511 fonnen fiihlte, blofe in

ifyrer SBirfnng ^eigte, fo gcigte ber nid;t minber meife Dealer nng
25 bie Sdjonfyeit nad) nid;tg alg ibren ^eftanbteilen, nnb fyielt eg

feiner ^Innft fiir nnanftanbig, jn irgenb einem anbern $ilfg=

mittel 3 U P U ^^ 5 U nebmen. Sein (^emdlbe beftanb ang ber
ein^igen 5^9 ur ^ er clcna, bie nacfenb baftanb. ^)enn eg ift
136 Cefftng.

), bafc eg eben bie elena tear, toelcfye cr fiir bie ju

1
Grotona malte.
bercjleicfye permit, 3Bunberg I;alber, bag emalbe,
Gatylug bem neuern $iinftler aug jenen 3eilen beg
omer toorjeidmet: ,,,elena, mit einem faeifjen Scfyleier be= 5

becft, erfd?eint mitten unter berfdnebenen alien 5Rannern, in

beren 3aM fief; and) ^riamug befinbet, ber an ben 3eirf>en feiner

foniglicfyen 2Surbe 511 crfennen ift.

er 2(rtift muf^ ficf^
be-

fonberg anc\ele^en fein laffen, ung ben Sriumpl) ber 6d)5nbeit

in ben gieriflen 53Iicfen unb in alien ben Sufjerungen einer 10

ftaunenben $\eVDiinberung auf ben (3Jefid)tern biefer fatten

reife, empfinben ju laffen. T)\t Scene ift iiber einem toon

ben Xoren ber Stabt. ie ^sertiefnnc\ beg G)emalbeg fann

fid? in ben freien wnmel ober c^eiien bol;ere Webanbe ber Stabt
Derlieren; jcneg tniirbe fiibner laffen, eineg aber ift fo fd^irflidb 15

tme bag anbere."

Wan benfe fid) biefeg (^ema lbe l>on bem ^rof^ten Dteifter un=

frer 3eit angc^efii^t, unb ftelle eg w^n bag erf beg

28elcf)eg n)irb ben toafyren ^rium^r) ber Sd^onbeit
)iefeg, mo id; i^n felbft fiible, ober jeneg, it>o
id) ibn aug ben 20

(^rimaffen a,eritbrter (^raubarte fd)lief^en foil? Turpe senilis

amor; em gieriger 33licf macbt bag e^rnjiirbigfte (^Jefi*t lacf)er=

unb ein reig, ber jugenblid>e
lid^, 53egierben fcerrat, ift fogar
ein efler Gkgenftanb. !Den bomerifcben Wreifen ift biefer S5or=

hjurf nicbt 511 madien; benn ber 5lffeft, ben fie empfinben, ift ein 25

augenblicflicber gunfe, ben ibre 3^eigbeit foajeicb erfticft; nur

beftimmt, ber elena (5bre 511 madden, aber nicbt, fie felbft ^u

fcbanben. Sie befennen ibr CJcfii^I, unb fiiflcn fogleicb binju:

AAAa Ku.1 as, roir) rrtp eovtr ,
tv vyv&i vee o-^oo,

M^S rjfJLLV
Tf.Kf6crcrL T OTTUTO OI) TrrjfJM XtVoiro.
1
Val. Maximus, lib. Ill, cap. 7. Dionysius Halicarnass. Art.
Rhet., cap. 12.
 Caofoon XXII. 137

Dfyne biefen (fntfcfylufc todren e3 altc ccfe; todren fie ba3,

toa3 fie in bem emdlbe beg QatyluS erfcfyeinen. Unb toorauf
rid)ten fie bcnn ba ifyre gierigen SBlide ? 2luf eine toermummte,
berfcbleierte 5^9 ur - ^a^ if* Helena? @3 if* m ^ r unbe$reif=

lief), ft>ie
ifyr GatiluS fyier ben cftleier laffen fbnnen. ^^^
Corner gibt i^r benfelben

AVTLKO. 8 apyevvijcrL Ka\v\{/afA.tvrj 606vrj(ri.v

aber, urn iiber bie 6tra^en bamit ju flef)en; unb h)enn mid)
10 fd;on bei if;m bie 2Uten iF)re 55en)imberunfl jeigen, nod; efye fie

ben Sc^teier n)ieber abgenommen ober juriid^eVDorfen 511 baben

fd^eint, fo e^ nic^t ba3 erftemal, bafi fie bie 3Uten faben;
n>ar

i^r ^Befenntni^ burfte alfo nid)t au^ bem je^i^en auflcnblirf*

lid;en 2(nfd)auen entfteben, fonbern fie fonnten fd>on oft enip-

15 funben f;abcn, ^a^ fie 511 em^finben, bei biefer Welec\enbeit

nur jum erftenmal befannten. Jn bem Wemdlbe finbet fo
et^a^ nicbt ftatt. 3Benn idi bier ent^iidte 3llte febe, fo VoiU

id) aud; juc^Ieicf) feben, n?a^ fie in ^nt^iidunfl feljt; unb icb

n?erbe ciufierft betroffen, menn id) toeiter nid)t^, al^, rtie flefa$t ;
20 eine bermummte, t>erfd>leierte J^ ur n^abrnebme, bie fie briin=

ftig angaff en.9Bag F>at

btef eS !DingJbren Don ber .^elena ?
n?eijien c^teier, unb etuwS Don ibrem ^roportionierten Um*
riffe, fotoeit Umrifi unter CMc^dnbern fid>tbar
tuerben faun.

!I)ocf) DieKeicbt tear e3 and; be^ C3rafen -Bteimmfl nid>t, baf^ if;r

25 efic^t berbecft fein follte, unb er nennt ben 6d-leier blofj al

cin tiicf if>re^
Hnjuge^. 3ft biefeS (feine 2Borte finb einer
fo(d)en 2tuglegung jn>ar nid^t \wl)l fdf)ig: H^lene couverte
d un voile blanc), fo entfte^t eine cmbere S5ern)unberung bei

mir; er empfiefylt bem 2Irtiften fo forflfaltig ben 2lu3brudf auf

30 ben ($kficf>tern ber 5llten; nur iiber bie Scf)6n^eit in bem e=

ficfyte ber elena berliert er fein 2Bort. 2).iefe fittfame @cf)on-

138 Ceffing.

fyeit, im 2(uge ben feucfyten Scfyimmer eincr rcuenben Xrdne,

furcfytfam fief) nafyernb 3Bie ? gft bic Scfjonfyeit un*
f)dcf>fte

fern $iinftlern fo ettoaS elaufi$e3, baft fie aud) nicbt baran

erinnert ju toerben braucfyen? Dber ift 9lu3brucf mefyr al3
Scfyonfyeit? Unb finb toir aucf) in GJemalben fcbon getoofmt, 5

fotoie auf ber 3Mifme, bie haftlicfrftc Scfmufpielcrin fiir eine ent*

jucfenbe ^rinjeffin (\elten 511 laffen, ^enn i(>r ^prmj nut recfrt

tDarme Siebe gcgen fie $u cmpfinben auf^ert?

gn SSabrbeit, ba3 Wemalbe be^ Gatilug miirbe fief) 0ecjen
ba^ (^emdlbe be^ 3 eu E^>
roie pantomime jur erbabenften 10
^oefie berbalten.
omer rt>arb Dor alters unftreitifl fleifei^er c^elefen, ate je^t.
2)ennoef) finbet man fo gar ineler (^emdlbe ntd>t
ertoabnt,
2
bie alien Mi mftter an3 ibm (\ejoc^en batten. 9hir ben
be^ ^Did^ter^ auf befonbere forperlid^e Scfjonbeiten, 15

fd^einen fie fleifw (^enuHt ju baben; biefe malten fie; unb in

biefen egenftanben fiiblten fie \wlji, toar eS allein ber* if>nen

gonnt, mit bem ^Did)ter n^etteifern 511 toolkit. 3lufjer ber elena,

fyatte 3^u?iS aucb bie ^enelopc flemalt; unb be^ 5

U)ar bie omerifcbe in ^cc\lcitunc\ ibrcr S

lungen aber au3 bem Corner 511 malen, blofi toeil fie eine reicbe
s
^ompofition, borju^lid te Montrafte, fiinftlidbc $eleucbtunc;en
barbieten, fcf)ien ber alien 3lrtiften ibr (^efd>marf nid>t
ju fein;
unb fonnte e^ nicbt fein, folan^e fid>
nocb bie ftunft in ben en=

cjern @ren$en i^rer bod^ften Seftimmung bielt. Sie nabrten 25

fic^ bafiir mit bem Wciftc be^ !Dicbter^; fie fiillten ibre (Jinbil*

bung^fraft mit feinen erbabenften 3 u ^ en ^ a ^ 5 euer >

(fnt^ufia^mug entflammte ben ihrigcn; fie fafjen unb

fanben tuie er: unb fo ftwrben i^>re
3Serfe 3lbbriicfe ber ome=

rifcf>en,
nicbt in bem 3>erbaltniffe eine^ ^ortrat^ ^u feinem 30
Driginale, fonbern in bem SSerbaltniffe eine^ Sobne ju feinem
Fabricii Biblioth. Grace., Lib. II, cap. 6, p. 345.
 Caofoon XXII. 139

SBater; afynlicfy after berfcfneben. 3>ie xHfmlidtfeit liegt ofter3

nur in einem ein^igen $nge; bit iibrigen alle fyaben itnter ficb

nicf>t3 GJleid?e3, al3 baft fie mit bem abnlicbeu 3uGe w ^ em

einen fotoobl al in bem anbcrn barmcmieren.
5 $)a itbrigenS bie .$omerifd>en 3Reifterfturfe ber ^}oefie alter

faaren, al3 irgenb ein 2Reifterftiidt ber Munft, ba .\Sonter bie

9^atur eber ntit einem malerifcben 2(iuv betracbtct batte aU3

ein ^bibiag nnb 3lpeIIe^: fo ift e^ nicbt 511 bcriminbcrn, baf^
bie 2(rtiften berfd^iebne, ibnen befonber^ nii^Itd^e ^emerfun=
10 gen, ebe fie 3^^ batten, fie in ber 3?atur felbft 511 macben, fcf>ou

bci bem .gomcr gemacbt fanben, tuo fie biefelben begicrifl er=

griffen, um burd) ben Corner bie 97atur nad^uabmen.

3
befannte, baft bie 3eilen:

H, K
15 A/A/?/>o<ruu
S apa ^airui tTTtpptiHTuvTo O.VU.KT&:

Kparo? UTT dOavaroLO /xe yav 8 t

if>m bei feinem oh)mpifd>en Jupiter juiu 3>orbilbe

gebient, nnb
baft ifym nnr burd) ibre .s)Ufe ein gottlid>e^ 3lntli^, propemo-
dum ex ipso coelo petitum, gelungen fei. ^Jcm biefe^ ntcbtS
20 mefyr gefagt l)eifit, al^ baft bie ^bantafic be k3 .Stiinftler^ burd>

ba^ erbabene 53tlb be^ Xtd^ter^ befcuert, nnb ebenfo erbabener

SSorftcflungen fabii3 gcmacbt tuorben, ber, biinft micf), iiber=
fief^t ba^ 3BefentIid^fte, nnb begniigt fid^ mit etn)a3 ganj 5UI-

gemeinem, n?o fid>, 511 einer tt>eit

griinblidiern Scfricbigung,
25 ettoa^ fe^r Spe^ielle^ angeben laftt. Sot>tel id) nrteile, be=

fannte ^f>ibia guglcicb, baft er in biefer 2tetle jnerft bemerft

(>abe,
n)iebiel 2Iu^brndt in ben Slngenbrancn liege, quanta
4
pars animi fid^ in if>nen
jeige. 3Sielletd)t, baft fie if>n and)
anf ba aar mef)r Jleift ju menben bettiegte, nm ba^ einiger=
3
Iliad. A, 528. Valerius Maximus, lib. Ill, cap. 7.
4
Plinius, lib. XI, sect. 51, p. 616. Edit. Hard.
140 Ccfftng.

mafcen au^ubriieFen, toa3 Corner amfcrofifdjeS aar ncnnt.

$)enn e ift Getoift, baft bie alien SUmftler Dor bem ^fyibiaS
ba precbenbe unb $kbeutcnbe bcr 9Jlienen tueni$ toerftanben,
unb befonber3 ba3 aar febr t>ernacblaffi$t fatten. 2Ba3
au bom omcr lernte, lernten bie anbcrn Miinftler 5
ben 9BerIcn b

XXIII.

1
@in ctnjiflcr unfdbicflicfycr Xeil fann bie iibereinftimmenbe

2Btrfunfl Dteler ^ur 6cf)5nf;eit ftorcn. 2)orf) voirb ber egen=

ftanb barum nocf) nicf)t haj^lid). 3luch bie .ftajtficftfcit erforbert
mehrerc unfdncflicf)e ^teile, bie ^t)ir ebenfaU^ auf cinmal miiffen 10

iibevfcbcn fonncn, tocim ^ir babei ba^ Wcgcnteil toon bcm emp=

finben foQcn, \m$ un3 bic Scf)bnl)cit empfinbcn lafct.

Sonad; miirbe and; bie ^ajjlicfyfett, ibrem J&efcn nad), fein

^omnirf ber ^oefie fein fonnen; unb bennod) f;at joiner bie
aujjerfte Mtif^id^cit in bem ^Tberfite^ c^efdnlbert, unb fie nad^ 15

tfyren Teilen nebeneinanber ^efcfnlbcrt. 2Sanm tear ibm bet

ber a^licf>fctt tocrcyjnnt, ^ra er bei ber Sd^onbeit fo einfidbtl=
tooH ficb felbft unterfactfe? 3^irb bic SQJirfung ber afclirf>feit,

bnrcif) bic aufeinanberfolgenbe numeration ibrer ^lemente,

nid)t cbcnfo^obl (jebinbert, a\3 bie 38ir!unn bcr Scbbnbeit 20
burd; bie abnlicf^e numeration i^rer lemente bereitelt itirb?

2lflerbing3 tuirb fie ba^; abcr bicrin liec^t and) bie

fcrttcuwg bc Corner, ben i^cil bie .\Saf^id)fcit in bcr

berung be^ !I)icf)ter^ u eincr minbcr ^ibemarti^cn rfcbcinung

!orpcr(icf)cr Unbonfommcnbeitcn toirb, unb glcicbfam, bon ber 25
cite ibrer SMrfung, ftdf^id)!eit u fein aufbort, u)irb fie bem
S)icbter braudf^bar; unb ^t>a^ er fiir ficb felbft nicbt nufcen fann,
nuijt cr aly ein SnGrebien^, urn ge^iffe bcmiifd;te mpfinbun*
 Caofocn XXIII. 141

gen fyerfcorgubringcn unb $u bcrftiirlcn, mil nxlcbcn cr un<3,

in

(Srmangelung rein angenebmcr mpfinbunflen, untcrfyalten

mu&.
2)iefe bermtfcbtcn mpfmbungen finb ba3 Sdcbcrlicbe, unb
5 bag Scfyredlicfye.

omer macbt ben bcrfitc3 fajtftd\ um ibn Idcfyerlicr; $u

madden. Gr fairb aber nicbt burcfc fcinc blofce Md|^lid>[cit

Idcfcerlicf); benn d^Iid^feit ift UnuoQfctiniicnbcit, unb 511 bcm

2dd;erlid)cn n>irb cin ilontraft i>cn
SBoHtommenfyeiten unb
1
10 ^icfc^ bie Grflarung
Unbottfommcn^citen crfcrbcrt. ift

meinc^ JreunbcS, 511 bcr id^ binjufchcn mbdUe, bafe bicfcr Mon=
traft nid>t
511 ^rcll unb 511 fdwcibcnb fcin muft, baf^ bic CVP ;

fita, um s
in ber Spradje ber lKalcr fort^ufabvcn, i^on bcr 2lrt

fein miiffen, bafe fie fid) ineinanbcr bcrfc^mcljen laffcn. cr

15 roeife unb recbtfdmffcne Jifcp trirb

N

baburd\ baf^ man ibm bic

afelic^fcit bc^ ^bcrfitc^ c\cftcbcn, nid^t liicf^crlich. &$ tiuir

cine albcrne ^Jloncr^fra^e, ba^ FeAotov fctnor IcbrrcidnMi ^{dv=

s
(f>cn, i?ermittclft bcr Un^cftaltbcit aud> in fcinc ^>crfon Dcrlc^cn

ju \DoUcn. ^cnn cin mifwcbilbctcr Morpcr unb cine fd>6nc

20
Scele,finb n)te Cl unb (*ffi$,bic,uKnn man fie fd>on
ineinanbcr

fcfylagt, fiir ben C^cfdimacf bod) immcr i^ctrcnnt blcibcn. Sic

getodfyrcn fein ^rittc^; bcr Morpcr crnxcft Sscrbruf^ bic Scele

2Bcf)lc3efaUcn; jcbe3 ba 3cinc fiir fidh. 9tur lucnn bcr mi|V
gebilbete Morpcr jiu^lcid; ^ebrcdilicf) unb franflid) ift, tuenn er
25 bie Seele in if;ren SBirfunoien binbcrt, menu cr bic Cuclle nacf)=

teiliflcr 3sorurtcilc G^ cn f^ e ^irb: alebann flicjVn ^Ncrbru^ unb

2Bof>lgefaUen ineinanber; abcr bie ncue barau^ entfprin^enbe

Grfdjeinung ift nicbt Sadden, fonbern ^JJitleib, unb ber eoien=

ftanb, ben fair obne biefe^ nur f>ocbc^eacbtct fatten, fairb in=
30 tereffant. 2)er mi^gebilbete ^ebrecblicbe ^>ope muf^te feincn
grcunben roeit intereffanter fein, al ber fcbone unb oiefunbe
be &n. 2Jiojc* ajicubcl^iolju, X. II, &. 23.
 142 Ccfftng.

2Bt;d;erlct; ben fcincn. Sotoenig aber S^erfiteg burd) bie

blofce d ftlidbfeit ldd?erlicb toirb, cbenfotoenig toiirbe er eg ofme

biefclbe fcin. Die dfclicbfeit, bie Ubereinftimmung biefer

,sjdf}lid^eit mit f einem (Sbarafter; bcr $lUberfprucb, ben beibe

mit ber Jbee macben, bie er ton feincr eigenen 2Bicbtigteit begt; 5

bie unfcbdblicbe, ibn allein bemiiti^enbe 2Birfung feine^ bo^=

baftcn Wefrf^d^e^: atle^ mu^ gufammcn 511 bicfem

Voirfen. Xer Umftanb ift bag Ov
Ictjtere </>0upTiKov,

2
5Iriftoteleg unumgdnglid) 511 bcm fid d^crlicben bcrlangt; fotrie
eg aucb mein grcunb ju eincr nottoenbiflm ^Bcbin^ung macbt, 10

ba^ jcncr A iontraft Don fcirter 9Sidhtiflfcit fcin, unb ung nid^t
fef)r intcrefficren miiffc. T)enn man ncbmc aucb nur an, baf5
bem ^berfiteg felbft fcine baiuifd^e SSerfleinerung beg 2lgamem=
non teurer ju ftefyen gcfommcn trare, bafe er fie, anftatt mit ein
paar blutiflcn cbtrielen, mit bem Seben bejablcn miiffcn: unb 15

tt>ir nriirben aufboren iiber ibn ju lad^en. Xcnn bicfeg 6cbcu=

fal toon einem 5Renfcben ift bod) ein ^Dtenfcb, bcffen ^ernicbtung

ung ftetg ein gro^ereg libel fd)cint, alg alle feine (^ebrecf)en

unb Softer.
aber gar, bie Skrbefeuncjen beg ^erfiteg mdren in 20

aug^ebrocben, bag aufriif)rerifcbe $olf n?dre njirflicf)

ju cbiffe Qegan$en unb F)dtte feine ^ccrfiibrer berraterifcfy

^uriicf^elaffen, bie eerfii^rer Vt>dren
fyier einem racbfiicbtiiicn

Jycinbe in bie dnbe Befallen, unb bort fydtte ein ^bttlid^eg

6trafc^erid)t iiber glotte unb 35ol! ein gdn^licbeg SRerberben 25

toerban^en: U)ie n)iirbe ung algbann bie .^dfjlicbfeit beg Xfyerfiteg

erfcbeinen? 3Benn unfd)dblid^e d^licbfeit lacberlicfy n)erben

fann, fo ift fcbdblicbe dyicbfeit alle^eit fcbrecflicb. 3^ ^eifs

biefeg nid;t beffer u erldutern, alg mit ein ^aar fcortrefflidfyen

tellen beg f)a!efpeare. (Sbmunb, ber 53aftarb beg rafen 30

bon loucefter, im ^onig Sear, ift tein geringerer 33ofen)id^t,
2
De Poetica, cap. V.
 Caofoon XXIII. 143

al S^idbarb, er$og toon loucefter, ber fid) burd) bic abfd?eu=

licfyften 2krbred)en ben 2Beg ^um F>rone

bafmte, ben er unter
bem 9?amen 9?id)arb ber $)ritte beftieg. 2lber toie fommt e,
ba{$ jener bei faeitem nicbt fo biel Scfcaubern unb (^ntfetjen er=
3
5 toerft, al biefer? 2Benn id) ben 33aftarb fagen fjore:

Thou, nature, art my goddess to thy law ;

My services are bound. Wherefore should I

Stind in the plague of custom, and permit

The curiosity of nations to deprive me,
10 For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines
Lag of a brother ? Why bastard? wherefore base?
When my dimensions are as well compact,
My mind as generous, and my shape as true,
As honest madam s issue ? Why brand they us
15 With base ? with baseness ? bastardy ? base, base ?

Who in the lusty stealth of nature take

More composition and fierce quality
Than doth, within a dull, stale, tired bed,
Go to creating a whole tribe of fops,
20 Got tween asleep and wake ?

fo fyore icb einen 3Teufc(, abcr irf>

febe ibn in ber Cfoftalt eineS

@nge(3 be3 2icbt3. 5re icb binfleflen ben GJrafen toon

4
cefter fagen:
But I, that am not shaped for sportive tricks,
25 Nor made an amorous looking-glass
to court ;

I, that amrudely stamp d and want love s majesty

To strut before a wanton ambling nymph ;

I, that am curtail d of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

30 Deform d, unfinish d, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,

King Lear, Act I, Sc. II.

* The Life and Death of Richard III, Act I, Sc. I.
144 cfftng.

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them ;

Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun, 5
And descant on my own deformity :

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
Iam determined to prove a villain

fo fybre id) einen Xeufel, unb febe einert Xeufel; in einer e= 10

ftalt, bic ber Xcufel allein fyaben follte.

XXIV.

So nut ber id)ter bie ^afelidtfeit ber Jormen: toelcfyen

Gkbraucfy ift bem 9JJaler batoon 311 macfyen bergbnnt?

ie ^Jialerei, al3 nacfcafymenbc Jyertigfcit, fann bie .
nd^licf)^
feit aiiSbrudfcn: bie ^Jialerei, aU fcf^bne ^unft, mill fie nicf)t 15

au^brikfen. 3U^ jener, QeF)bren ifyr alle ficfttbaren e^en=

ftdnbe ju: al btcfe, fd^lief^t fie fief)

nur auf btejcnigen ficf)tbaren

e^enftdnbe eiu r toelc^e angcne(me mpfinbungen ertoecfen.

5lber Befallen nirf)t aud^ bie unangenefymen mpfinbungen

in ber -ftacfyatymung? 9^icf)t alle. Sin fd^arffinniger $unft= 20

rioter
1
bat biefeg bereit3 toon bem G!el bemcrft. ^ie S5or=

ftellunc^en ber J-urcbt/ fa$t er, w ber Xraurigfeit, be^ ScfyrecfenS,

be^ IRitleibc^ u. f. n>. !onnen nur Unluft erre^en, infotoeit tt>ir

ba^ libel fiir toirflid? balten. Xiefe fbnnen alfo burd; bie Srin=
s
nerung, ba^ e3 ein funftlid;er Sctrug fei, in anflenefyme (Smp= 25

finbungen aufgelbft merben. ^ie n?ibrige (Smpfinbung be

(Sfelg aber erfol^t, bermboe beg efee3 ber Sinbilbun^fraft,
auf bie blofse SSorftellung in ber 6eele, ber e^enftanb mag
1
33riefe bie neuefte ittcratiir bctreffcitb, X. V, @. 102.
 Caofoon XXIV. 145

fur ftrirflidj gefyalten toerben, ober nicf)t. 2Ba3 fyilft

3 bem
beleibtgten emiite alfo, toenn fid? bie $unft ber 9?ad)al)mung
nod) fo fefyr berra t? 5$re Unhift entfprang nicfyt au3 ber
33orau3feum3, baft ba3 Ubel toirflid) fei, fonbern au ber
blojjen SSorftcUiing bc^fclbcn, unb biefe ift n3ir!Iicf) ba. ^)ie

Smpfinbungen bc^ @fel^ finb alfo attejeit 9?atur, niemald

@6cnbicfc3 flttt toon ber .^afelic^feit ber Jyormen.

lirf;feit bclcibic^t unfer 03cfid;t, miberftcbt uufcrin efcfjmacfe an

10 Drbnunc^ unb ilbereinftimmung, unb cnuectt Slbfcftcu, ol;ne

5Ritcffui)t auf bie mirflicfte Gjiftenj be^ WeflcnftanbcS, an h>cld;cm

n)ir fie n)abrncf;men. 3Sir mo^cn ben Jbcrfite^ tueber in ber

D^atur noc^>
im 53tlbe fe^en; unb menn fd?on fcin
miftfa Kt, fo flefcfyiefyt biefe^ boc(>
nicf)t bcStoeflcn, tt>eil bie

15 lic^feit feiner ^orm in ber ^tarfnibinun^ .s>df^lirfifeit ^n fein auf=

fyort, fonbern lucil U)ir ba^ liBcrmoflen befi^cn, Don biefer .<Sa^

lid;Eett 511 abftrahieren, unb un^ bloft an ber Aunft be^ "De

ju bergnu^eu. 2(bcr and) biefe^ S5crflniiflcn ttirb alle

blicfe burc^ bie Ubertegung unterbrod;cn, Voie iibel bie itunft
20 angetoenbct tuorben, unb bicfe Uberlegung nMrb feltcn fe^lcn,
bie ertngfc^a^ung be3 .sliinftler^ nad) fid) ju jieben.
X)a alfo bie .sjaf^id^feit ber gormen, tueil bie (Smpfinbung,

toehfye fie errcc^t, unanc^cnchm, unb bocfy nid^t Don berjenigen

2(rt unangenefymer Gmpfinbunt^en ift, meld>c
fid) burd) bie

25 9{ac^a^mung in anc\cncbmc DertDanbcln, an unb fiir fidi felbft

fein SSormurf bcr ^JJtalcrei, al^ fc^bner ^unft, fein fann: fo

fame e^ nocb barauf an, ob fie i^r, nidfyt cbcnfovoof)! n?ie ber

^ocfie, al 3 n G re ^ en ^/ um anbere Gmpfinbungen gu ber*

ftarfen, nii^lid) fein fonne.

30 ^)arf bie ^alerei, ju @rreicf)ung beg Sdcfjerlidjen unb Scr/reck
lichen, fic^ ^d Iid)er gormen bebienen?
gcfy rt)i(l e^ nicf^t toagen, fo grabeju mit ^Kein fyierauf u ant*
146 Ccfftng.

toorten. (
ift unleu$bar, baft unfcfydblicfye >dftlicf)!eit and)
in ber 9ftalerei lacfjerlid) toerben !ann, befonberS menu eine

5lffeftation nad) S^etj unb 5lnfef;en bamit fcerbunben toirb. @3

ift ebenfo unftreitig, baft fcfydbliefye dftlicb!eit, fotoie in bcr

ftatur, alfo aucf) im $emdlbe d;recfen ertoecft; unb bajs jcne^ 5

Sdc^erlicf)e unb biefeS Scftrecflicbe, ^elcbe^ fcf>on fiir fief) ber=

mifcf^te mpfinbungcn finb, burcf) bie ^lad^abnum^ einen neuen

($rab toon ^Injii^licbfcit unb SBcrgnugunfl crlan^en.

3d^ muft aber ^u bebcnfen geben, bafe bemunc^eacbtet fief) bie

^alerci ^ier niebt bollig mil ber ^poefie in (^leicf)cm JyaUe bc= 10

finbet. Jn ber ^foefie, n)ie icf) ancjemerft, fcerlicrt bie d^Iie^=

feit ber ?orm, burd) bie ^serdnberung i^rer toerjftierenben
Xeile in fucceffibe, if>re
nnbrige SBtrfunfl faft cjdn^Iief); fie fyort

toon biefer Scite gteiebfam auf, d^lief>feit gu fein, unb !ann

fid; baF;er mit anbern (Jrfefyeinuncjen befto innic^er tierbinben, 15

urn eine neue befonbere 9Birfuncj fyerborsubrinflen. 3n ber ^Sla-

lerei fyinftefjen bat bie t
s3dj^lief)!eit alle if;re ^\rdfte beifammen,
unb \v\rit nid^t toiel fcf)n?ddber al^ in bcr 9?atur felbft. Unfcf^db-

lid^e ^d^licbfcit fann folcjlief) nicbt n)of;I lan$e ldd>crlieb bleiben,

Dberbanb, unbvoa 20
bie unangene^me (Smpfinbung ^en^innt bie
in ben erften 5Iucjenblicfen poffierlicb nmr, itirb in ber ^olcje

abfef)eulicr). 3^iebt anber^ gef)t e mit ber febdblicben

ba3 Scbredlicbe tcrliert ficb nad) unb nacb, unb
ba Unfbrmlid^e bleibt allein unb unberdnberlidi ^uriief.

$)iefe3 iiberte^t, batte ber G)raf (5aHu bollfommen reef?t, 25

bie (Spifobe be^ 2f)erfite^ au^ ber S^eibe feiner F>omerifef)en

e=

mdlbe toegjulaffen. 5(ber bat man barum aucb recbt, fie au^
bent omcr felbft n^egjuvounfcben ? %d) finbe uncjern, baft
ein elebrter, i^on fonft feF>r riebtigem unb feinem efdnnacfe,
2
biefer iUlcinunfl ift. 3<^ fcerfpare e^ auf einen anbern Drt, 30

mid) n?eitlduficjer bariiber ju erfldren.

a
Klotzii Epistolae Homericae, p. 33 et seq.
 Caofoon XXV. 147

XXV.

ber $ft>eite Unterfdneb, nKld>en ber

rid)ter, 3toifcben bem Gfcl unb anbcrn unangene^men 2eiben=

fcfyaften ber Seek finbet, aufcert fid; bci ber Unluft, ttKlcfye bie

af$licbfeit ber Jormen in un ertoecft.

1
s ,,2lnbere unangene^me Seibenfcfyaften/ fa$t cr, ,,fonnen

aud) aujser ber ^Racfyafymung, in ber Dtatur fclbft, bcni Gkniiitc

bfterg fdmteicfyeln ;
inbem fie nicmaU reine llnluft erreget^fons

bent if>re 33ttterfeit allejeit mit i^olluft bermifrf^en. Unfere

?yurd)t ift feltcn toon allcr offtmng cntbloftt; ber cf>recfen be=

10 lebt alle nnfere ilrcifte, ber cfabr au^iuvcidKn; ber $im\ ift

mit ber 53e$ierbe fid) 511 rtirfKn, bie ^rauri^feit mit ber an^e=
ncbmen 5>orfteUung ber toorigcn (Wiirffeliflteit toerfniipft, unb
ba^ ^itteiben ben ^tirtlickn Sm^finbunficn ber IMebc
ift toon

unb ^unetgun^ un^ertrcnnlidh. Xie Seele bat bie J-reibeit, fid)

15 balb bet bem bergmiglidfyen, balb bei bem ^ibri^cn ^eilc einer

Seibenfcbaft 511 toertDeilcn, unb fid) cine SBermifd^ung toon uft

unb Unluft felbft ju fcfraffcn, bie reijenber ift, al^ ba^ lauterftc

SSergni tgen. (S^ brands nur febr tt>eni^ 2lcf)tfam!ctt auf fid> feU
ber, um biefc^ toielfalti^ beobad^tet 511 baben; unb ttoober fame
20 eg benn fonft, baf^ bem ^orniflen fcin $om, bem 2:rauri(^en fei-

nen Unmut aUe frcubtgcn 58orftcWun0en, baburd)

lieber ift al

man tfw 511 berubioen gcbcnft? CJanj anber^ aber toerF)cilt e^

ftcb mit bem Gfcl unb ben ibm toertDanbten (S mpfinbuiujcn. 2)ie

Seele erfcnnt in bemfelbcn feine merflicbc Sermifcf)ung toon

25 uft. ^if^tocrgnugen gctt)innt bie DberF;anb, unb bafyer
$>a

ift gwftanb, toebcr in ber 9?atur nod) in ber 9tacbabmung

fein

ju erbenfen, in melcbem bag cmiit nicf)t toon biefen SSorftcIIuns

gen mit 2Sibertt)it(en juriidn)eid)en follte/

SSolIfommen ricf)tig; aber ba ber Hunftrtcr/ter felbft nod)
1
(Sbenbafelbjl, @. 103.
148 Cefftng.

cmberc mit bcm @!el berftcmbten (Smpfinbungen er!ennt, bie

Qleid)fall3 nid)t al3 Unluft getodbren, Voelcbe !ann ifym ndfyer

bervoanbt fein, al3 bie (Smpfinbung be3 df}lid)en in ben
men? 5Iud) biefe ift in ber 9?atur ofyne bie geringfte 9ftifc

toon Suft ;
unb ba fie beren ebenf otoenift burd) bie -ftacbafymung 5

fdbi$ fairb, fo and) Don ibr fein ^uftanb ju erbenfen, in

ift

n?clcf)em ba3 CJcmiit toon iF;rer SBorftellunfl nidfyt mit 2Biber=

jitriicfVDcirfien folltc.

biefcr 2^ibcrn)iUe, n?enn id) anbcr3 mein (^efiiF)l forgfaltig

unterfud>t babe, ift c^dnjlicf) bon ber 97atur be^ @fel^. ro

^ie mpfinbunQ, treld^c bie

aftlid>feit
ber J^orm begleitet, ift

(Sfel, nur in eincm geringern OJrabe. !Diefc^ ftreitct jn>ar

mit
einer anbern 2lnmerfung be ^unftricbter^, nacb n?elcf)er er nur
bie atlerbunfelften Sinne, ben CJefcbmacf, ben eruc^ unb ba^
(Sefii^l, bem Gfel au^gefe^t ^u fein glaubt. ,,3>ene beiben/ 15

fagt cr, ^burcb eine iibcrmafeigc Siif^igfeit, unb biefe3 burcb eine

allju gro^e 2Betd^eit ber ^orper, bie ben beriifyrenben gibern

nid;tgcnugfam ^tiberfteben. iefe egenftdnbe n^erben fo=

bann mid) bem C^)efid>te unertrdglid), abcr blofc burcf) bie 5Iffo-
ciation ber 33egriffe, inbcm n?ir un^ be3 SBibermillen^ erinnern,
ben fie bem C^efcbmacfe, bem G5erud)e ober bem 0efiU;le berur=

facben. enn eigentlic^ ju reben, gibt e3 leine e0enftdnbe

be^ fete fiir bag efid;t." ^)ocf) micb biinft, e^ laffcn fid) ber*

gleidien allerbing^ nenncn. Gin geuermal in bem eficfyte,

eine afenfcf)arte, eine gepletfdjte ^lafe mit borragenben So* 25

c^ern, ein gdnjlicber Mangel ber 5Iugenbrauen, finb ayid^

feiten, bie toeber bcm @crud;e, nod) bem efc^madte, nod) bcm
(Sefiible ^un^iber fein fonnen. leid)VDo^l ift e3 0en?i^, ba^
n)ir ettoaS babei empfinben, njeldjeg bem @tel fdjon biel nfytr

fommt, a(3 ba^, h?a^ un^ anbere Unfbrmlid)feiten beS

ein frummer Ju^, ein f)ol;er S^iicfen, empfinben laffen; je

lid^er ba3 temperament ift, befto me^r toerben luir toon ben
 Caofoon XXV. 149

Sttoegungen in bcm orper babei fiifylen, toelcfce bor bem @r=

bredben fcorfyergeben. 9?ur baft biefe SBetoegungen fid) fefyr

balb toieber fcerlieren, unb ftoerlirf) ein n?irflid)eg @rbrecf>en

erfolgen fatm; toobon man atterbingg bie Urfad^e barin ju

5 fucfyen bat, baft eg Gkgenftdnbe beg OkfidbtS fittb, ttelcf)e^ in

i^nen, unb mit if;nen juglcidh, eine 9Jlcnge 9?ealitaten n>a(>r=

nimmt, burrf) bercn angene(>me SSorfteDfungen jenc unanc^c-

nefyme fo gefcf)VDdrf)t unb berbunfelt toirb, baft fie fcinen mcrf=

licfyen Ginfluft auf ben ^orper fyafcen fann. 2)ie bunHeren

10 Sinne ^inflcgcn, ber (^efdmtact, ber (fyerurf), bag efiibl, fonncn
bergleid)en ^iealitaten, inbem etma^ SBibettuartiflem
fie toon

0eru()rt merben, nic^t mit bemerfen; bag SSibcrhJartige \uir!t

folglicf) allein unb in feiner ganjen Starfe, unb fann nid>t

anberg alS aud) in bem ^brper Don eincr iueit f;efti^ercn fc

15 fcfyutterunQ bcgleitet fein.

tlbrigeng berhalt fic^ aucf) jur ^ad)al>mung bag Ctelbafte

boHfommen fo, n)ie bag aftlirf>e. Sa ^a
unauflenebme
/ f eu1 ^

2Bir!ung bie heftigere ift ; fo fann eg nod) meniger alg bag ,^0(3=
Iid)e an unb fur fid) felbft ein Wegenftanb nxber ber ^oefie, nod)
20 ber 9Merei tDerben. 5^ur toeil eg ebenfallg burd> ben

lichen Slugbrucf febr gemilbert toirb, getraute id) mir bod^

ju be^aupten, baft ber ^Did^ter, ^enigfteng einige efelbafte

alg ein Snfl^ebieng ju ben namlidien bermifd)ten

gen braud)en fonne, bie er burcf) bag aftlid>e

mit fo gutem r=

25 folge berftdrft.
^ag @felf)afte fann bag Sacfyerlicfce toermeF>ren, ober SBor=

ftellungen ber 9Burbe ; beg 2lnftanbeg, mit bem felbaften in

$ontraft gcfe^t, n?erben Idc^erlid). Gjempel bierbon laffen fic^

bei bem 5lriftopfyaneg in 5Jlenge finben. 2^ag SSiefel fdllt mir
30 ein, toelcfyeg ben guten Sofrateg in feinen aftronomifcben 33e*
2
fc^auungen unterbrad^. 9ftan laffe eg nid)t efeIF)aft fein,

Nubes, v. 170-174.
150 Ceffing.

ifym in ben offenen 9ftunb fdllt, unb bag Sddjerlidje ift ber-

fcfytounben. $)ie brottigften $u$t toon biefer 2lrt fyat bie f)otten=

tottifcfye r^dfylung, ^quaffouto unb ttnonmquaifya, in bem

,,$enner," einer englifd)en 2Boc$enf$rifi tooller Saune, bie man
bcrn Sorb Gfyefterfielb ^ufcfyreibt. 9J?an toeif}, n>ie
fcfymufcig bie 5

.s^ottentotten ftnb ;
unb vote uiele^ fie fur fcfydn unb ^ierlic^ unb
fyeilig fatten, U)a^ ung Sfel unb 2(bfcfyeu ertDecft. (Sin c^equetfd)
s
ter ilnorpel toon ^afe, fd}Iap^e berabf;an$enbe -8riifte, ben

garden ^brper mit einer Sd^minfe au^ 3^ e ft en f e ^ un ^ ^u ft an

ber Sonne
burdjbei^t, bie
Sd^mer tricfenb, ."oaarlocfen toon 10

Jii^e unb 3lrme mit frifd^em (^ebdrme umtrjunben: bie^ benfe

man fid) an bem (tyegenftanbe einer feurigen, ebrfurc^t^ollen,
jdrtlid^en 2iebe; bie^ f;bre man in ber cbeln Sprad;e be^ Grnfte^
s
unb ber ~Bennmberung au^gebriidt, unb entfyalte fief)
be^
3
Sad^en^! 15

9Jitt bem 3d;red(icf)en fd)eint fid) ba3 Gfelbafie nocf) inniger

bermifd^en 511 fonnen. 2Ba^ \t)ir ba^ Wraftlicbe nennen, ift
nid^t^ al^ ein efell)afte^ Sc^rcdlid;e. 5Ran lefe bet bem @opbo=
!le^ bie $kfd;reibung ber oben ^obte be ungliidlid)en ^\-
lo!tet. X)a ift nicfytS toon Seben^mitteln, nid)t^ toon $equem= 20

lic^feiten 511 fef;en; auftcr eine jertretene Streu toon biirren

Slattern, ein unformlid)cr botjerner 5kd>er, ein Jyeuergerat.

2)er ganje ^Heid)tum be^ franfen toerlaffenen IRanne^! SBomit
toodenbet ber X)id;ter biefe^ traurige fiird^terlid)e Wemalbe?
931tt einem 3 u fa e ^on 6fel. ,,a!" fdbrt 9}eoptolem auf ein= 25
mal jufammen, ,,f)ier trodnen ^erriffene 2appen, tooll Slut unb

NE. Opoi Kf-vrfv OLKYJCTLV, avOpit)7rtt)v ot ^a.

OA. OvS v8oV OIK07T0105 tCTTl Tt? TpO<f>Tf) ;

NE. ^TUTrrr} ye <uAAas u>?

tvavAt^ovn TW.
OA. Ta 8
1
aAA tprjfMi., KovSeV f&O viroarcyov ;

The Connoisseur, Vol. I, No. 21. 4

Philoct., v. 31-39.
 Caofoon XXV. 151

NE. AvrotfvAoV y tK7r<o/xa, <f>Xjavpovpyov

TIVOS

Te^vry/xar avSpos, /ecu

TrupeT 6/xov TaS.
OA. KetWu TO ^o-uvpioyxu (rrj/AuiVei?

NE. lov, lov Ktti Tavra y aAAa

Pa*?;, ySapetas TOV vac^A-eius

So toirb and) beim omer bcr ^cfd)leifte .^eftor, burcf) ba toon

S3lut unb Staub entftellte ( S3eftrfu, unb

Squallentem harbam et concretes sanguine crines

5
10 ein efler (^ec^enftatib, aber eben ba=
(faie e^ $ir^i( ausbriirft)

burd) inn fo Diet [d>recflid>cr,

um fo t>icl riibrcnber. ^cr fantt

bie Strafe be3 ^arf^ag, beim Di)ib, fid) ofme mpfinbung be^

Clamanti cutis est sumnios direpta per artus :

j^
Nee quidquam, nisi vulnus erat : cruor undique manat :

Detectique patent nervi trepidaeque sine ulla :

Pelle micant venae salientia viscera possis, :

Et perlucentes numerare in pectore fibras.

2(ber tuer empfinbet and) nid^t, baf^ ba^ (ileUmfte bier an feiner
20 Stede ift? ($3 macf)t ba^ Scftrerflicfte ^raj^lidv, inib ba^ Wrafi=
Iid)e ift felbft in ber 9?atur, tuenn unfer Witlcib babei interef-

fiert n?irb, nic^t ganj nnanc\enebm; tuiebiel tveniger in bcr

ftadjafymung? %& mill bie Gjrempcl uid>t

bdufen. Qod)
biefe^ nut irf> nod) anmcrfen, baf^ e^ eine 3(rt bon Sd)redlicf^em

25 cu bt, 511 bem ber 3l^efl bem Xid>ter

faft eiujicj unb allein bnrcb

bag d!elbafte offen ftebt. Q$ ift bag Sd>redlid>e beg unger3.

Selbft im gemeinen Seben briiden ttir bie dnf^erfte un$er$not
nid)t anberg alg burd^ bie (fraf)Iunc^en aUer ber unna^rf^aften,
unc\efunben unb befonberg efeln 3)inc\e aug, mit h?e(d)en ber
3o 9}?agen befriebigt merben miiffen. !^a bie DfacfyafymnnQ nicf)tg

5
Aeneid. 6
lib. II, v. 277. Metamorph. lib. VI, v. 387.
152 Cefftng.

bon bem Gkfufyle be3 unger3 felbft in un3 errcflen fann, fo

nimmt fie &u einem anberu unangcnefytnen $efiil;>le ifyre 3 Us
flucfyt, toelcfyeS toir im galle be3 empfinblid?ften .^ungerS fur
ba3 fleinere libel erfennen. 2)iefe3 fudbt fie u erregen, urn
un3 au3 ber lltiluft beSfelben fdtfteften u laffen, tuie ftarf jene 5

llnluft fein miiffe, bei ber it>ir bie gegentoartige gern au ber

3(rf)t fd;Iaflen ^iirbeu. Dt>ib

fagt Don ber Dreabe, tt>eld)e

Gere^ an ben .^linger abfd)ic!te: 7

Hanc (famem) procul ut vidit
refert mandata deae ; paulumque morata, I Q
Quanquam aberat longe, quanquam modo venerat illuc,
Visa tamen sensisse famem

(Sine unnatiirlicbe Ubertreibiuu^! ^Der 5(nblic! eine^ wn=

Qri^en, unb tuenn e^ mid) ber .sjimflcr fclbft mare, bat biefe an=

ftecfenbe .Uraft nidjt; Grbarmen, unb Wreuel, unb (Sfel, fann er 15

empfinben laffen, aber !etnen.S) un ^ cr 2)iefen Wreuel bat -

Dbib in bem C^emalbe ber Jaine^ nicftt gefpart, unb in bem

utu^er be^ @refid)tbon finb, fon)obl bei i^m, al3 bei bem Malli=
8
ntacf)u^, bie efelbaften 3U ^C bit ftarfften. 9?ad>bem ^re=

ficf)tbon alle^ auf^e^ebrt, unb and; bie Dpferfuf; nicbt fcerfcbont

r;atte, bie feine Gutter ber efta auffittterte, liifct ibn ^alli=

mad^u^ iiber ^Pferbe unb $aen berfallcn, unb auf ben Strain
bie Srocfen unb fcfymuiflen Uberbleibfel bon fremben 2ifd>en
betteln. Unb Dtoib Idfet ibn jule^t bie 3^^ ne f e ^ ne eigenen i"

C^lteber fe^en, urn feinen Seib mit feinem 2eibe 511 nabren. 25
9^ur barum \vaun bie fytiftlid^en .s^arp^ien fo ftinfenb, fo un=

flatig, bafs ber unger, Vnclc^en il;re dntfii^runcj ber Speifen

betoirfen follte, befto fc^redtlid^er toiirbe. SDlan F^ore bie
beim
7
Metamorph., lib. VIII, v. 809.
*
Hymn, in Cererem, v. 111-116.
9
Argonaut., lib. II, v. 228-233.
 Caofoon XXV. 153

TvrObv 8 rjv apa ST;

TTOT c&rjrvos a/x/xt A/ira>o~t,

IlvCt TO& /XvSttA.OV T Kttt OV T\r)TOV ttl>OS

oS/XT/S.

Ov K TIS OvSt fJLLWvda ftpOTWV ttVCT^OlTO 7TeAaCT(7a?,

Ot>8 et ol dSa/xuvTos eA^Aa/xeYw /ceup 07.

5 AAAa /xe TTIK^T/ S^ra Kat aaro? tcr^

Mi/xvcii/, Kat fjiifjivovra KaKrj iv yavripi

%<fy mod^te gcrn au biefem (^efidbt^unfte bie efle mfufrcung

ber ^ar^ien beim Virgil entfrf)ulbic\en ;
aber e ift fein toirf*

liefer geflenmarti^er .^unflcr, ben fie Derurfackn, fonbern nur

io cin betoorftefyenber, ben fie propbejeicn : unb noch ba^u loft fid)

bic ganje ^]rop^e^eiunc\ eublid) in ein SBortf^iel auf. Shicb

$)ante bereitet un^ nid)t nur auf bic efcfyicfyte toon ber ^ser=

be^ U^olino, burrf) bie efelbaftefte, ^ra^lid^fte

,
in bie er il)n mit feinem ebemaliflen Tserfol^er in ber

15 ftolle fc^t; fonbern and; bie SBerfyungerung felbft ift nid^t ohne

3u^e be^ Gfel^, ber un^ b^fonber^ ba fef;r inerflid^ iiberfaUt,

mo Sofwe felbft bent isater jur Speife
fid; bie
s
anbieten.

3d? fomme auf bie efelfyaften egenftanbe in ber *D3ialerei.

2Benn e^ aud) fc^on ganj unftrcitifl tuare, ba)l e eic^entlid) c^ar

20 feine efel^aften (^Je0enftdnbe fiir ba3 (^eficbt gabe, Don iDeldben

e fid; Don felbft uerftiinbe, baft bie 9Jialerei, al^ fd^one Munft,

il)nen entfagen miirbe: fo miiftte fie bennod) bie efelbaften

egenftanbe iiberbaupt uermeiben, tt>eil bie ^serbinbung ber
53egriffe fie aucf) bent Gkfidrte efel madbt. ^orbenone laftt in
25 etnem emdlbe toon bem 23e$rtibniffe Gbrifti cinen Don ben

2lnfr>efenben bie 9iafe fief) ^ufyalten. $){id;arbfon miftbilligt

10
biefe beStoeflen, rtjeil Gbriftu^ nod; nidbt fo lanfle tot c^emefen,
baft fein Seicfynam in Jaulunfl iiberc\e^en foiinen. 33ei ber

51ufertt>ec!ung
be^ Sajaru^ ^inc^ecien, glaubt er, fei e3 bem
30 dialer erlaubt, Don ben Umftefyenben eini^e fo ju gcigcn, tueil
e^ bie efcfyidjte au^briidlid) fage, baft fein ftorper fc(>on 0e=
10
Richardson, De la Peinture, T. I, p. 74.
154 efftns.

rocfyen fyabe. 5Rid) biinft biefe Ssorftelhmg and; I;ier uner=

traglid); benn nidrt blofc ber ttnrflid^e Gicftanf, and; fd;on bie

gbee be3 G)eftan!cg eflwecft @fel. 2Bir flie^en ftinfenbe Drte,

s
n>enn ir>ir
fd;on ben Scf)iuipfcu fyaben. 2)od) bie Dtalerei n)ill

ba3 @!ei^afte ; nid;t be^ GleUiaftcn toe^m; fie ^niH eg, fo^ie bie 5

^oefie, unt ba^ ,^ad)cr(id>e unb Scf>recfHd>c baburch 511 toer=

ftdrfen. 3(uf ibre Wefabr! Sl a3 ic^ aber i)on bem )ajtfirf>en

in biefem JyaHc aiuviner!t babe, (\ilt Don bein (S fclbaften um fo

Diel meE;r. Gg fcerliert in einer fid^tbaven Staduibntun^ bon
feiner ilMrhuu^ iuic\leid) tt)eni^er, al in einer F;brbaven; e^ 10

fann fid> alfo and> bort init ben ^cftanbteilen be^ ad^erlid>en

nnb Sd^recflid>en u^eni^er muic\ tocrmifdKn, aly bier; fobalb bie

Uberrafd>un^ Dorbei, fobalb ber erfte cvievlflc ^id ^f^tttc\t,

trennt e^ fid>
miebernm Qdn3lid;, unb Iiet3t in feiner ei$enen

Iruben (^ieftalt ba. 15

 SBdlber.
Ofcer

t)ic

Stffenfcfjaft tini> f tinff

djontn

tiac^) 2J?aa5ga6e neuerer (Sc&riffcit

icf) bir?
roie gefiUfl bu mir?

^)errn faofoon geroibmet.

1769,
 1
3nl?alt.
ttte
I. 1. G8 unbillig, feffing auf 2Bincfelmann Soften $u lobcn.
ift

II. 2.
tit

@opl)oKe
..........
Unterfdjieb beiber @d)rtftftc(ler in 2ftaterie, 3)enfart itnb

^Ijiloftet leibet nirfjt mit briiUenbem efdjrci.

161

2)ie elben omer fallen nidjt mit efdjrei 311 53oben.

djreien fann nid)t cin notmenbigcr dtjarafterjiig eincr

^)elbcn= nnb incuf(i)(id)en Gmpfinbung jein . . .165
III. 3. 2)ie Gmpfinbbarfett bcr ricd)en ^u fanftcn Xranen
jeigt fid) ganj anbcr?. ie ift and) ben (Sricc^cn nid)t

IV. 4.
attcin
bet alten

(Sine
nnb au^fd)licOenb
Ijerftfrfjen cfcinge

@efd)id)te
eigen.
...... ^vobcn nnb (J^araftcr

ber etegifdjen
170

pl)ilofopt)ifd)e 2)id)tfunfl
iiber Golfer unb 3n teu f
ober (Sn tnbe bcr alten $etben=

menfdjlic^teit, an t^rer Gtnpfinbnng fiir SSaterlanb, e=

jd)led)t, Ijeroifdje ^rfunbfdjaft, einfdttige ?tebe unb bie

2ttenfd)lid)feit be ^ebenS t)cr9^fitet, nid)t aber a( ob fte

etnen d)tag me^v empfitnben, nnb beffer gefdjrieen fat

ten,

jetgt ftd)

5. @opf)ofte
tt)ie tt)ir.

tuiirbiger

madjt
........
Ginpfinbbarffit bcr ^otnerifdjen

in feinem ^tjiloftet geroifj nid)t (5efd)tei

elben
175

3iim $>anpttnittet
ber ftittjntnn.. SBeffere Ginbrurfe be

griedjifdjen 2)rama. Cb forpcrltc^er @d)inerj je bie

v
panptibee einefi Xranerfpiel roerben fbnne. Xa^ er S
bei <2oiil)ofle nid)t fei.

V. 6. 2)ie 53e^anptnng, ber griec^ifdje ^iinftler fd)ilberte ba8

djbne, ift tualjr. reiqen nnb Grfldrnng biefe @a^e8
ati8 i^rem mijt^ifc^en j&irttl unb itjrer A;>elbengefc^id)te.

SSarum Ximant^eS feinen 2tgamemnon oer^iillt geinalt. 185

7. S3on ben ^)brnern beS 53acd)n8. 5>on bent (Sinfln^ ber
oerfc^iebnen mtjttjotogijdjen 3c i ta ^ ter QU f ^o^ftc unb

1 Son ^trber. J)ie rbmifc^tn Siffern bejdd^nen bie ^ier ttUtotife um Slbbrutf QC>

bra^ten 2tbf<$nittt.

157
158 Berber.
Sett*
8. 33?cit SMrflil in @dji(berunn jeincS aofoon nadjgeafjmt
Ijabeu mono. Urtfil iiber CnintnS Calaber, unb jetton,
tit iljreu ri)ilbernngen. ytad) luem bcr Mnftler gebil*
bet Ijaben tonne.
VI. 9. oll bie Mnnft nidjts ^oriibergefjenbes ju iljrem 2ln*
blufe uuiljlcn, jo uerliert fie Hjr i eben. oll fie fiir jebe
unoberljolte Grbtictnna, arbeitcn, fo itjr SSefen. llrfadje,
uiaritin btc .ri iuift ciu 3bcat bcr d)oitt)ctt Ijabc, unb tn=

10.
foubcrljett

ftc

fiber
fiir e tit
bie (ttUe
en
"Jtitlje

ouufleit

tyences Srlauterungen bcr 5Utcit aits

licbe,
5tnbltcf arbcitc
aits bcm
.... ntnbfa^ baft
193

fen. ^icttuun fcincS l)eruiitcrfii)Uicbeuben 2)Za

ob bie Jtituft jrf)uicbcnbe Aorper uorfteUeu tonne.
VII. 11. ^eut ^iinftlcr ftub (hotter uiib nt iftiflf SSJffeu itid)t bloft

pcrfonifijiertc 5lbftrafta, fobalb cr fte in paiibluun faint

.

evfrf)cittcn laffcn. Xie i)it)tl)olonit ift eiflcntlid)

unb Ijat btd)terijd)c (^efe^jc. 2)cin Xid)tcr gc!)t

VIII. 12. fiber

bitatitdt fciner
bent ftYmftler itberfleben

bie
Hotter

poctifdjen ?lttributen
......
tueit iibcr (Jtjaraftcr

Don
v bent groften
; .^>ora
; jo fyat cr fte
202

?icb()abcr jt)iiibolijd)er Sejen, tutrb jeine be an ba8

jcin iMlb bcr 9ZotUKitbigfcit it. j. in. erfldrt. 3)ic

lucit bcvji epifdjcn Xid)ter miifjcn itid)t allegorijcf)e

3lbftrafta jcin ;
bei Bonier ftnb fte ei5
nid)t . . . 209
IX. i:j. Apoiuerd 9?cbe( nnb Unftdjtbariucrbcn ftub feine poett=
jdjcn ^{jrafcn; jonbern gcl)b ren ntit juin ntt)tl)ijd)en
Snnberbaren jeincr (S popoe. Unftdjtbarjcin ift nid)t ber
iiatiirfidje .Huftanb ber ^omcrifdjcn hotter . . .220
11. }(nri) bie (ftroije bcrfclben ift bei il)in nidjt jotd) ein

Jpaupt^ng, al\<
9.Uad)t nub ^djnclligfcit. Hitter

^3ebingungen, imb mit iueldjer iliafttgnng er iljrc

jdjilbert. Grflcintitg be* elm ber SDiineroa. Won
lueni er ba Jioloffalifdje jeincr otter eiiKetjnt.

X. ir>. Cb Bonier fiir itn Xentjd)e iiberje^t tnerben jolle.

2)a8 ^ortjdjreitenbe jeiner 9D?anter, nnb bie befta nbig

XI. 16.
,^irfr(nben
bent finb
DaS
unb mieberfommenben $i\Qe
fanm
vSuccefjlue in ben
iiberje^bar
Xbncn
...... ift nic^t ba
in jetnen 53il=

33?ejen ber
229

2>td)tfunft. anj unb gar and) nidjt mit bem

 rftcs iPaI6d?en. 159
Settt.
ftenten bcr 5 ar & cn 3
U bergtetdjen. 5lu bent uccef*
s

ftDen ber ]5oefie fofgt nidjt, baft anblnngen fd)U

(ic

bcre. 3)aS nccefftue bcr Xouc to mint jeber 9tebe 311 237
XII. 17. ^efj(fdj(iiffe, luenn man bie ucceffton ber one fur
ba ^auptnterfmal ber ^oefte anniinmt. Corner tt)df)It
gar nid)t ba8 5 ort fd) re i tcn b e feiner @d)itberungen, nm
ftenidjt focrtftent ju fdjtlbern ; fonbern toeif jebeSmal

XIII. 18.
in bent $ovtfrf)reiten feiner Silber bie (Snergie berfelben
itnb feiner

omer
ebtdjtart liegt

ebidjtavt
......
faun ntd)t alien $)td)tarten efe^e,
247

unb an iljrer 2)ianier etn oberfteS efet? geben.

XIV.
5Ui3 ber (Succcffton ber

gegen
19. energie
bie malenbe ^oefie
ba
Xone
......
folgt feme

ber 25id)tfunfl
StdjiSerfltirung

matt
257

ift oberfte efefe ; fie

XV. 20.
alfo tue
nnb
Cb
UH vfmnfjig.
Uuteridji ibitng
bie
Urtetl itber
ber fd)bnen
$arri
Jl iinfte .... ^ergteidjnng

ber
263

^djtlbentng fbrpevltdjer @d)bnl)eit 2)i(^t=

Iintft Derboteit fei. 35^o fte jebe c^bntjeit bnrd) 9?etj

jetgen fbnne. Cb fte ientals an etner <d)bnl)ettgfd)tl=

beriutn iverfmafjifl arbeite. Ob, roenn ber 3)i(^ter

I)a f](td)e

nn^en fbnne ..... ....

5 ornie11 nn^en fann, er nic^t

nm
and) fdjbne
267
21. Corner mad)t XljerftteS nid)t IjafjUc^, t^n la c^erlid)
jn mad)en. .^dfjtidjfeit an @ee(e nnb Jtorper ift fetn

S^arafter, ber blof^ babnrd) gemttbert lutrb, bajj er auf

ntd)t ^d)dbUd)e aitsltinft. (S tuirb alfo ber "J>erfon

X^erftte^ nod) bie^mat ertanbt, in joiner jn bteiben.

XVI. 22. 3Benn ba6 .S>d6(id)e jum i iidjertidjen ^ilft, fo ift jum
$onftraft be^f ?dd)evlicf)en tuefenttic^. @d)recfttd)en 3 um
nid)t fo. 3a jiim ^djrerflidjen tut eS nientals etamS,
fonbern $um 3lbfd)cu. Gfet fommt eigenttid) attein
bent efd)inac! nnb ernd) 511 aubern iiuieu nur,
;

XVII.
fofern
lid^e atfo
fte ftd)

ift efct^aft .......

an beren (Stelle fe^en. J?id)t alle $afr

in
272

23. ebrand) be
Jadjerlidjen, d)re(fttd)en, efedjafteu

^oefte nnb SUiatevei. ?lbfd)ieb uom ?aofoon. 277

\
. .

24. (Sinjelne ^e^ler ber SOSincfettnannifc^en djriften. @ein

Xob
 (Erftes XDalbdjcn.

I.

er Saofoon be .fterrn efftno\, ein 2$erf, an faelckm bic

brei ulbaottinnen untcr ben menfd)lid)en SKMJfenfcfyaften, bic

9)hife bcr ^bilofopfyie, bcr ^oefic, nnb bet Mnnft be3 Beftoncn,

$cfd)aftifl gefceftn, ift in itnfrcr jcfciflcn fritifd>cn ^cftilcnj in

5 eutfcfrlanb fiir mid) cine bcr angenefymen @rfd)einungen c\c=

mcfcn, urn melcf^e ^emofritu^ bie (Hotter bat, al^ urn bic 6elifl-
tctt fcinc^ 2ebcn^. Jd) unirbe ba^fclbc aud>
fcbr rt)oblfcil mit
bcr iBilbfauIc licr(^lcid>cn fbnncn, i?cn bcr c^ ben Diamcti fyat,
s
n?enn nic^t bie IIJicne be ^ollcnbcten, bc^ fd>riftftcl(crifd>cn

10 cTToirjort cbcn bie ^>arc, bic btcfcr i aofoon am tvenic^ftcn an=

nefnncn \rn\l. (5^ man, alfo bicfe Sprad^e burd>
.SUutftber*

gleidnin^cn immcr unfcrn Sd>5nbcit^fiinftlcrn bc Stil^ blcibcn :

idf> tmtl ben i aofoou al^ cine ammlung toon ^tatcrialicn, al5

cinen Qufammenfd^u^ toon .Uollcttanccn bctrad^tcn aud> al^

s
15 folcfyer atlcin tocrbicnt er -Betrad>tunc\ flcnitfl.

2)ic Munftriditcr unfrcr 3eit, cine ocrbc bcr flcinen Wcfdhopfe,

.

bie 3lpollo Smintf)cu3 jc^t fcf)cint auf nnfcr liebc^ 3satcrlanb

gebannt jn f;abcn, urn ancf) bic blumciu nnb ^udjt-
rt>cnicjcn

reid^en 2Incn jn toermiiftcn, bie nod) fyicr nnb ba al^ Stinbcreien

20 be (ycnieg iibrig fleblieben bicfc 33otcn StpoIIo^ I;abcn

meiften^ Saofoon nid;t beffcr $u loben geuju^t, al^ anf 2Bindcl=

mann Soften; benn n^eld) ein Sob flieftt toon ben Sippen
grower Sente mobl glatter fyernntcr, al^ ba anf Soften eine
britten? Seffing foil SSincfelmann fo toiel nntocr^ci^lidje gc^Icr

161
162 Berber.

if;n pfyifofopfyieren fldcfyrt, ibm bic ^rengcn unb ba

2Scfcn bcr Munft (jcnriefcn, unb infonbcrbeit iu fcincn Sdmftcn
ba3 aufQcbedft baben, baft fcine ilcnntnte bcr 3Uten ein fd}ftan=
fcnber runb fci. 2Bare ba3 nicfyt Did ? incut SLUnrfclmann,

ifynt, bcv fid) fo ganj nacb ben 3Utcu flcbilbct, bcr in C^ricd>cn= 5
lanb Icbt unb bcr in ben 3Utcn iUinftfcnntni<?, H ^um
U>cbt
;

rftauncn, scigt, bcm omcr, ^ic cr fclbft fcftrcibt, id^tid) fcin

S
^Jior^cngcbct ^ctvcfcn, biefcm 33iann jcigcn,
cr omcr nid;t c^clcfcn, baf^ cr bic (^ricd^cn nidtf lenne:
iucil fie cffin$ fcnttt, ^ueil Scffinc\ Corner flclefen! 10

dr^cr, baf^ iiMncfelmann fcin ^bilcfoph fein foil, toeil cr

auf S effing 3(rt ^^Uofo^^iert, fonbcrn licbcr in ber 5Ifa=

nicf)t

bcmic alter ^riccfnfd^cn 2cifcn, unb infonbcrbcit am ^cili^cn

Jliffug roanbelt. Unb bann am ar$ftcn, 2Binc!eImann ba

2Befcn bcr $unft lef;ren o ber unfclicjcn 9iicbter, bic taub 15

unb blobfinni^ i tber bic (^rof^tcn ScfaiftftcHcr unfrcr $t\t, nid)t

anberS aB im Sdilafe, nid>t anber^ al iibcr Sdniler urteilcn,

bci bcnen Gramen 511 baltcn fei, iibcr ba3, \t>a
fie iriffcn, unb
nicbt rt)iffen, jeigcn unb nidbt ^cic^cn, infonbcrbcit, n)a^ if;ncn
1
gecjcn biefen unb jenen fcble! 20

2(ucr) Seffinc^ wieberum bat, toic biUic^ unb recbt tft, crlcud^
tctcn ^unftricbtern jum SRortDitrf bicncn miiffcn, bic Sdmrfc
t^rcr 2lugen bem ^ublifum ^u jctQen. 2Bcnn ber cine tf;n gum
^rofjtcn Slnttquar uttfrer ^^tteit, ^um crftcn ^ebrcr ber ^iunft

mac^tc, fo toar er bem anbern, acb leiber! cin VuitM^er Mopf, 25

2
unb etnem britten, cincm frommcn !ritifd)en Gbriften, cin

^ cin Slftfyetiter au ^Baumgartcn^ Sdmlc, bcr

1
3cf) fii^re au^ biefen I)of)en Urteiten iiber SBiucfednann nur eins
an: Klotz, Acta Litter., vol. Ill, p. 319.
2
9{ncf) fyier fii^re ic^ nnr etnen 3 ell fl
fU an: ^d) iiber bie
atirc 3trd)ilo(^ng ;
unb fann ^u jebent angefii^rten 3u9 e cincu

anfii^rcn, iuenn c8 ber 2Kii!)e roert wore.

 <rftcs IDatodfcn I. 163

nad) ber Spracbe unfrcr ncucu Bcbonbcnfcr mit ein paar

Un&cn 23aum0artenfd)er ^bilofopbic ben -fiklttoeifen atter
geiten trofcen toollc. D, mit ,kcrftopftcm JDbr burdi biefe

Gfyore qudfcnbcr 5rdfd;e binburd), Une UhiffeS burd) ben Gk=

5 fang ber Sirenen!
giir mid) bat ao!oon an fief) fclbft Bcbonbcit QCHUC\, al

ba^ cr blofj burcf)ben ftontraft mit einent anbern flctmnncn

biirfte. $or unb Mnter bemfelben, ^effiiu^ gcflcn ^incfeU \v>a$

mann babe, finb cntmcbcr ntd>t^ alsi

s
|>arer^a, fiir bie beibc fie
10
anfefyen mcrben, ober toenigftenS trifft nid)t^ auf 2Bincfe(mann3
au^t5n)ec!, bie Munft; unb i aofoon alfp, al-o 5Ib^anblung
iiber bie Wrenjcu ber ^ccfie unb OJialcrct, bat ^crt unb 3>or=

trefflidifcit ;
aber \ljn al$ Streitfdmft, al^ ^ru fung ber ganjen

2Sinc!eImannif(f>en 2Bcrfe betracbten 511 iucllcn, ift meine^

15 (rad>ten3 ber falfcf>cftc (Mcfid^typunft, unb ber (Scniu3 eine^

Seffing unb SBincfelmann finb and) 511 tterfdneben, al5 baft

id/^ toon mir erlangen fbnnte, fie gcgencinanbcr aDjumcffcn.

3So Scffing in feinem Saofoon am bottrcfflid^ften fd^reibt,
fpridH ber Mritifu3, ber ,Munftrid>tcr be poet if dun C^e=
20 s
unb bie
fcf^macf^, ber itfter. 2Bie Sov>bofle^ ^biloftet Icibe,

.sjelben omcr^ tocinen, unb ^irjvls 1 aofoon ben s)Jiunb offnen,

unb fbrpcrlidte Sdnnerjen auf bcm ^beater iuinfeln biirfen
toie Virgil unb Sabclct ben Saofoon bilben, unb ber !Did>ter

ben Miinftler, unb ber .SUinftlcr ben Tid>ter nadmbmen fonne

25 n^cr fprid^t bier iibcrall, al^ ber ,S\unftrid>tcr
bc^ s^oeten ? Tiefer
ift g, ber bcm "pbitoftet be^ (5batcaubrun einen Streicb ^ibt,
ber Spence unb GatyhtS ibre ^ebler ^eigt, ber ,\3oincrg poetifd)e

efen flaffifijiert, unb poetifd^e toon ber malerifcften Scbbn=

fyeit unterfcbeibet iiberall ber ,ftunftrid>ter
be^ ^icbter^: ba^
30 ift fein GJefcfeaft. Unb fein 3^ed berfelbe. ^em fallen
poetifcben efcbmac! cntgcgcn ju reben, bie C^ren^en jmeier
^iinfte ju beftimmen, bamit bie cine ber anbern nicbt fcorgreifen,
164 Berber.

borarbeitcn, ju nafye tretcn toolle: ba3 ift fein 3toccf. 3Ba3 cr

auf btcfem 53e$e Don bent Jjnnern ^ er $unft finbet, freilid)

niinint er 3 auf; abcr mir nod; immcr Seffing, ber poetifd)e

tfunftricbtcr, ber fid) fclbft Dieter fiil;lt.

2Bincfclmann abcr, cm cf>rer

$riednfcbcr Slimft, ber fclbft in 5

fcincr .Slunftc\efdnrf>te mef;r barauf bebacbt ift, cine fyiftorifcfye

^letapfwfif bcS Sd)bnen au3 ben 2Uten, abfonbcrlic^ (yricdicn,

511 licfcrn, al^ felbft auf eiflentlid)e Wefcr)icr)tc. Unb alfo auf
cine ,Uritif be^ Kunft^cfdnnacf^ nod; uneiflcntltd^er. Urn ben

falfdicn WefdfMnacf anbrcr ^citcn unb Golfer ift ifnn nie al^ urn 10

AjauptMuecf 311 tun; ben jitcfttiflt cr blof^, it>enn cr ncbcn obcr

unmittdbar Dor ben 3Utcn ibrn 511 Wefidit fommt: benn fonft, trie

oft bdttc er nacb fcincr Horncbmcn ^ried^ifd)cn Jbee ^ucfytiflen,

unb feine .anb in 5Rebenftrei(r)en crmiibcn miiffen! Unb

fd^rcibt cr alfo nid>t al^ Mritifu^ bc^ AUinft^cfdnnacf^, mie n?eit 15

entfernter bom Munftrtd^tcr ber

s
j>oefic?
2U3 Miinftlcr la er

bie id)ter, al^ Munftlebrer braud>t er fie, unb ttwrbe nid>t

fo
baben fd^rciben fonncn, a>enn cr aud>
felbft bie ^)iditer anber^,
unb nicbt al Miinftler (^elefcn.
incfelmann3 6til ift ^ic cin .ftunftiuerf ber Sllten. e= 20

bilbet in alien ^cilen, tritt jcber Wcbanfc bcrbor, unb ftcbt ba,

ebcl, cinfaltig, erbaben, ttollenbet: er ift. Wctuorbcn fei cr,

lto obcr \mt cr n?ollc, mit SDlii^c obcr toon felbft, in einem

Wried^en, ober in 2Bmc!elmann; c\cuuc\, baf^ er burd^ biefcn auf

cinmal, mie cine 93imcrbo au Jupiter^ .s^aupt, baftcbt unb 25

ift. 28ic alfo an bcm Ufcr einc^ ebonfcnmccreS, too auf ber
s
,$6be bc^fclbcn ber Hicf ficf>
in ben -Etolfen bcrlicrt, fo ftcl>c id;

an feincn Sd>riften,
unb uberfd^auc. Gin Jyelb boll Aricfl^

manner, bie tacit unb breit jufammen^ctaorben, bie 2tu3fid)t

erft lange in Gkofte fiibrcn; tacnn abcr cnblieb au3 biefer 30

SSeite ba^3 3tuc\c erbabner juriicffommt, fo tairb e^ ficb an jeben
cinjclncn &rie$3mann F)cftcn, unb fra^en, tao^er? unb bc^
 (Erftcs IDalbdjen II. 165

tracfytcn, toer er fei; unb alsbann toon bielen ben ebenlauf

eineS elben erfafyren tonnen.

SeffingS cfyreibart ift ber til eineS ^oeten, b. i. eineS

d)riftftetter3, nicfyt ber gemacfyt fyat, fonbern ber ba macbt,

5 nicfyt ber gebacfyt baben mill, fonbern un3 toorbenft, fair feben

fein 2Bert toerbenb, Vt)ie ben cbilb ^Idnlle^ bei Corner. (Sr

fdbeint un3 bie SScranlaffung jeber ^feflejrion gleicf)fam Dor

5(ugen 511 fiibren, ftiicfmeife 511 jerle^en, jufammen jufe^en ; nun

fpringt bie ^riebfeber, ba^ 3iab Iduft, ein (^cbanfc, ein cf)lu^

10 0ibt ben anbern, ber Jolgefa^ tommt na^er, ba ift ba^ ^>ro=

buft ber SBctracf)tuncj.Jeber Hbfrfmitt ein 3(ugflcbarf>tc, ba^

s
TtTay/xeVov eine3 boHcnbctcn (^ebanfen^: fein ^ucf) ein fort=

laufenbe^ ^Joem, init Gnnfprungen nnb S^ifoben, aber innner

unftdt, immer in 3lrbeit, im Aortf^ritt, iin ^crbcn.
15 bis anf einjelne ^ilber, rfnlberuiu^en nnb SSerjiernngen
til^ erftrecft fid) biefer Untcrfdncb ^uifd>en beiben, ii>

mann ber Miinftler, ber flebilbet bat, i effinfl ber fdmffenbe

s
^ener ein erbabner Scbrcr ber Mnnft; biefer felbft in ber |>bilo-

fopf;ie feiner d^riften ein muntrer Wefellfdmfter, fein ^Bucf;

20 ein unterbaltenber X)ialo^ fiir nnfern Weift.
o biirften beibe fein; unb
unterfdneben! luie bortrefflid) H?ie

bei bem ^ec\ alfo mit ber Grille, burd) bie man
Unterfd>iebe!

Don einem jum anbern fd)iclen nn ll, um burd) Montraft 311 loben!
2Ber Seffin^ unb SBtncfelmann nid>t
lefen fann, mie jeber bcr*

25 felben ift, ber foil !einen Don beiben, ber foil fid) felbft lefen!

II.

2Ulerbin$3 ift cbreien ber natiirUcbe Hu^brucf be for^er=

1
licfyen cbmerje^; nur jebe Alunft ber 9?acbabmunfl, unb fo

barf id? aud>

fagen, jebe (^ebid^tart, fyat in 9iad)af;mung
1
i>aof., pag. 28.
166 Berber.

biefeS 2lubrudfe3 ifyre cigenen GJrenjen. 2Bie abtoecbfelnb ift

omer in ber 3lrt, toie feme $rieger, feine >elben

nieberfallen,
unb toie toieberfyolenb in bem, toa ben 9?ieberfattenben unb
Sterbenbcn gemein ift; aber toeber jene 2Unt>ecbfelung, nod;
biefe SBieberbolung marf)t mir ba3 effin$fcbe $Bort toerftdnb= 5

lief) :
,,omer3 ^rieger fallen nicfrt feltcn mit Wefcbrei ju 33oben! //2

SeF;r felten, mochte id) fagcn (toenn mid) nid)t mein (S5e=

bdd)tni^ aug Corner triigt), unb fa ft gar nicf)t, anf^er menn

eine ndbere
s
^Beftimmnng biefeg (Jf^araftcr^ e^ forbert. So ge=
n)6bnlicf>
ibmtft, bafe fetn Mrieger mit flirrenben 2Baffen, 10

mit bebenbem 53 o ben u. f.

to. fdlltunb ftirbt, tnbcm ibm
3
2)un!el^eit bie 5tngen becft; fo ungetoobnltcf) fdllt unb
ftirbt einer mit Cs)cfd)rei, mit .Qeulen: unb alsbann ift biel

n\d)t ,,ber natiirlidbc Slu^bruc! be^ forperlicf^en ScfimerjeS,"

fonbern ein S^arafterjug fcineS SBcrtounbetcn. So beult 15

4
g.(. bei f einer 3>crit)imbung ein $bereflo3; aber biefer ^>f)ere=

flo ift ein Xrojaner, ein unfriegerifcber ftiinftler, ein fetter

gludbtltncj, ber auf ber glud^t cin^ebolt n)irb; unb freilid; ein

fold>er
faun fid; burd) ein Webeul auf feinen ^nieen unter=
fd;eiben; aber offenbar ,,nicf)t ber leibenben 3iatur ibr S^edbt ju 20

laffen/ fonbern Dermb^e feine Gbarafter^. 3>ermoge biefe^

5
fdmit bie 35enu laut; benn fie ift bie tocicblicbe Giottin

ber Siebe ; ibre ^arte ftaut ift f aum c^eftreift, faum toirb fie ben
roten Jcbor, ba3 636tterblut, c\evoabr, fo entfinfen ifyr bie

dnbc; fie berldf^t bie Sd)lad)t r fie toeint bor 33ruber, Gutter, 25

Ysater unb bem gcm$en immcl; fie ift untroftlicft. 35>er toill

nun fac^en, baft mit biefem alien omer fie dmrafterifiere, ,,nid>t

urn fie al3 bie toeid;lid;e (^ottin ber SBoIIuft ju fd)i(bern, fonbern
Dtelmebr um ber leibenben 9^atur if>r
9ied;t u geben"? 2Bdre
6
bie^, n)te toitrbe er fo genau bie Seite be3 2Beid)licf)en mit jebem 30
2 3 *
aof., pag. 28. Iliad. ,310; A, 356. Iliad. E, 68.
E 343. *
Iliad. (
Iliad. E, 337.
 Crftcs IDalbcfcn II. 167

33ilbe, mit jebem 2Borte, mit jeber SBetoegung jeicfmen? toie

toiirbe er fie nod) obenbretn ^3aUa3 berfpotten laffen, al3
t>on

fyatte fie fid) bei einem iebe3fyanbel meUetd;t a,erit? toie

totirbe felbft ibr lieber $ater ^u^itcr iiber fie ldd)eln? 2ad)t
5 biefer, fpottet jene, urn ber leibenben S^atur geben?
if>r 9?ecf)t 511

unb toelcfye leibcnbe S^atur ift ein 9?i ber blenbenben aut?
7
(SOenfo tucmoi fd)rctt ber eherne ^[Rar^ au^ eiuer anbern Ur=
facf;e, al eben mil er ber efyernc, ber etfenfreffenbe ^ar^ ift,

ber im GJetiimmcl ber Jelbfcfylacfyt raft, unb ebenfo U)ilb bci

io ber S5crtt)unbung auffcf)rcit. 3Jid>t

ift unflcjitjcifcltcr, al^

bie, toenn n?ir Corner fa^en laffen, ft>a3 er fac^t; benn mare
e3 if;m auc^ nur je emgefaUcu, ba^ Sd^reicn, a( ,,einen natiir=

licf;cu Slu^brucf be^ forpcrlirf)cn ScftmerseS" unb nid)t mit

f;of;ern 5U>fid)ten ^u gebraudjcn, fo mare ber 3lu3bruct: ^r

15 marb toemnmbct unb f^rie!"
ihm fo gclaufifl, al^ ber: ,,Gr fiel,

unb fd^oarje 3?acf)t bebccfte fetnc 9hiflw."

So mett finb n)tr alfo, baft Corner ,,ba^ sprabi!at be3 ScfjreU
en nic^t al^ einen alt^eineinen 3(u^brucf be fbrperlicften

Sd)mere3," nicf)t a(^ etne abfolute ^ejeidwuna,, ,,ber leibenben

20 5^atur miberfabren 511 laffcn/ flebraucfte; e muft in
if;r 3^ed;t
bem Gfyaraftcr ebcn beffcn, ben er fcbrcten (dftt, eine nabere
CcftimnutUij ba^u (iccjcn, baft eben biefer fd)reit unb !ein

anbrer. Unb ba biinft t$ m\dj je^t unbeftimmt, toon feinen

8
e(ben alliicmcm 511 rebcn, ma fie naa) ibren ^aten unb
25 (Smpfinbun^en finb; benn fciner berfclben ift an (Smpfinbungen
fo menig, al^ an 2Borten, (^ebarben, 5lorper, Sigenfc^aftcn
bem anbern gleid); jeber ift eine cignc IRenfc^enfeete, bie

fid^ in feinem anbern auftert.

9^od; minber fcf>eint

mir /;
ba^ 3d;reien" ber nnd;tia,e untoer-

30 dnberlid^e 3 U G W fcin, ber ^u ber unDerdnberlicfyen Sufterun^

eine^ SO^enfc^engefiU;^ gefyoren miiftte; benn einer fann feufeen,
7 8
Iliad. E, 859. ?aof., pag. 28.
168 Berber.

bcr anbre adfocn, ber brittc fd?reien, unb cin Cannibal in feincm

aufterften Summer lacfjen. 21 m minbeften aber ift g not=

S
hnnbicje 33cftimmunci beg el ben, alg 33lenfd; betracbtet,

fo baft er cin Unmenfd) fein miiftte, tt>enn er nicfyt fcbriee. 2Bare

bieg, fo bdtte Corner lauter Unmenfcben befunflen. Sein 5

Agamemnon, em Aionifl ber Golfer, ber berrlicbfte ber GJriecben

t>or
roja, tuirb im tapfcrften Wefecf)t Dermunbet; er fcihrt 511=
9
fammcn abcr aufjitfd^reien, 511 U)einen, l^ertv^t er; or faftf

ftdb, unb ftiirjt mit fctncm Spief^e befto [dnirfer in bie ;yeinbe;
s
follte er bc3n>cflen fein 3Jlcnfcf; an Gmpfinbunfl fcin, lr>eil er 10

nicM ^Dte ^ar^, obcr bie )ame ^senu^ auf frfric ? Defter, ber
tapferfte Xrojaner, mirb Don be3 2(ja5 flrof?cm ^clfcnftctu
nicbergeh)orfcn, unb auf ber 5kuft (^cquetfcfU; Spief^ unb
Sd>ilb unb .\Selm entfallen, rin^ urn ihn Hin^cn bie ehernen
l
3Baffen aber aufjufdhrcien bcnvfit cr. Dian muntert ihn 15

auf, c\ief^t ibm 3Baffcr ein; er fommt 511 fidh, bn dt auf; aber er
s
finft in bie Mniee, fpeit fd;marjc ^Blut unb bod) benft ber
Unmenfch an ein3 nid)t, iiber fetne Sruftfcfymcrjen, iiber feinc

Seitenfticf)e 511 fcftrcicn unb 511 meinen. So mit alien ftelbcn

ber aucft in biefeni Stiirfe Gbarafter beobacbtet. 20

irb bom s
$feile ^Sanbaru^ unl>ermutet unb im
iwcbtiflften 3^iip un ^e getroffen; fein 33lut rinnt, Agamemnon
11
fdbrt jufammcn, ^Jicnclau^ felbft; aber nicfU^ mel;r! ba er
s
ben $feil in ber SSitnbc fiebt, jiebt er ibn au^, unb Idf^t feinen

SBrubcr unb feine

S
33iitfo(baten um fief) feuf^en. 3oW>e Un= 25

menfcf)en finb bie elben omer^, unb je flrofterer clb, je

gro^erer Unmenfd); fein 2(cf)i((e>3

ift foi3ar am Morper uni)er=

le^lid;.

3ft ^ alfo bei Corner, ba^ feine .vSelben fcf)reicn unb meinen
miiffcn ,,um ber menfdf)licf)en 9iatur treu 511 bleiben, Voenn c 30

auf bag (ikfufyl ber 6cf>mer5en / menu eg auf bie ftufjerung

9 Iliad. I0 "

A, 254. Iliad. H, 418. Iliad. A, 148.

 (Erftes IDalbcfyen II. 169

ober burd) Xrancn an!ommt"?

u
bicfeS efiifylS burd) cfyreien

!Jd? tooUte nid)t, bafe ein alter ried^e, beffen elbenfeele al3
ein feliger )dmon nod) in ber SSett unfidrtbar toanbelte, biefe

SBefyauptung lafe. 2Ba, nriirbe er fagen, toa3 ift ft>ol)l

einem
s in bie Scfylacfyt jiefyenben elben naturlicfter, al bernnmbet,
getroffen toerben? 6id^ fiircf^ten alfo !ann er, h>cnn
if;n ein

unfcermuteter ^Pfeil trifft; aber in ber Scfyadbt fcf^reien unb

toeinen, ba tut !ein F;omerifcf>er .s;>clb
ber Wriecf)en; felbft !ein
elb ber Xrojaner, bie boc^ immer Corner in fleinen ^iigen
13
10 fyerunterfetjt. @inem eftor in fcincm ^obe entfinft, felbft
bei feiner le^ten fterbcnben 55itte, feine rtine, fein ^on be^
14
efcf^reie^; ein Sarpebon fnirfcfit, ba er ftirbt, unb jc ta^ferer,
urn fo gefafcter bei bem Scf)merje. 9?ur bie 5 e ^ en Sittcrn unb
tuetneu unb frf)reien: ^bereflo^, ber feige ^(ud^tling, unb bie

15 toeidjlicfye S^enu^, unb ber eifenfreffenbe trojanifcfie ^targ. 60

bic^tet me in Corner.
Unb fo f;dlt alfo bie fo einncbmcnbe Seffingfdie 5^etrarf>tung 15
iiber bie (Snipfinbbarfeit ber unb ben Montraft ber=
Wrierfien^
felben $e$en rof;e 53arbaren unb feine Guropder nidH Stid>?
20 2)ie Grmpfinbbarfeit jum cf^mer^en bei einem forperlid>en

Sd;mer^e nid)t luobl, tuenigftenS nicht al^ bomerifd^er .^elben^

jug, nid)t allgemein, nid>t al notmenbige^ ftennjeicben ber

menfd;Iidien Gmpfinbung. QJibt S aber feine anbre Gmpfinb=
barfeit ju Xrdnen, unb aucf) 511 tauten, 511 flagenben kronen,
25 alS forperlicf^er Scbmer^? Dbne ,3^^if^/ unb eben biefe @tnp=
finbbarfeit, toenn fie ein SSorjug ber ried>en
n)dre, mad^t
if;nen jii>ar
mebr 6f;re; allein bie 3lbbanblung bariiber Vt)dre
offenbar eine 2(u^fd;n)eifung toon bem Satje, ben err Seffing
16 17
glaubt ermiefen ju ^aben, ,,baf$ ba^ cf^reien bei

12
pag. 2$.
13
Iliad. X, etc. u Iliad, n, 486. IS
aof., 330
I6 I7
p. 28 ff. ?ao?., p. 31. 2)afj ^oincr^ etben nid)t bei nnbrer

eleneitljett ba3 Sdjrften, ein tapfre, riefeuma^ifleS efdjrff, etgen

geiucfeit, lemjue id) uidjt ; tt)o gef)5rt ba3 aber fyterfyer?

170 Berber.

bung forperlidjen Sd)mer$e3, befonberS nad) bcr alien griecfyi=

fd)en 25enfart, gar toofyl mit einer gro j$en Seek beftefyen fann" ;

ein feltner Sa, ber im erften 9Jbfcfmitt, aud? ebenfo felten,

mit einer 5lrmee toon toeinenben elben, bie icfy
im omer nid)t

tenne, betoiefen n)irb. Urn alfo bod? nidbt leer

laffet un Seffing auf fcinem 3lbu)ege folgen.

III.

2)ie mpfinbbarfeit ber (^ried^en ju fanften Xranen ift ju

fef^r befannt in Sufcerungen, al^ bafi man toie .^err Seffing ein
1
einjelne o 33eifpiel, unb ba^u au^ einer blojsen ^Bermutung
ne^men biirfte, bie fyier bielleicbt nicf)t beioeift, ma^ fie betoeifen 10

foil. (^ried)en unb Xrojaner fammcln ibre Xoten.

toergie{jen F;etf3e Xranen; aber ben Xrojanern berbietet

^Priamu^. SBarum berbietet er ^ if;nen ? @r beforgt, fagt bie

Racier, fie n)iirben fid; ju fefyr eritjeicf^en, unb morgen mit

toeniger )JJut
s
an ben Streit geben. ^arum aber, fragt err 15

Seffing, mufj nur ^riamuS biefe^ beforgen? 1)er Sinn be^

^Dic^ter^ gebt tiefer. Gr toitt un lebren, ba^ nur ber gefittete

GJriecfye jugteid; meinen unb tapfer fein fonne; inbem ber un*
gefittete Xrojaner, urn e3 ju fein, alle 5)lenfd)lic^feit feorfyer

erfticfen muffe." 3 U ^? ar^ f ur ^ e www Xrojaner! ^ann 20

^3riamu3 nid;t ibren Xrdnen (Sinbalt tun tDoHen, nicf)t au un=

gefitteter ^Barbarei, fonbern tneil bie Xranen ber Xrojaner,

feiner $inber, freffenber n)aren, al bie Xranen ber ried;en?

2)iefe tvaren 9Ingreifenbe, unb ftritten bcr @Bre Voegen; i^nen

tuarb ^ alfo leister, neuen 5Rut 311 faffen, unb 5Igamemnon 25

braud)te be^Degen !eine 33eforgni. X)ie Xrojaner aber litten;

fie toaren 2tngefaQene, bie nid^t ber @[;re fomoF)t al^ ber Sicker-

f v p. 29.
 (Erftes IDalbcrjen III. 171

2
fyeit, ifyreS SebenS toegen ftrittcn, bie fief) in 33ebrangni3 fiifylten

unb fyalb in SBer^toeifUmg, eine 3tanbcr toegen, ifyre $inber

unb banner toerlieren, eine3 SRauberS toegen bie 5$rigen be=

graben muftfen. ier emporten fid; mpfinbnngen ber

bie

5 33ebrangten, fyier floffen fyeifce Xranen ber murrenben Un=

fcfmlb. Unb ^riamuS liefc fie nidjt toeinen! SBarum? SSeU
er ein ungeftttctcr Sarbar n)ar, unb
Xrojaner al^ feine fold>e

fannte, bie nidjt suc^leicf) mcinen nnb ftreiten tonnten? 9Bie

iuenn er fie juriicfgef>alten bdtte, al^ ein ^ater feiner nn^tiidf=
10 lichen tabt, nnb feine3 ungliicfbringenben So^nS? baniit fie

nicfyt in einem Scbicffale, ba3 \\jrn felbft fo 511 .fterjcn c\in^, gar
mnrren ober Uerjmeifeln mod>tcn ? ^)od) toenn ba^ and;
nid;t; nod) finb bie Xrojaner feine 2app(dnber, feine Gcvrtbcn;

benn fie iucinen ja urn bie 3^9^"^ un ^ ^nflmuS befiirchtct

15 eben ein 511 lt)eicf)e^ $er ^, ^n
( tief einfrcjfenbe Xrdnen. Werabe
alfo ba cgenteil! 2)od> nu fold^en Xcntimgcn fann man
immer madden, ^r>a man n>iH,
nnb eine blofje ^Ulegorie: ,,bcr

Sinn beg !Dicf^ter gebt tiefer"

fann itn cnblidi fo tief fiihren,

bafi ber 33oben ftnft.

20 3)ie gan^e ^)icf)tfnnft ber 03ned>cn l)at 511 biel Spurcn biefcr
mpfinbbarfeit ibrer Nation 511 cdMiicrj nnb Trdncn, aUS
bafs man blof^ mutmajjen bitrftc, nnb fie ift einem grofsen Xeile

nad; gleid)fam ein ganger lebcnber 3lbbrncf biefe^

biefer \r>eicfien Seele. ^affet un3 biefen Xcil bie elegifd>e

25 nennen; aber niemanb fcerftefye bier nnter biefem 9?amen jenen

f;infenben 5(ffen, ber fid; nacfy nnfern u>cifen 2ef;rbitd;ern ber

^Poefie blofi im Silbenma^ nnterfcf)eiben fo((; fonbern Glegie fei

mir I)ier bie flagenbe T)id;tfnnft, bie versus querimoniae nad;
oraj, fie mogen \\tfy finben, mo fie tootten, in Gpopoc nnb Dbe,
30 in Xranerfpiel, ober 5bv;IIe; benn jebe biefer Wattnngen fann

elegifcf) h)erben. 3n fold;em ^serftanbe bat bie Glegie ein

3
XpeioT avayKair)) Trpo re Trai Saiv KGU Ttpo yvvtiiKwv. Iliad. B, 57.
172 Berber.

eigneS GJebiet in ber menfdjlicben Seele, ndmlicb bie

barfeit be ScfymerjeS unb ber 3)etriilmi3; man fann alfo au3
ifyr iiber Golfer unb $eiten f;inau3fel)en, unb fyier roirb fief)

burd) Skrgleidwngen aud) bie ben $rted)en eigne 6teIIe finben.

3$ ftecfe eintge 03eficf)t3punfte ab :
5
1. -fticfyt jebeS $olf f>at
fiir milbe 53ctriibniffc ein gleicft ^arte^
er^; bei mancbem baben felbft bie .Ulagen eine roF;e Jcftic^feit,
ein ^elbenma^ige^ Skaufen, in U)elcf)e^ fie berfd^Iungen n^erben,
unb ein fold;e-o n^irb, bet fonft (^rof^en !Dicf)tern, mit ber

Spracbe biefer tt)eirf>en 2ranen febr unbefannt fein fonnen. 10

60 bie norbifcfyen Sfanbinainer, bie aucf) bei ^rauerfa Uen,

bom crot^mu cjefta blt, !aum furje Sender au^ftie^en unb
fcftimcgcn; njcnu fie fangen, fo u>ar faum bie milbe
ibr GJcfarig

3
& dnig ^Hec^ner Sobbrofl ftirbt ; er ftirbt unter ben ent^ 15

fefclicftften Scfnnerjen. Stirbt er in (Sle^ien? Saf^t er ber

gequalten fterbenben Wenfcbbeit, bem t>on

feinen Gobnen ent=

fernten brerf>enben 5>aterberje fein 9?erf>t

imberfabren ? ^ine
einjiflc tr>eid)e ^rane bcitte ben 5tad>fc(^er Dbin^ entroeibt. @r
ftirbt im riumpb3liebe, im Slnbenfen an feine Xaten, boll 20

clbcnfrcubc, r>oll
S^ac^e, boll ^Dhit, Doll bimmlifd;er offnung.
^Btr baben mit Sabelftreic^en gefocbten/ fo enbet fein (^efang,
,,o roii^ten meine Sobne bie $Iagen, bie id) erbulbe; roii^ten
s

s
fie, ba^ fliftii^e Slattern mir ben $ufen jerfleifcben toie beftig

miirben fie ficb nacb graufamen Sdilad^ten febnen! ^enn bie 25

Gutter, bie icb ibnen gab, bat ibnen ein mannlicbeS erj f)in=

terlaffen.

/;
2Bir fyaben mit Sabelftreid)en gefod)ten; bocb jet nabt fid)

mein letter 5lugenblicf. 55alb ^t>irb ba^ cbttert meiner Sobne

in3 33lut be^ @tta getaucbt fein; ir)r govn rmrb entflammcn, 30
unb biefe mutige ugenb bie 9iube nicbt roeiter bulben.

efdjic^tc uon Xaimem., X. I, pp. 112, 113.

 Crflcs ttfalfccfjen III. 173

,,2Bir fyaben mit Sabelftreicfyen gefocfyten in einunbfimfjig

Sd)lad)ten, too bie Jafmen flogen. 33on meiner Sugenb on

lernte id), bic 8pien ber Sanjen mit 33lute fdrben, unb nic

fyatte id) einen tapferern $6nig, al id) bin, $u finben geglaubt.

5 Slber e ift $t\t, aufeufybren; Cbin fenbct fcbon bie ottinnen,

mid) in feinen ^alaft ^u fiU;rcn. T>a toerbe id) auf bcm er=

^la^e fi^enb
fyabenften 33ier mit ben Gtottern trinfen. 2)ic

Stunben metneS Sebcng finb berfloffen, icf) fterbe Idd>elnb!"-

!Da^ be[te 33eifpie( ju crrn ScffingS 33emerfung iiber ben

10 fatten norbifd^en clbcnmut.
4
(Sin anbere3 au^ ciner ber beften fritifd^en Sc^riften unfrer
3eit. 2lfjbiorn ^rube, ber belbenmiiti^e Dane, in ben .
panben
feine^ Jeinbe^, ber mit lanflfamer 2But in feinen Grinfletoeiben

n)ii^t n?ebfla^t er, fenfjt er? (5r benft an feine Gutter,

15 an alle ^reuben feiner Juc^enb, unb femes mannlicben 3Uter^;
s
er fii^lt feine flange ^ein, aber al^ elb; fo ftirbt er.
2Bo alfo ba3 i^erj eine^ $olfe^ Miefelftetn ift, ba fcbldflt ber

beftigfte Sd^mcrj, er treffe nun 2etb ober 6eele, nidbt-S al^ fycro-

ifc^e J\-unfen; bcnn mobcr follte bcm .Utefelftein eine jarte

20 elecu fcfye Xrdne fommen? X^er ,elbenmut, bie Siebe jum
SSaterlanbe, unb sum ffiubme feine^ Stamme^, ba3 ^>eroifd;e

mit feinem Jyreunbe, ber fcin ^adhenc^el fein foil: bie

5Mlbun^ ciner roben unb ftarfen S^atur jum unerfcbuk

terten 9Zad)fol^cr Dbin^ unb anberer trdncnlcfcn .s3clben, bie

25 ifyrem 35olf, i^rer JWepublif ebcn ben Weift ber Xapferfeit ein-

flofcen bte^ alle^ betaubte 9ftenfd?lid)feit unb efit^l unb

Xrdnen.
2. 9?un la^t biefen elbcnmut, biefe Siebe jum SSaterlanbe,
unb $um 9^uf)me feine^ Stammer, bie^ efiifyl fiir ^reunbfd^aft,
30 unb bie itntoerfyullte Dffenfjeit ber Seele lafet biefe eblen unb
4
Sricfe ubcr bie 3Kcrftt)urb. ber fttterat., I, pp. 112, 113
29, @. 60 f.]
174 Berber.

groften $efmnun$en fief) atte oFme folcfye Skrfdjjan^ung unb

$erbartung auftern: bie gro^te ^apferfeit toirb fid) alSbann
immcr al3 bie empfinbbarfte "JJienfcfybeit ^eigen. ,,9?ad) ifyren
aten toerben fold)e Seute efdbopfe fyofyerer 2Irt fein; nad)
ibren (Smpfinbungen, 9)Jenfrfen." 5
Unb fottte e^ nur unter ben (3riecf>en
biefe T)oppelgefcfiopfe
hoherer 3(rt, biefe elbenmenfd)en, biefe Scmonen gegeben
babcn? Unb unfre llreliern iraren 33arbarcn, unb alle

norbtfrfcn SarE>aren biefem in Unmenfcften getoefen? Stiicf

j[RenfcMirf>e3 (^cfuH muf^ jcbcm ein^obnen, ber em ^enfd; ift; 10

e3 muf^, ir>o e^ erfticft, too e3 in rof;e Xapferfeit fcerfcfylungen

s
toerben foil, bon tanfenb -BetfpieIcn, Don einem gro^en
erft

unter einer Nation lebenbcn SSorbilbc, Don bem ganjeu G5eifte

be^ unb burrf; aQe Ginbriicfe ber @r$ie$ung toon ^uc^cnb
$>olf3,

anf c^emaltiii beftiirmt, unb babin enblicf) cjeriffen toerben, ba^ 15

c^ mit bicfcn 53eifpiclen toetteifre, bafj e3 biefem (^roften

bilbc, ba3 ben Weift bicfc^ Tsolf^ beftimmt, folge. 2Bo

nidht ift, ba toirb fid) bie unfcerfntllte Dcatur jcigcn; bie Gmpfin=
s
bunc^cn ber )Jtenfrf)beit toerbcn fich in ein elbengeh>anb flcibet!,

unb ber Sinn be3 .sSdben ficft iweberum ber menfcblic^en Xrdne 20

nicbt fcbdmen e fei unter einem Stolfe, n?o e^ tooKe!

Unb tote, toenn toir ein folcbe3 -8o(f
s
aucb mitten unter norbi=

fcfen (^cbitflcn; mitten unter Starbaren, felbft unter bem Seamen

eine^ barbarifcben SSolf bcgrtffcn, unb mit nicfytS aB ^ ricgen
befcbdftiflt, auffdnben? unb toelcf^e^ boc() flleicb fern bon G)rie= 25

cbenlanb, al^ bon feinen Sitten, alle bie menfcf^licf)e C5mpftnb=

barfett ^eiflte, bie faum ein CJriecbe fl^ciflt bat bliebe ba nod)
ber fteflenfa^ fo vianj feft: ,,Unfere norbifcben Ureltern toaren
33arbarcn. 3(He Scf)merjen berbei^en, bem Streicf^e be^ Xobe^
mit unbertoanbtem 5tuc\e entc^e^enfeben, toeber feme Siinbe 30

nod? ben 3krluft feine^ liebften 5 r mnbe3 betoeinen, finb 3 uOe

be3 alten norbifd;en elbenmutg. yiifyt fo ber
 Crftcs IDalbcfjen IV. 175

5
d)e!"
2Berm id) nun fyier einfiele unb fortfiifyre: ,,:fticfyt fo
ber Scfyotte, ber @elte, bcr ^re! @r dufeerte feine Sc^mer^en
unb Summer; er fd)dmte fief) feiner ber menfcblicben Sd)faad)*

fyeiten; feine mufete ifw aber auf bem 5Bege ur Grfyre, unb toon

s rfiittung feiner ^3flid)t ^uriidfyalten." So Fmtte id) fiir meinc

33arbaren alle^ (^efagt, n?a ^effing toon feinen riecfren, im
^ontraft mit ben norbifdben ^arbaren, unb bod) fiir meine
norbifcfyenSarbaren nod) nicht c^cnug.
Unb fo mar e3 mobl nicf)t ber $ried)e aHein, ber sugleicf)
8
10 toeinen unb tapfer fetn fonntc. 60 mar nicbt jeber, ber 33ar=
bar ^eifit, ber in einem rauben AUma Voobnte, unb bie 33ilbung

ber riecben nid^t fannte, bon ber Strt, ,,ba^ er, urn tapfer ju

fein, alle ^Renfcblid^feit erfticfen So la$ e^ alfo mo^)l

miifUe."

nic^t an ber SMtionalfeele, am temperament, am &lima, am

15 efittetfein ber (^rtecben, menn fie bcibe^ berbanben. Unb fo
s
miiffen alfo anbre Wriinbe fein, bie biefe )Jeifdnmfl t>on
^elben=
turn unb 9J?enfrf)lid>feit bei ibnen unb bei ben Sarbaren f)er=

borbracbten, ober nid^t bertorbrad>ten. Sollten un^ biefe

riinbe nicbt auf ben SiJcg brinflen: morin unb mo^er aucf) bie
20
riecfyen fo empfinbbar getoefen?

IV.

eine 3^it ftibt, ba bc 2$ort SSatertanb nocf)

nic^t ein leerer Scfyall ift, fonbern

-- ein ilberton bem C^r,
2trf)t bem SScrftanb unb ^o^er ^lug jum Lenten,

fo mufe ber 9tame Saterlanb fo gut ben SMcbter jum elben,

al ben elben jum 2)ic^ter, unb beibe $u teilnef)menben So^nen
5 6
?aof. ; p. 29. ?aof v p. 30.
176 Berber.

33aterlanbe macfyen. er elb toirb bafiir ftrcitcn, bet

icf)ter fingen, unb toenn fie beibe e3 nicbt mebr retten fonnen,

beibe nod) al3 Sofwe barum

n?einen; ift id)ter unb unb nun
.C)elb, unb Sofyn bc3 5>atcrlanbc cine ^erfon, fo ift bie bic
3cit bcr patriotifd>en $lagelieber. 9tid;t au einer 5

fief) iibenben Sdnilfeber; au3 bem fcoUen pcrjcn n?erben bicfe .

flieften; nicM blofs auf bcm papier, fonbcrn im C^cbad;tni^,

in bcr Sccle Icbcn; bic Stimmc bcr llbcrlicferun$ mirb fie auf=
behalten, bcr "Dhinb bc^ $olB fie ftttflcn; fie ^t>crben ^rancn
unb Xaten Scba^ bc^ 2>aterlanbe3, unb ba^ (^c=
tuccfcn: ein 10

fiibl, ba^ fie befin^en unb toirfen, C^efiiM bc^ 3scU Nationals ;

fleift. Q$ mirb alfo cine @mpfinbung bc^ ^satriotismu fein, s

bie jc^t ju ^Tatcn, jct^t ju $cftin$en, jc^t 511 Xrdnen

$aterlanb gebcibt, nad;bem bic 2tubilbung beSfelben bic
finbiuu3 ba obcr bortf)in lenft, unb fcincn 21bfcnfcr berfclbcn 15

crfticft. 53ci ben Sfanbinabiern erftirfte ba^ 53eifpicl CbinS

bic cine 3lrt be^ 2lu3brud?3, bie clbentrane, urn bie anbre urn

fo mebr u berfttirfen, elbeniaten.

Dhtn aber cinberc man biefen GJcift ber 3^t; bie ganje 2Celt
tncrbc ba^ 2anb be^ SScifcn, ober be^ tauQlid^en unb angc ; 20

nebmcn barren; allmdblid; tcerben fid) bic 53anbc fd^dd^cn,

bie ba^3 .C>er5
be3 ingebornen an ben ^Boben bcr SZatur befte=

ten; if;m toirb alfo and; ba^ Unglucf, obcr bie (Sntfernung fctncS
SBaterlaitbc^ nicf)t meF;r fo u (^cmiitc bringen, unb fo ift aud^
bic cblc ^rdnc urn ba^ 33aterlanb Dcrficc^t, bic bort ben >elben 25

unb ben ^Beifen nicftt berun^icrte, fonbern ef)rte. Sic ftirb

bocf)ften^ bereigennu^igen ober uppicjcn Xrane 9?aum madben,

bic cin Dfcib mitten in feincm trauri$en Oefdbnjd^, obcr 53ufft)=

9tabutm in feinem arf^enben Unfinn, nac^) einem toolluftigen

-ofc flic^en Id^t. Unb fo ift cine OueUe biefe3 clbcngefiif)l 30

au^getrocf net :
,,bic ^ilbung, bie Sr^icf)ung fiir ba^ $ater=
lanb."
 rftes ZDal&cfcn IV. 177

2. 2Benn nod) cin jebe3 efd)led)t, cine jebe

gertrennt unb einS im anjen, einen 23aum bilbet, too bie

3tt>eige
unb Jriicbte bem Stamme gur ($I)re gereid^en, unb burd)
ba3 Hbreifccn bcrfdben ber Stamm fdbft toertiwnbet toirb:
5 toie bebeutenb finb alsbann bic gefiifyfooHen 3iicje omer3 bet
feinen fadenbcn .Cxlben: ,,er fid, cin bliibcnbcr Jsungling; ber
SSatcr tt)ar ^ nirf;t, ber il)m gum Mvic^c rict! cr ftammt au^
eincm ebdn WefcMccftte ;
mil feinem Xobe aber ift bic^ geenbi^t

er tt>ar au fernem Sanbe c\efommcu; nic abcr tuirb er in

10 baSfdbe juritcffcbren bie Sbbne bc^ ^ieicficn fielcn; ber

SSater f>at alie^ fiir grembe flefammelt." Jn biefe SBdt alfo

gc^orcn bie .s^dbenfla^cn be^ ^rianuto urn feinen Defter, ben
s
3tubm feinc3 Wefrf>lcd^t^, bie )Jtaucr t>on
Sroja; in bicfe 3Bdt
bie ^la^en Dffian^ urn feine abciefdnebenen Sobne; bic iiatijc

15 riif;renbe Umarmunfl Bettors an feinen flcincn 3lfU)ana;t; bie

^lac^en ber Gleftra unb anbrcr tra^ifd^cn elbinnen, ber riil)=
renbe ,s3in^an^ ber 9)k>rgenldnber j u i br e n ^8 a t e r n u. f
. n>. :

cine 2lbcr bc Wefiibte, bie bie bcftcu Xtd^tunflcn unb GJe*

fdf)idf)tc, nid)t blofi ber Wried)cn, fonbern aller Golfer burd)=

20 ftrornt, bei bcnen biefe (Smtcjfcit ber Oiefd^ed^ter, bie^ Jamilictts

gefiU;! lebte.
%lu\\ erftide man aber baSfelbe; man c\ebe iibcr bie natitr=

Iid;cn 93eburfniffe ber unberborbnen menfdilid)en Sede unb

ber cinfad>crn Scben^art biuauS; man
Gbc ^u einem
mad>c bie

25 2Birtfd>aftttcrfllcid>, ju einem Btanbe ber iRobc, unb (?(;dcutc

gu nid?t3, al^ einanber lafti^en ober geitfiirgenbcn ^crfonen;
man erjie^e bie 33riiber, baf^ fie fd^on an ben ^riiftcn einer
gremben nid)t mefyr 53riiber finb, unb antrad^fenb immer
frember Voerbcn; man fnii^fe ^erfonen, bie fcf)on am ocf)=

30 geitStacje getrennt, unb lege $inber in ibre 5lrme, bie blofs

iF)ren ^amen ^aben biirfen freilicb fo n)irb eine ^erbe be

efii^ getotet; eg erlifdfyt ber (S^renname: ,,5Icf)i{(eg Voar ein
 178 Berber.
"

SoFm $eleu3 allmafylicr; ;

bie SeFmfucbt be3 UfoffeS gu feiner
alien ^enelope, unb feinem fteiniflen Jtbafa biinft un<l aben-

teuerlid); ber flefiifylbolle Stolj ber ^orflenlanber auf ifyre

$efd?led)t3murbe fairb ladkrlid) in unfern 2Uiflen, unb bie

<Rlaflen
eine Caller, ftlopftocf, (5ani, Deber biinfen bielen 5

arisen (Jbemannern fo poetifdj, aB cine Slnrufung an bie

(5 tuar eine $nt (fie ift nocf) jc^t untcr ben SSMlben!), ba

Jrcunbc flab, in einent Tscrftanbe, ber fonft fawn ftattfinbet:

nn^ertrennlidK Wefahrten in (^liicf nnb lliiflliicf, burdh bie 10

Ficiliflftcn G)efe^e berlntnben, tocttcifernb in ben ftrengften

s
Pfli*tcn, nnb in (5rfUI(nnfl berfelben Shifter ifyrer ^aterftabt,

nnb bie SBerchrutifl be3 Sanbe^. 3U btefcm C^efiibl erjoflcn,

bcftcfldtcn fie ba^felbe alfo oft mit ibrem STobe unb 5Mute ; fie

terlieftcn ibren JVreunb nie, and) in Seben^efabren, benen bie 15

bantalifle ^a^ferfett mchr al^ unfre ilppi^feit au^flefe^t tear;

bie fleinfte Untreue flcgen ibren JVreunb mad^te fie 511111 Spott
ihre^ WcfcWccfrt^, nnb jum 9lbfcftcii ber 6tabt; fie h?aren nad^
aflen Wcfe^en bcrbunben, feinen ob 511 rad^en, unb bie letjte

Stimme be^ einen, DieHeicfit gefangencn, lnelleid>t ^etoteten 20

Jyreunbe^ iuar an feinen Jreunb, an ben 53ea,leiter feinc^

2ebcn. a alfo flab e^ einen erfule3 unb 3^ au ^^ t mtn
5(nea^ unb 2ld>ate3 ; cinen Drefte^ unb ^(MabeS, einen %&
feu unb ^iritbouS, einen 2)ak)ib unb Jonathan: mitbin eine

Cuelle be (^efiibl^ ber Jreimbfcftaft fiir ben clben, bie je^t 25

s
fiir ben bloften -Biir(3cr unb G5efellfcf>after bcinaF)e fcerfieflt ift.

^a alfo, ba floffen, n?enn ber Xob, tocnn ein Unflliicf bie trennte,

bie ba3 2eben ntcbt trennen fonnte, fo eble elbenrranen, trie

ber ."oelb 51dn(le urn feinen ^atro!lu ;

tuie ein ^3r)labe urn fei=

nen Drefte, trie ber .^oelb $>at>ib urn feinen S^natban ireinten. 3*

;Run laf^t bie 23elt u einer foldjen ^reunbfdbaft terfd>rt?in=

ben; bie 2lrt bc^ Seben mad)e nid;t mcf;r h?ei fold)e 3
 (Erftes IDalbdjen IV. 179

im Seben unb obe notig; ba3 Jyeierlicbe bei folcfyen 33erbin=

bungen laffe nacfy; ber 33eruf ber ^Jlenfcben 511 Slrbeiten, $u

2eben3arten fterbe fcerfcfjiebner unb glcicbfam unftater; ber

3uftanb ber Siirger unb Mtburc3er rufriojer; jeber fief) felbft

s

5 fein ott in ber 2Bclt too toirb al^bann ein ^riegsf)aufen

Don Stebbabern, toon mannlicbcn Wclicbtcn, ein bootifc^er

upos A.OXO? nod) ftattfinben? Xer Jrcunb tuirb ein $efcU=
fcf^after, unb ctn Xnncj fcin, ia^ man tuill, nur nirf>t,
\va$ er in
ber 3Bdt ber oelben, unb ber ^reunbfdmftbunbniffe
. e^ tt>ar,

10 mocfyte biefe ^clt iibri^en^ in Wriccfrcnlanb, ober Scf)otttanb,

ober 3(merifa leben. ^scrftopft alfo cine neuc Cuelle ju cl=
s
bentrdnen, meni^ften^ ift bag riibrenbftc ^ilb 5n?eier Jyreunbe

je^t ein ^abinettftitcf Mofe, unb nicbt mebr ein Srf>auf^iel ber

58elt, mie ef>cbem; unb fo anbcr3, al^ ^(cfnlle^, al .spelb, narf)

15 unfern 3citen fein miifttc, fo frenib ift fiir fie ,,bcr uin fcinen

n^eincnbe, unb bi^ 511111 Unfinn bctriibtc unb rafenbe

9Benn e eine ty\t unb ein 2anb c^ibt, ba bie Scbonbcit nocf)

mef;r ^atur, nocf? minber ^u^ unb

s
2rfnninfe, ba bie ^iebe
20 nod) n\d)t C^alanterie, unb bie mdnnlic^e GJabe 511 Befallen
etn?a^ mcf>r al^ 3lrti^feit ift, ba roirb aucb bie Gmpfinbunft,
bie Spradbe, unb felbft bie Xra ne ber Siebe TlUirbe baben, unb
felbft ba^ 2Iufle cinc^ .C^elben nicbt entebren. Jyreilid) trirb

biefer nicf>t,
toie ^poh^bem, ber Gr)flope ^beofritg, clc^ifieren;
25 aber gemifc nod) n^eniger mit bem s^biloftet be Gbateaubrun,
unb mit ben fcerliebten griec^ifrf^en >elben ber franjbfifdicn
53ii^>ne.
X)ie toabre Gmpfinbung, unb ein mannlicf)cr 2$ert

F^at feine 2Biirbe unb .^ofyeit, o^>ne biefe toon un^efjeuren 5fteta=

pbern, Don galanten 3Sortfpielen, ober toon artigen Seufjern

30 ju bor^en; unb aucb f)ier fei bie SiebeSfpracfye ber atten 5. (5.

fcfyottifcben .elben 53eifpiel. Sie fyanbeln al^ elben, unb

fufylen al^ ^enfcfjen.
180 Berber.

)a aber freilicf) feine (Smpfinbung fo a,ern bag ^eicfy ber

$I)antafie ju feinem Gkbiet fyaben mag, alg bie Siebe, fo fann

aud) fcine fo Ieicf>t toon ber 2Biirbe unb 38abrf)eit ab, unb in

^}F;antafterei unb 6picln?erf (rinein geraten, alg bicfe; unb

alfo, aug mancbcrlei UrfaaVn, jtoifcfrcn ber clbentrdne ber 5

iebe unb ber ^eracMung nur immcr ciu fdnnaler 9ianb.

Untcr alien mcnfd^lid^cn d^rarf>f>eiten,
beren fid) ein $elb
nicft fcfoamcn biirfte, ift biefe bic belifatcfte; unb bafe fie e^ fei,

fann ein grower Xrupp berliebtcr Romans unb Xbeaterbelben

betueifen. vuer inbeffen batten bic ^riednfd)en iditer eincn 10

^icmltdten unerfannten ^orteil, na tnlic^ ben 3u ^t 511 einem

iF;nen uationellen tcbe^reid>e boll febr poetifcbcr ^bantafien,

bie fie au3 mand^cr 3>crleflcnhctt reiftcn mufsten. ie iebc^=

bc^ebenbeitcn if;rer otter unb GJottinnen, ba^ ganje efolge

ber ^cnu, ber Wrajien unb 3lmor3, bunbcrt fd^one unb unter= 15

fyaltenbe Hnefboten au^ ber 9)h>tbolocu e ber 2iebe gaben i^rer

Sprade ber Siebe eine Siifiiiifcit, unb cine 3Biirbe, bie unfre

3cit nur 511 oft nad^a^mt, urn lac^erlid) ju luerben. 2$enn

in unfcrn Clc^ien unb Cben ber 3(mor mit fcincn ^fcilen urn-

F;crflattcrt, menu man ben (tyriedjen unb 9iomern eine ^anje 20

^omenflatur bon Siebe^au^brucfen ab$eborctf bat, unb

s
bicfe
enblid^ focjar in Sricfe ^Rann^crfonen au3frfnittet,
n)ifcben

fo bcrliert fid) bag Spicier! bon ber 2Burbe, icb rtjiU nicbt
fac^en, eincr ^clbenfeele, fonbcrn nur beg c^efunben ^erftanbeg
ttbUifl ab, unb tt>irb
faber Unfinn. Dbcr h)enn enblid) ^ar ber 25
flotifde Xon ber Sicbe aug ben mittlern 3ctten ber fitter unb
3Hcfen mit ber unfrcr 3^itcn in cing jufammcns
fiiften 3(rti^!cit

flief^t, fo toirb algbann ber berjbrecbcnbe ^arcntfnufug, bic

toeinerltdbe (^alanterie baraug, toon ber, fiirtnabr, ein gried)i=

fcbcr elb, mit aller feincr mpfinbbarfeit fur bie Scfytoad)- 3

beiten menfcblid?er 9?atur, ebenfotiel n^uf^te, alg ber voeife

Sofrateg toon ber ftlofterfyeiligteit ber Mapujiner.
 (vftes IDatodjen IV. 181

ttberfyaupt, ba bie Scene be menfcb(id)en eben3 nod) mefyr

in3 offene 2lua,e ftel, ba bie efd;afte ber 2Mt nod; nid;t fo
fcernnofelt unb fein, abet urn fo berbienftboller fiir bie 9J?enfd);

fyeit fein mocbten; ba bie 9?ubarfeit unb efcbirflidtfeit unb

5 ugenb nocb nid;t in fo frummen Sinien 511 bered)nen, fonbern
ba 309 ba3 5flenfd?en0efufyl and; bie
tnenfcblid; tear:

noc^ mef;r jufammcn; unb bie GJrnbcr ber (^uten be^

forbevten bie Xttiiie be^ elbcn. infad^er unb mef;r
Slugenfcftcin n)ar Seben be^ anbern, unb feine
ba
10 unb ^erbienfte and) alfo trcffcnbcr an ba^ .^Serj; benn ein

ein Staat3fliu}er, ein Sscrbienftboller, ein 2^eifer, fotoie if;n

bie alte 3^it forberte, unb bilbete, fonnte bod^ eber eine m e n f d;=
lid;e ^rane l^erDorlocfen, al3 j. G. ein (General nad; ber ^Taftif,

ein ^DUnifter, ein Cfilnlift, ein Sitterator ber neuern 21 elt, menu
15 er mdhtS al^ biefe^ ift; benn bei bein 3serluft aller feiner We=
fd)irflic()feiten unb ^itflcnbcn finb bie toeniflftcn in en fd) I
id),

unb n)a ift imftanbe, menfc^Iid)c mpfinbungen vi errec^en, (

al^ s
3JJenfd>f;eit.
^o bleiben mm bie Stamen obne 7aten,

bie ^angfteKen of;ne iuirl licf^c 5?erbienfte, bie Semii^ungcn

20 unb ^Imter unfrcr 3cit obne Wcift unb eben, bie ^leli^ionen
obne menfd>lid>e ^ugenb lr>o bleiben alle famtlid^e c^etebrten,

reid)en, bornebmen, anbadrticjen barren unfrer biirv-\erlid>en

unb feinen unb anerd)riftlid^ften ^elt, finb bie tt>obl einer

men f d) I i d) e n Sirane toert ?

25 nblid>,
al^ man ben toabren GJebraud) be^ menfd^lid^en
Seben^, unb ber (^Uirffeli^feit melleid^t beffer, ob^leid) nid;t
au^ ^]rebi$ten unb JRoralen, fannte, unb ba3 Scben mef;r ge=
nofe, unb menfd)licber anmanbte, natiirlid) Vraren ba audj bie
bittern 3 u f^^^ ^ Seben^ rii^rcnbcr. ^er 2:ob eineS 3 un 3 ;
30 linked, ber fein eben nicbt (^enoffen, ber in ber 33lu te feiner

^a^re bafn nfallt, n)ie ein junger fd>oner ^appelbaum ein

folder Jail ift bei omer bie 3]cranlaffung gu ^Bilbern, bie

182 Berber.

and; in bem elbenauge eine $arte ^rane bcr

ertoecten fonnen, nxil fie menfcftlid) finb; unb id) faiirbe

taunt eine a,ute ^bw Don bcm iJungUnge faffen, ben bei Corner
biefe 5Mlbcr nid)t riibrtcn. (Sine ebenfo $arte (Smpfinbuncj
errcflt ber ob eineS slRanne3, ber fein Seben nur balb ftebraucfyt, 5

ber jj. @. toie ber $rotefUaud .sSontcr^ ^albgecnbigte ^Salafte

ber *^rad;t, balb UoIIenbete @nt^iirfc be^ mannlichcn Stolje^

nac^Iie^ ber fid) 9lnlac\cn unb (^efcfncftid)feiten umfcmft er=

tDorben, ben Xiana tocrc^cben^ ja^en, unb ^Sallaf umfonft

frtcflen c\clcf)rt: riibrenbc ^tlbcr au^ einer menfd^lid>en l^elt s
;
10

in bie un3 Bonier fo (^ern uerfe^t, unb in ber freiltcf>

bte .^Selben

leben miiffen, bie ,,an Xaten ben (^ottern, unb an (mpfinbun$en

S
ben 3)icnfrf)cn iilcid) finb."

3d; fann mcinc "33?aterie nicbt DoHcnbcn; allein sufammen-

flcnommcn bicfe Gin^elkiten, n?irb man ein 3eitalter ^en^abr, 15
S
ba bte .\xlben, fo U)cit fie iibcr bie menfrftftcbe 3?atur erboben

fein moflcn, bod) in bem Wcfiihlc ber ^Betriibni^, unb in ber

^ufserung berfelben burd; ^rancn, bcrfelben treu bleiben,

treuer bleiben, al^ U)ir, bei benen bie fanfte OJcfuM entroeber
erfticft, ober in eine tuctbifd^c Uppigfeit um^efd^moljen Votrb. 20

3uriicf atfo in biefc 2BeIt fe^e id^ mid^, h>cnn

id) bie elben

omcr unb bie ftricdufcben Xra^obien nut flanker Seele

fiiblen u^ill; adetn auf (^riecbenlanb mocbte id; bie efitbl

nid;t etnfd^rdnfcn; benn U3of;in ba^ befd)riebene menfcf)lidhe

^eitalter trifft, ba and) bie (5Meicf>(\cmid)t jn)ifd>en STapferfeit 25

unb mpfinbung; unb bic, biinft mid), ift iiberall ba^ Qe\t*
alter jvoifd^en ber ^arbarei eine Ssolf^, unb jUJtfcBen ber

ftafmien oitt(id)feit, bcm f;oflid)en Scbein, in bem fair leben.

3n btefem ftirbt auf flemiffe 5(rt ^atcrlanb, @be, Wefd)lecf)t /

^reunb unb
S
3)lenfc^ ab, unb mitf;in erftirbt aud) f;ierum ba^ 30

(^efitbl, unb bie $lu$erung berfelben, bie ^rane.

Slber bie mpfinbung be^ forperlicben Sd^merje^ fann bie
 rftes H)al6d?cn IV. 183

fid) anbcrn? Gin Scf>la$ bleibt ein Sd)lag, 3$unbe bleibt

23unbe, einc Dfyrfeige etne Dfyrfeige, uub toirb e, folan$e bte
2Beltftefyt, bleiben. @ ift alfo nicbt ber namlid)e gall biefer
mit ben borigen @mpfinbun0en, unb unfer toeid)lid)er $u*
5 ftanb f;at melmefyr ba^ (33efiif)I ber Scftmer^en unenbltcf), unb
oft jum 2Beibifd;en erfydM. .C^icrnacf) mufi c^ alfo umgefefyrt
fein, ba&, n^enn ein Qriednfrf>er Xhcfeu^, Mcrfule
einen Sd^merj, eine 2Sunbc einmal fiiblt, fo miiftte ein

unfrer ^eit if>n

fiebenfarf) fiiblen, unb menu alfo ,,ba3 crf^reien
;o ber natiirlicfyc 2lu^brud( be^ forperlicf)en Sd)mer$e$, ba o 9fed>t

ber leibcnben 9?atur, ein G^arafterjug gried^ifd^er .C^clbcn fein

foil/ fo fol^t, ba|X toenn jcner ctnnial, ber unfrc bet fiebenfad)

^efti^erer Ginpfinbun^ and; fiebenfacb ftdrfer fd>reien biirfte

unb follte, urn ein .\Selb be^ joiner ju fein.

15 2Bie follte e benn nun flefommen fein, baf, ^ir feinern

x

uropaer einer flii^ern Sc ad>melt ivlernt baben, iiber unfern

5)?unb unb 2luc\en 511 berrfdnMi, unb \m$ alfo fo flraufam ba
^riuile^iuni ber leibenben 92atur l>erfa^t
baben"? 3i>enn

tt)ir bic (5mV*finbun^en fiir ^aterlanb, Areunb, Wefd^led>t,

20 5Henfd>beit
unb H)a3 fei, initbin unter biefen (Smpfinbungen
ba^ meicbe Wefiibl be3 Sd>nierje^ bariiber i^erloren, unb ben

SSerluft, ben ^iaiu^cl berfelben mit 5(nftanb unb 5(rti^!eit

iiberbedt baben, fo la j^t fid>

ba erfla ren. 3iun aber foil un
am forpcrltdn^n d>mcrj
ein c\ro|Vrer Wrab i>on
dmpfinbung
25 beiioobnen, unb bod) ft>enio\er, unenblid) menic^er 5Ked)te ber
leibenben S^atur? Ja nod) baju, n)a^3 bei ben ,s3elben^riecf)en /

Dei minbcrm 2(nla)fe be^ WcfiiWS, Gbre, ober U)enic\ften^ er=

laubt \vxnc, follte bei un^ $$eid)lid)cn 3d)anbc, unb burd) ben
2lnftanb, ber bod; tDenigften^ ben Sd)ein ber Starfe gebeu
30 foil, fcerboten fein? unb jtuar al ein 3 e ^? en ^ er S^Dad)e
berboten?
Unb bie iua re je bei ben (^riecben ein (5f;arafter5UQ ome-
184 Berber.

rifd;er elben getoefen? So fenne id; mcincn .joiner nicbt; fo

1
iwll id; nicM meine riecfyen fenncn. 3$enn ein Agamemnon
in ber Skrfammluncj iiber ben SBcrluft bcr $ried;en, an bem
er burd; ben 3anf m^ SlcfyilleS fcbulb uwr, toeint, fo liebe icfy

feine fbnifllicfren ^dbren; fie flieften fitr Hinber; fie erleicbtern 5

in ifyrem Strome, ben Corner tnit einem SBacfye Ucrc\leicf^cn

!ann, fein traurifle^ baterlid)e3 ^ cr 5 bicfer Agamemnon aber

Dei feiner SscttDUHbuncj fcfireie unb f;eule mtr nicf)t. 9Benn
5(cf)i(Ie5, Horn Slflainctnnon offcntlid) belcibi^t, feine (^f)rc
2
fiiMt, unb Dor feiner 5)hitter Xbeti^ ^eint, fo febe icf) feine 10

rnbinliebenben Xrdnen $wi; id; tueine mit, mit bcm junc\en

clbcn; aber bei einer 2Scrn)unbung ^ucine unb fd)reie er nicf>t,

fonft ift er 3ldnlle3 nicfit mef;r. Urn feinen Jyreunb ^>atro!Iu

3
F)eule unb dd>5e
unb traure cr; icf)
fiiMe feine Xrdnen unb fein
.
oerj; id; nnirbe ihn nicf^t tterehren, n^enn er ein ftoifd^er 15
4
iuare; fo feuf^e Agamemnon i tber feinen berRntnbeten

58ruber, unb ^rtainu^ iiber feinen erfd;Ia^enen Sofw bas ; finb

^eiben ber Scele, unb eblc ^rancn, mit benen ja ba^ 6kfcf)rei
unb ba3 SScincn iiber eine 38unbe nid;t in ^er^leicf> fonimt.
Reiner Don ben .s^elben .^omcr^ fdreit unb ^ueint iiber fo ettoa^ 20

unb follte c lohnen, ben c^an^en omer 511 (inborn, bamit ber
effin(^fd;e Sai^ uxibr lrerbe :
,r
So ^eit aucf>
Corner fonft feine
elben iiber bio menfd;lid;e S^atur erbebt, fo treu bfeiben fie

i^r bod; ftet, h)enn e auf ba WefuH ber Scfnnerjen, iuenn

e3 auf bie Au^erunc; biefe^ $efitf;Is>

burd) Sd^reien, ober burdf) 25
5
Xranen anfommt"? %d) modte, err Seffin^ bdtte bie^

nid;t $efd;rieben.
1 2
Iliad. I, 13-15. Iliad. A, 349, 357, 360, etc.
5 Iliad. etc. 4 Iliad.
2, 22, etc., *, 17, A, 148.
5
2dOf., pag. 28.
 (rftcs IDalbcfyen V, 185

V.

!Der grofte SBincfelmann fyat un bie fcfyone griedjnfcfye

fo meifterfyaft gejeigt, baft toofyl feiner, al3 ein Untoiffenber

unb Jiifyllofer, e3 leugnen toirb, ,,il)r .fcauptgefelj in ber bilben=
ben $unft fei 8d?onbeit getoefen." $)e3ungead?tet biin!t mid)
5 nod) bie erfte Quelle mit einigen if)rer 3(bern unentbedft:
rtjarum bie @ried^en in 33itbung be^ Scftonen fo fyotfy ge!om*
s
men, urn alien -85Ifern ber @rbe bierin ben abjnlaufen?
^prei^
1
err Seeing gtbt aurf; ein Supplement bagu, ba er un^ ben
riecfyen, im C^egenfa^ mit bem ^nnftgefcbmacf unferer $t\t,
10 al3 etnen ^iinftler jeigt, ber ber Jlunft nut enge renjcn ge^
fe^t, unb fie blofj auf bie 9?aefyal)mung frf)5ner 5lorper einge=

fcfjrdnft: Jcin .H itnftler fdnlbertc nicbtS, aly ba^ Scftonc."

9iid^, al3 ba^ 3rf)bne? ^un ja! mcin Scfcr, icb babe bie

njetfen rinnerungen unb Ginfdnanhmgen gelefen, bie man

15 toiber biefen Sefftngfcfyen Sa^ febr gelebrt aufgetuorfen ;
allein

man mu^ Seffing erft Derftefyen, ebe man ibn \uiberlegt.

!jd) berftef;e iljn fo: e^ fei bei ben C^riecl)en fein berrfcfyenber,

fein auptgefc^mavf getuefen, ba^ erfte befte $u fcbilbern

unb u btlben, um blojs burrf) bie *:Rad)al)mung 2Bert ^u
s
20 erfyalten, blofi burcf) Jll;nlirf;feit fic^ al3 ^liinftler ju ^ig^n;
fonbern fn er babe if)r (5Jefrf)tnac! ba^ Scfyone jum oauptgegen- .

ftanbe gemacf^t, um nicbt blof? mit leibigen ftefcbicflicbfeiten ju

pral;len. Unb in biefem SSerftanbe bleiben folgenbe 53eftim=

mungen ja toon felbft eingefcbloffen.
35 3)ie beften 3 cu ^ eri cinc^ fyerrfcbenben (35efcbmacf^ finb bie

offentlidjjen .ftunfttoerfe, bie 3(norbnungen ber Dbrig=

!eit; unb ba err Seffing aucfy Dor^iiglid) auf biefe gefel)en, fo
2
lefyrt man if;n ja nid;t3 9ieue^, tvenn man fid; toernefymen la^t:
W 2)er grted;ifd;e ^iinftler fdnlberte nid)t, al^ ba Sd;bne"
-
1 3
2aof., p. 31, ff . v. Sftofy, @efd)id)te ber SWunjen, pp. 41, 42.
186 Berber.

,,@ntgegengefete 3u0mffe ber Gd)rtftftcUer unb

bcr 3lunftler 6 e ft i mm en mid), biefer 33eobacbtung engere
renjen ju feen, unb fie blojj anf offentltdbc enhnaler ein=

$ufd)ranf en."
gd; benfe, bajs bag errn Seffingg erfte
Duelle getoefen, unb er fud;t ja meUetcfyt Slnorbnungen, ft>o=
5
3
felbft !eine finb.
Urn Don einem berrfd)enben ^3efdbmacfe 511 urteilen, ne^me
man ferner nicfrt ^empelnjerfe, n)o 9icliflion bie au^tabfirf)t

gett)efen, obcr ber Wcfdhmacf ber ^Jeliiiion nid)t (jeanbert tuevben

4
fonnte. .S~>err 2 effing macbt fid) biefe infd^ranhing felbft, unb 10

fie ift ^, bie feinen Sat> fo milbert, baJ5, id; Qeftefye eg, er freilid^
burd) ibn fo i)iel ober fo toenifl bcbcuten fann, al^ er n>UL

Urn enblic^ Uom bevrfd^enben (^efdnnacfe 511 urteilen, nef^me

man freilicf) nicbt alte fyittn flleicb, fonbern bie, ba ber $e=
fd)tnacf fd>on au^ebilbct, ba er burcb fcine .Slafojelic berborben 15

erfd>eint;
im erften JyaK ift nod; fein Wefet^ geflebcn, im j^eiten
3 c ^ fln
s
ift ^ eine i5
unter bie ^Ranf c\cbrad)t, be^wcgen aber
nocf) immer Sanbe^efet^. Unb nad) biefen 33eftimmun0eti
!ann Scffin^ allerbtmy3 feftfetjen: ,,ba^ bet ben 3Uten bie
6cf?6n(;eit bag I;ocf)fte Wefeh ber bilbenben ^iinfte getrefen." 20

3U(ein bei tveld^en 3llten? feit toann? n)ie lange? iueld^e

Unter=, n)eld;e Diebengefe^e ? Unb toober ift g bei ben GJricdbcn

fo borjuglid), Dor alien 9?ationen, fyod>fte$ Wefe^ ge^orben?

SInbre h3td>tiflc Svracjen, ^o bei ber le^ten mir SBincfdmaim

felbft faum eine $enit$e tut. 25

err 2 effing fommt auf jn)ei Sttuationen, bie ^ierin ein=

fc^lagen: ,,ba& bet ben 9llten auc^ bie Aiinfte bitrgerlidj>en

&t-

fe^en untertDorfen getDefen, unb Voag bie bilbenben 5lunfte

auf ben S^arafter etner Station nnrten fonnen/

p. 32. 2)a efet^ bcr X^ebancr, ci? TO x"P
ov

4 s
ff.
?aof., p. 74. Jaof., p. 33,
 (Erftcs IDalbdjen V. 187

iiber beibe3 fonnte cr ficb nur im 3Sorbeia,eben erfldren. ($3

muft au3 Gkiinben bera.eleitet roerben !bnnen: iuie bet ben

GJriecfyen Gkfee iiber bie ^lunft nicbt Moft, toietoeit e3 crr

Seffing nimrnt, erlaubt, fonbern nbtt$ getoefen; ft>ie bet ibnen

5 $unft unb ^oefie unb ^iufif tr>eit ntehr sum SBefentKcfyen be

6taat^ flcftbvt al*o jel^t; f;al>c,
tuie ber 6taat alfo nirf^t ofne
fte, al3 feinc bamaligctt ^Triebfcbcrn, nub fie ntd)t obtte 6taat
^aben fetn fomten; mie alfo bie 3^irhnu^ bcr 9cation auf bie

Stunft, unb ber Munft auf bie Station nicftt blcf^ ph^fifcb unb
10 pfycftoloflifcfv fonbern grofjentettS ^olitifdf gciwcfcn;
aud> a>ie

bei ben Wriccf cn alfo any fo mandjen llrfarf^cn, unb nirf^t Wof3

iF;re^3 9tationalrf)arafter^, fonbern and) ibrer Grjiebun^, 2c6cn^

art, bc (^rabe ibrer ilultur, tbrer 3Je(i^ion unb ibre3 taat3

tte^en, bie SUbun^ bcr ccbbnbcit mebr (5 inbri ufe baben fbnnen,
15 unb mebr Ginbriicfe babe anncbmen miijfen. Gin tvid[>tic\cS

problem, 511 beffen 2luflofung mebr, al3 eini^e Aenntni^ bcr

(^riecf>cn Don bcr Cberfldcfrc ber c\cr>brt. llnfcrn ^cloobnlicf^cn
Graeculis alfo, bie je^t nad; bem ^tobe^cfcbmade Don ntcbtS

fo gern, at^3 Don ftunft, Don SdK>nbeit ber (^ricd^cn f^redKit,

20 ift ein Wcbanfe bicran fo u^cni^ cin^ef alien, baft fie a((c3

gtaubcn crftdrt 511 babcn, u>enn

fie Don nid>t, al einer ^c*

tutffeu feinen fcfyonen mpfinbung ber (^ricd>en

fiir bie ,V\unft,

unb fiir bie Sd^onbeit, fdnuaUcn; Don cincr (S mpfinbunc\, bie

fte gefyabt, bie Corner nicbt flebabt, unb bie jetU in unfern
25 beutfcben Stcuflriecften toicbcr auflcbe.
!I)od) nicf)t 511 iucit Dom SaoToon. Ti>entt bei ben (Mriccbcn
6d;onbeit ba^3 F;bd)fte Wefcfc ber .Uunft ioar, fo muftten c\e\ralt=

fame Stellungen, I;dftlid)e ^crjcrrungen Dom 5liinftlcr ent=

6
(Sin ^cograntnt be ? i^nt. ^rof. ^eijne, de caussis fabularum seu
1

mythorum veterum physicis, l)at llltv lllt tjr eitiiiie iK^i111 ^ n ^ ^ 8 ail S e

^l)ttofopl)ie bc Sanier; tine itberfjaupt biefer unirbii]e Jt enner bcr

Wteu Don fciuen viedjeu bad <2d)U)erfte getevut :
[tille vofje, nt()tgc

, aiid) im i>ortrage
unb
188 Berber.

toeber cjemieben, ober fyerabgefettf toerben; unb Seffing cu bt

batten bie beften (Sjempel. 3 n ^ e ff en fy
a* er S&ibcrtyrucfy ge=
7
funben, unb ciner feiner 2Biberfpred)er ift, toenn er jet einen
Stein finbet, ber bafiir, jet einen, ber batoiber 511 fein fcfyeint,
and) tin 2Becfyfelfie6er balb fitr, balb a,egen ^ en Sat}, baft ber 5

geneiflte Sefcr cnblirf; nicfyt it)eiJ3, h)ie iF)m ift. Db fid; F)ier

nid)t ein fefter Jabeu gie^en lief^e?

3uerft alfo: ber nu>tf)ifcf)c ftirftl ber alien GJriedjen mar

oF>ne
38iberfv>md>
ber cf)bn^)eit gebilbet; if;re (Hotter unb
Wottinnen maren a^ptifd^en, aHe^orifdbe Un=
nicht, n)ie bie 10

nocft, mie bie perftfchen unb inbifcftcn, beinabe obnc

;

nod), UMC bie etrurifd^en, traurigc unb unanftanbi^e

5?icjurcn; fonbern an 33tlbunfl rei^enb bem 3(uc\e. Jn ber

i^anjen 3^atur ber T>itu^c fanben bie (^riedben feine beffere

SBorftcttung ber c^bttlicben 9tatur, mie eine^ Jnbegriff^ ber 15

^ollfomntenbcitcn, a(3 bie inenfd^licbe Weftalt; unb toieberum,

^oelcftcl ju be^eifen toare, feine ber (Mottbeiten n?ar fo cbarafs
terifiert, baf3 fie immer fyaftlid) l;attc c^ebilbet Voerben miiffcn,
nut ba^ ju fein, \va$ fie fein folltc. Xie Wotterbec^riffe ber
Wried>en maren tton 1)icf)tern beftimmt, unb biefe T)icfHer ttaren 20

id)ter ber Sd>5nf)eit.

!Die (yriecfyen batten j. G. einen gupitcr, ber fretlid^ nid)t

immer /xaAi xio?, ber aud>

oft ber 3ornige, ber (?Jrimmige h?ar;
unb ber id)tcr fonntc ibn feinem 3^ ec^ e 9^ m iifi fdnlbern.
S
18ie aber ber .^iinftler? 2Ser h)iH benn immer a,ern einen 25

gorni^cn Jupiter feben, ba fein $otn bod) mit bem Un^eiDitter

ttoritbcr^cbt? 2Ba alfo natiirlidber, al baf^ er $u bem
n 5(nblicfe feine ^unftftucfe^ ben 3(nblicf eincr fd)onen
lieber mablte, unb ifym nur boben @rnft in fein GfeficM

fd;uf? ^un !ann e freilid), unb infonberf;eit in ber altern 30

7
&io%, Act. litt., cf. mit ber efd). ber aJiungen unb bieje mit
ber ti)
r i f t ii b e r bie gefdjnittenen t e i n e.
 rftes IDafodjcn V. 189

, and) 2lbbilbuna,en be 3 orn ^ Q^oeben fyaben;

allein, toaS tut bie? 3)er auptbegriff bet 3 u Pi* er Wtft /

tt>enn er ben Conner fairft, blcibt bod) fyofyer Gmtft, fcfyone

rofte, bie3 ift feinc bleibenbe C^eftalt, jcne gebt boriiber.

5 SSenuS, menu fie urn ben 2lboni3 traucrt, raft bet 33ion

fiirdjterlid) ; and? 3 uno ^ aun ^niflHc^ janfcn, unb

tapfer jiirncn alletn ift bicfe 9faferet, bie^ janfifd;e

fid)t, biefer ,3ont tm 2(ntli^e benn tuoW ibre beftanbige

il;r uotmenbujer S^araftcrjug ? 9?icf>t! er ift borii&ergefyenb,

10 er ift eine Dorbei^iebcttbc 3Bolfc. 9iuu foil ber ilihtftler 5>enu^ ;

5lpollo, IJuno bilben; will er nicfU Unfinn, ober (Sigenfinn be=

ireifen, fo toirb er bie ^icue nebntcn, bie $scnu3, 3(poUo, 3 un

ei^en ift, in ber fie firfi &etflen tuiirbcn, tucnn fie if;nt jur 33ilbuug
crfcf;tcncn; unb bie^ ift eine (9cftalt ber Srf)5itbett.

15 X)ocf) immer aber.gab c3 ja ami) tin nuuhifdien ^irfel ber

ried^en ^i^urcn, bencn bie .sSaftlicbfett ein Gbarafter^iu^

3. @. ^Rebufenfopfc, 53accf;antcn, Wtaantcn, Silcnen, JV

s
u.f.m. ^Diebufa v3e(;e Dorau3, benn ^al(a^ trci^t fie auf if;rcm
s
mad;tic\cn Scf)ilbe. 3Jiebufa, ift fie cine (3eftalt, bie nottuenbifl

20 ^cifilicf) c^cbilbet mcrbcn muf3, bon ber man nur eine Okftalt
tDiifUe, bie im bixftftcn Grabe fiircf)terlid>e
? 2)te fo biel itber

bie f)immlifrf)c 3Mlbuitfl ber IKebufa, al bon einem !Jcf) meijs

8
\\idjt, marum? unb einer ^araboric rcbcn, foUcn ujiffcn, bafs

DJebufen biefe 33ilbun(^ ei^entiunlicb, baft fie eine ^(ei^enbc

25 getoefen, bie ^Jteptun jur icbc beme^t, unb bariiber bon ber
jungfrauttcfyen ^inerba bermanbclt morben. 9 9iun foUte fie

ber .Sviutftler bilben; ^nxi Weftalten lac^cn bor iljm unb er maf;lte

bie fcfyone bor iE;rer SSermanbluit^ ;

aber urn fie al 9J?ebufa
ju beseicfynen, flocf)t er Scbtangcn in ifyre aare.

8
.S lofe, cfd). ber 9Wihr,en, pp. 46, 47.
9
^cufcuta cr^a()It i^re @cfd)td)tc nod) bequemer fitr bie

v. Corinth. II, c. 21,

 190 Berber.

Urn Sdjlangen $u erflaren, yweifc id) ba fetnen anbern

biefe

SHitdhwcg, ba befonbere Wefufyl bcr

al3 mid) ,,auf
ried)en
unb Corner fiir bie Scblangcn" 511 berufen? 10 Gin befonberer
9Ippctit, bcr bier aber nid)t3 erflart. Gine fd)one 9J?ebufa
obne EcMangcn Vware nid^t mebr fcnntlid), nicfyt mefyr 9)?ebufa 5
- cin blof^ fd^oncg (^cfirfit c^cmefcn; fo unb ang fcinem Sc^lan=
flcnappetit tnufUc alfo bcr Miinftlcr bicfcn Cbaraftcr^ug
braudn n. Unb marum folltc cr ^3 nid>t? 2^cnn er bie Sd;Ian=
^en in bie ftaare tocrftecft, fo fonnen fie ^icrcn; unb \va$ an
ibncn bcrtorblicft, ift basj a>a^ .^a yicf>c^? d;recflid; unb 10

nicf^t baf^Iid>;
abcr bie^ SducrflidK c^cma^i^t, mil einem fcf)5nen
5(ntlil3c fontrafticrt, ift an^cncbm; c^ c^r>cdt ben ^egriff be3
HufKrorbcntlidicn, l>on bcr Wa&t bcr Wbttin, ift alfo F;ier alg

C5baraftcr,ui^ notifl, unb 511111 inclfaffcnbcn (Jinbrucfe tauglid):

e^ erbebt bie d>5nbcit.
9Jicbufa alfo burfte nid)t nottrenbig 15

ein ^ilb bcr VKiftlid>feit fein.

Unb bie Jyuricn cbcnfomenig. !Die Gf^rmurbigen, fo
nanntcn bie 2(tbcnienfer fie, unb fo tonnten fie bie ^Uinftler
1
bilfcen: ^ucbcr an ibrcn ^ilbnifjcn/ fac\t ^aufania^/ ,,tiocfi an

ben 5(bbilbungcn bcr untcrirbifd^cn (hotter, bie int 3lrco^agul 20

fteben, ift it)a^ giirc^terlic^eg ittabr^uncbntcn." Unb itenn

nicbt an ben Jurien, an ben eigentlicben ^)facf)= unb ^Iage=
flottinncn; iwcnu nicf)t an ben untcrirbifd^cn Wottern; njenn
nicf)t fclbft int 9lrcopacui, bcm crnftbaftcften Drte ^u 2U^cn

two unb an mclcbcn ^ilbungen batte bcnn ba3 Wreulicbe ber 25

rafter fein muff en?

,C>auptcha

3d; barf alfo bcbaupten, bafs alle nn>tbifdKn Jyigurcn be

bie al^ auptfiguren, ein^eln, il;rem inncrn unb be=

ber 2Kiin^, p. 47- &$ ift tuaf)r, ba

iiber biefen ^itnft ebenfo uerfd)ieben Don bent @efiil)l ber rtedjen unb
Dtbmer aid oon ber (Smpfiubung be^ ^auuibalen" u.
ift, f. w.
11
In Attic. I, c. 28.
 rftcs H)albcf)en V. 191

ftfinbigcn Gfyarafter Qcmafj, fyaben erfcfyeinen follen, bag

3Biberlid)e unb 0raf5ltii)c nie $ur notn>enbi$en 33ilbun$ fyaben
12
burften. auf ben ScMaf
elbft big benXob erftrecft unt>

fid) bieg, bie bcibc alg ftnaben in ben Airmen ber 9?acbt rubenb

5 borgeftellt ttmrben, unb fogar big auf bie [;dl(ifd)en otter -

fcboneg 5 e^ i)DU Sorftcnunflcu fiir ben ftiinftler, bcm atfo

feine ^Keti^ion eg lucnigftcnS nicbt auftegte, ^ur dbanbe beg

efcbmacfg, unb jum Gfel ber Gmpfinbuno; arbeiten ^u miiffen.

2)a vuaren feine 33ilber beg 3(bfcf>eueg,
\mt in ber [fanbinam=
10
frfjen unb anbern norbifcf>cn ^eli^ioncn; fcine
ftcllimgcn, \v\t in ben ^Mfioloflieu ber bcibnifcben

Idnber; fein ^nodfjenmann, ber ben ^ob, fein Ungefyeuer, bag

ben ^eufcl toorftcllcu foHtc, line nacf> ben Jbolen unfereg

^]5bclg; unter alien Solfcru ber C^rbe baben bie (yriccftcn, Voag
15 ben finnlichcu, ben bilbfamen 2eil ber ^Keli^ion anbctrifft, bie

befte 9Jh)tI)oIogie gcbabt, felbft bie Holonien ibrer Sieli^ion

nirf;t aug^cnomnten.
3*tciteng: bocb aber i^ab eg ja fo banfi^e 3>orfteUun^garten,

Situationen, unb efd^id^ten ibrer ^{cliflioit, bie immer auc^)

20 ben $iin[tlcr
fiir miberlicf^e Weftaltcn lieferti muftten, U)enn
nicbt alg au^ts fo alg ^ebenibeen: nne nun? 3Ilg 9?eben=

ibeen freilicf^ unb eine ^h^tbolo^ie, bie nicbtg alg eftalten in

feli^cr 9iube licferte, toare fiir ben ^icfitcr oie^nifi eine tote,

einformi^e 2Rt)tf>ologie c\e^efen, unb bdttc feine ried>en an

25 ^focfte beriiorbriiu3en fonnen. Wcnug abcr, ba^ bicg 9?eben=

ibeen, unter^corbncte ^Bc^riffe, iuanbclbare 58orftetlun(^en

Voarcn; bei fold^en befanb fid; ber 2)icbter red)t U)oF;l unb ber
^iinftler and) nod; fo unbcquem nicbt.

@in 3 u ^^ er 5- Gv ber bie GHganten unter feincm SBagcn

30 ^>at,
fann unb foil auf fie, alg auf Uuflcbeuer, alg auf faibrige

eftaltcn feinen 53li^ fcf^leubern; aber bicfe Gkftalten finb ja

12
?aof v p. 84, 2tnm.
192

nid;t ber >auptanbltrf; fie [tub mit ifyrem G)raf3lid)cn bem

Qupitcr untergeorbnet, unb alfo ba, ba3 9)tajeftdtifd;e in if;m

ju bermebrcn; nid)t alfo toibcr baS .sjanptgefe^ ber &unft.

(Sin fcbbner 33acdni3 unter tautnclnbcn iNanaben, unb au&
gelaffcnen mit ^auSbacfcn blafcnben 33acd;anten, untcr 5

3ilcncn unb atv>rn,

tutrb um bcfto bcrrlicfrcr unb frf^oncr

erfrf>eincn.
Xie furcfyterlicfyc i)icbufa auf bent ^ruftharnifcf)e
bcr ^3aUa3 mirb bie mdnnlirfje Schonfyeit if;rer Wottin norf;
mehr erbcbcn; benn bier ift fie nicM .sSauv>tfi^ur, fonbern ^icrat
bcr .sUcibiuuj. *So ^pcrfeu^ mit fciner or go; SBulfanuS, bcr 10

.sSinfenbc, mitten im Saale bcr Hotter; fo Gerbern3 unter ben

Jvitf^en bc3 majeftdtifcf>en ^luto iDie mandbe3 papier ir>dre

mit @inn?enbungen gefchont, iucnn man bcbacf^t ^atte, baf^

in eincr ^lompofition toon gtcuircn auf cine 3lebengcftalt ja

nicf^t ba auptgcfc^ fallen fbnne, obnc ba^ &an$t 511 i>cr=

15

berben.
^rittcn^: n?a^ icb Don ben griecfyifcfycn Wottcru flcfagt, gilt
aucb i>on ibrcn .sjelbcn. 2Bcber ibre $eroen, nod; mcnfd)licf>e

elbcn I)aben ju il;rem .sSaupt^ugc cine Mloftcrfyeiligfcit, cine

berjiicfte 3lnbad>t / cine buftfertige ^cr5errung, ober eine fid; 20

toegiuerfenbc ^Dcmut. 5lllein alfo, fiir ficb fclbft gcnommcn,

S
laftt ber .s^elb F;ol)er Sdionbeit }>lat5, infonbcrbcit tr>enn cr al^

auptperfon feincr in
Jvaffung erfdncne. bleibcnbcn
Sc^t
aber auc^ in em 5)lebium bc^ .^inbcrniffc^; fcine Secle
i^>n

n)erbe toon 3 orn / bon Samrner, l^on ^ctriibni^ erfd>iittcrt; 25

freilid>
u>irb cr nicf>t ben ftoifcben 9Sctf en madden ;
aber bie

finblid;e 9?atur feiner 5JJenfc^^eit, trirb fie feiner fyofyern

n?ibcrfprecf)en biirfen?
 HMibdjen VI. 193
rfte5

VI.

erften Unterfdn eb $ft>ifd;en ^oefie unb ber bilbenben

1
5tunft furfrt Seffing in bem Slucjenblicfe ju ertappen, in
ben bie materiellen cf>ranfen ber Slunft aUe tt;re 9iacbaf;mun=
gen binben. Xiefer Slucjenbltcf alfo fbnnc iticfrt
frudbtbdt
5 gcnuvi fleiud Olt toerben, unb bann nur frucMbar, toenn er
fci

ber @inbilbung3fraft freien Waum Idfjt. So n?eit nun finb

fd)on a((e Munftrirf;ter gcfoinmcn, bie iiber bie GJrcngcn ber
iliinfte nacf>bad;tcn ;
abcr ber Wcbraurf, ben .fterr

mad)t, (jcbort ifnn. 3ft nainlirf) bie Munft an einen

10 blid gebunbcn, bleibt biefer 3(u^enblicf, fc nmble fie nidit ba^
oc^fte in einem Slffeft (fonft lucijj bie Ginbilbunflgfraft fcin

obere^) , fie briide and) ntd)t3 ^ranfitcrifcf^e^ an^; benn bie

^ranfitorifd^e luirb bnrd; fie fceretoiflt.

9^id;t^ binc^egen notice ben ^icbter, fein Ckmcilbe in eincn

15 Slucjcnblid 511 fonjentrieren. Qr nebmc jebe feiner ."oanblun^en,
iDcnn er \\>\[l,
bei ibrcm Urfprunc\c auf, unb fiibre fie burdi aUe

mdc^lid^en ^bdnberungen bi^ ju ibrer Gnbfcf^aft. Jebc biefer

2(bdnberun^en, bie bem ilitnftlcr ein c\angc befonbere^ Stiid

foften njiirbe, !ofte ibm einen einji^en 3U u -
f- lri - ^ flg
20 ^ennjeicben felbft ift, mie c\efa(^t, tdngft cmflCflebcn; .*oerr

Seffing mad>t aber bie^ an^cflcbnc Mennjeicf>en praftifd).

9^ic^t^ SBortibergetyenbeS alfo rodble bie Munft gum 2Iucjen=

2
blide if;re^ (^c^cnftanbe^. 2(ber U)a^ ift
benn ei^entlid;, toa3
in ber 9?atur nid;t tranfitorifd^ n?a in
if;r DbHig permanent

25 n)dre? 2Bir leben in einer 2Mt bon (frfc^einungen, too eine

auf bie anbre folgt, unb ein 2Iu$enblic? ben anbern bernid)tet;
alte^ in ber 2BeIt ift an ben Sliicjel ber $eit gebunben, unb 33e=

toegung, 2Ibrt?ec^fe(ung, 2Birfung ift bie Seete ber -ftatur.

5Retapf>r;fifc^ alfo bod) h)ir n?oUen ^ier nicf)t metapfytyfid) ;

1 8
P- 36, f.
P. 37, f .
194
Berber.

finnlicf) toollen n?ir rcben; unb im finnlicben 33erftanbe, nad) bet

(Srfc$emung unfrcr 3lugen, ajbt e3 ba nid)t unabldffige, bau=

ernbe GJecjenftanbe flcnufl, bie alfo bie .Slunft nacftabmcn foil?
KQerbingS, c3 cu bt folcbc; unb btc3 finb getmffermaften alle

JBrper, unb jtoar fofern fie $6rpcr finb. Dicfc, fo abtoed); 5

felnb ibre ^citfol^en unb 3^ftdnbc aucb fcin moc^cn, fo fcf>nc(l

ani) jebcr 5(uc\cnblicf ibrc^ Scin5 fie anberc, fo gebt er bocfy

nicbt unfern 5liu)cn Doriibcr; fiir btefe fann alfo ber

.Qunftler (Srfcbetnun^en liefern; er fcbilberc Morper, er abme

nncr) bie bleibenbe S^atur. 10

3Benn aber biefc bleibenbe 9?atur aucf) sufllcicf) tote Jfatur

mare? menu ba^ .Jntranfitorifcbe eine .Uorper^ eben toon

fciner Unbefeeltbeit jeu^te? lUl obann, bie^ bleibenbe 3^ ran =

fitorifcf^e be^ Wei^enftanbc^ $um 5hi^eninerfc bcr S^unft obne

Sinfcfyranfung ^emacf^t ma^ anber^, al^3 baf5 mit bicfem 15

(^runbfdi\ ber .Vlunft and) if)r bcftcr 3(u^bruc! c\enom=

men unirbc? Xenfe bir, mein Sefer, cincn feelenuollen 3hi^=
bru.f burcf) einen Morper, melcben bu molleft, unb er ift r>oriiber=
^e^enb. 3>
c mc ()r cr e ^ ne ntenfrf)licf)e cibenfcbaft

fiert, urn fo mebr bejeid^net er cinen beranberlidKU

ber menfd^lid)en 5?atur, unb urn fo mebr ^erf^alt er burcb bie

^erlan^erun^ bcr jRunft ein n)ibernatiirlicf)e^ 3lnfeben, ba^

mit jebcr miebcrboltcn Grblicfunc^ ben (Sinbrucf fc^^dcbt, unb
un^ enblid) toor bem ganjen (^e^enftanbe Gfel obcr rauen
berurfacr/t." 1)ie Ginbilbun^fraft babe nod) fo iMcl Spiel= 25

raum, nod) fo toiel 3^ U 0/ f mu ft f^ c ^ oc^ cnblirf) einmal an cine

cyrenje ftofeen, unb unmillig micber
jurudffommcn ja, je ;

fdfyneller fie gebt, je pragnanter ber gen)dblte 3Iuc^enblic! fci,

urn fo eF)er fommt fie $u $\tl. So gut al3 icf) ju einera lacbenben
2a ^Rettrie fac^en fann, n?enn icf) ifyn ^um britten^ biertenrnal 30

nod) lad)enb fel)e: bu bift ein ec!! fo gut faerbe icf) auc^ enblicf)

facjen fonnen: nun fo ge^e boc^ fort,

 (Erftcs IDalbdjcn VI. 195

ftebft bu? Unb fo bid Urfad)e id; F;abc, cinen fd)reienben,

eincn unablaffig fd;reienbcn Saofoou enblicf) unleiblid? 511

finbcn; fo bid Urfacfye tocrbe icf), nur ettoaS f pater, finben,

and) ben feufjenben aofoon iiberbriifftg 511 nxrbcn, toeil er

5 nod) immer fcufjt. Gnblid) alfo and) ben ftcbcubcn i aofoon,

bafc er immcrbin ftcbt, unb ficb nod) nid>t
flefcftt fat; enblicf)

aucf) eine ^iofe bon uvfum, bafs fie nod; Miibt, nocf) nicft ber=

meft ift; enblid) alfo jebe SJadmbmun^ ber Scatur burcf) .Vhmft.

3n ber 9?atur ift at(c^ boriiberge^enb, Setbcnfc^aft ber Sede

10 nnb Gmpfinbun^ bc3 Morpcr^, Xatigfcit ber 3ce(c unb 53e=

h)cgung be^ llorpcr^, jeber pjiiftanb ber ^anbelbaren enblid^n

9Jatur. .<oat
mm bie Aimft nur einen 5(u^enblicf, in ben alleS
eiiU3cfd)loffcn merbcn foil, fo u>irb
jcber beranbcr(id>c 3u f^"^

ber 9^atur bura^ fie utinatiirltcft bcrctm^t, unb fo bort mit bie=
v
15 fern runbfa^c allc 9?admhmun^ ber )tatur burcb Munft auf.

9^id^ ift gcfahrlicftcr, al^ cine Mifatcffe unfre^ C^cfcfnnacfS

in eincn aHgemeinen runbfa^ ju brin^en, unb fie in cin C^e^
fe^ 511 fdfilagcu; fie cjibt al^bann bet einer Bitten c\ctinft 5d;n

mijtficfic Settcn. .sScrr Seffincj luollte ben b6rf>ftcn

Wrab be^
s
20 3{ffeft3 bon ber ^ilbim^ einer Wlbfaulc auv?fd^icf^en; c^ut!
(5r c^ab abcr babon bic llrfacbc, ba|l biefc Scibcnfd^aft tran-
3
fitorifd) \uare; nid^t fo gut! (S r tnad^tc enblicb au biefer

Urfacbe cinen (9runbfafc: bie ^unft bri tde nidU^ au^, n?a^ fief)

nicht anber^ al3 tranfttorifcf* benfen lafU; unb bicS berfiibrt

25 am meiteften. W\t ibm luirb bic .sumft tot unb cntfcdt cje=

macf)t, fie toirb in jene faule Mhibc bcrfcnft, bic nur ben Mloftcr^
f;eili^en ber mitttcrn fyit cjefadcn fbnnte; fie berlicrt alle Sede

Unb n>dcf)e rt>drc benn bie angcblicbe Urfad;e einer fo $rau=

30 famen !ritifcf)en Hr^nci? 2Bei( cine tranfitorifcBe Grfdjeinung,

fie mdcje ancjencf)m, ober fcBrecflid) fcin, burd^>

bie 58erlancjerung
3
p- 37-
196 Berber.

ber $unft ein fo h)ibernaturlid)e3 2lnfef;en befomme, ba mit

4
jeber toieberfyolten rblicfung 3>d) mag nicfyt

belter! 2Bieberf;olte (Srblictung! jebe twebcrfyolte (SrMichmg!

tocr nnrb auf biefe recbnen? $$cr toirb fid; in feiner Sugenb
cin ^crcuutflcn berfacjcn, toeil enblid) mit jebem UMeber=
c 5
fjoltenWenuffe fcbtoacber iuerbcn miifttc? nxr mit fid; fclbft

babcrn, mit fcincr Gmpfinbunfl janfcn, ftatt fid; uncjcftort

bcm nngcnc(>mcn tyfyt 511 iibcrlaffcn, of;ne an bie 3"!unft 511

bcnfen? obnc au^ bicfer fid) fclbft Sd^attcn r;crl>or5urufen,

bic bic Jvrcubcn Don nn^ fcf>cncf

cn ? 3nie finnlichcn ^yrcuben 10

finb blofe fiir be 11

erften 3lnblicf, unb fiir i^n allein finb

aud> bic (5rfd>ciuungcn bcr fcf)5ncn ftunft. ,,Sa 5Rcttric, ber

fid; al cincn jtucitcn l)cmofrit malcn laffcn, lacf^t bir nur bie

crftcn ^JJale, ba bu ifm ficbft: bu bctrad^tcft ibn bftcr, unb er

unrb au^ cincin ^bilofopbcn ein (^Jecf; au^ fcincm ad)en tuirb 15

ein QJrinfcn." Gr3 fann fcin! 3lbcr tuenn bicfer lacbenbe

Xemo!rit ancb nur fiir ben erften 2lnblidf cjebilbet fein U)ol(te?

SBie nun?
ar bci biefem erften 2(nblicfe fd^on fein Sad;en
nicbt anberl, al^ berdd^tlicb, unb Unbcrlicfi; trarb fogleid; ba*

bcr ^bilofopb ein refpeftitter

bitrd>
ecf, unb feine !I)emofrit= 20

miene ein C^rinfen, fo ift 3 frcilicf) fditimm fiir if;n unb ben
Sliinftlcr. !Da Sacfien battc untcrblcibcn follcn; abcr nid;t
urn fcincr ^crmancntcn ^auer, fonbern um feine^ Derdd(;tlicf)en
anbcrlicf^cn 3lnblicfc3 h>i((cn. 2Bar bie^ aber nicf)t, biinft bir

nur nadb ofterm 33cfuchc ber lacbenbe ^pbilofop^ ein Occt 25

bclifatcr Jyreunb! fo bilbe bir ein, bu babeft if;n nocf) nicf)t ge=
fcben, ober meibe ibn. 3lber un3 bcrVoebre barum nicfyt

fcinen erften 2lnblicf; unb nod) toeniger forme ein Giefc^, ba

f
iinftig^in fein ^s^i(ofo^F) lacf)enb gemalt rt)erben folle. SSarum ?
toeil ba^ 2acf)en n?a^ Xranfitorifc^e^ fci. 3 e ^ er 3 u ftan ^ ^ n 3
5
ber 2BeIt ift fo me^r
ober minber tranfitorifd;. Suiter (>at

* 5
p. 38. @amml. ttermijdjt. c^rift., X. 5.
 rftcs IDalbdjen VI. 197

fid?mit gefenftcm aupte, mit einem Dom finger unterfttifcten

$inne, unb mit liefer pfyttofoptytfcfyer ^Riene ftecfyen laffen.

Wad) errn SeffingS cyrunbfaije miiftte man ibn im 53ilbe an=

reben: ^bilofopfy, nMrft bu balb beine Sftfyetif au3gebacbt
.s
fyaben? ftirbt bir nicbt bein gefenfter M opf, unb bein erfyobner

Jinger? Seufeenber Saofoon, tr>ie

lait^c toirft bn feufjen?
o oft id) bid) febe, ift biv nod) bie ^ruft beflemmt, ber llntcrs
(eib cingesoflcn? (5in tranfitorifcf^er 2hiflenblicf, ein Scufjcr,

ift bei bir unbcrnatttrlicb berlan^ert. !Der bonnerlr>erfenbe

10 unb
5u nt er , bie fd)reitcnbe iana, ber ben 5(tta tra^cnbc
s
ertule3, unb
Si^ur in ber minbeften .^anblunfl unb ^Be=
jcbe

tDegunft, ja aucb nur in jebem ;^uftanbc be^3 ilor^crS ift a(3=

bann njibernati trlid) berldngert benn feine berfelben bauert

;

ja en)i^. So unrb alfo, menu bie ftorftefyenbe ^Reinung (^runb=

1.5
fa^ ttnirbe, ba 3Bcfen ber Munft jerftort.
6^ !ann alfo aucb nicbt al^ Urfad^e t^elten, luarum bie Munft
feine 5F;e be^ 3lffeft3 au^briicfen miifjtc; e^ ift nicbt elifatef[c,

fonbcrn Gfel be (^efd>macf.

s
^ebe^ iBerf ber bilbenben Munft ift, luenn ^uir utbo bie Gin=
20 28 unb Gnercu e
teiluiu^ Hriftotele^ Befallen laffen, ein e r f feine ;

e ift in alien feinen Teilen auf einmal ba; fein 3Befen beftebt
nicbt in ber Skranbcrunfl, in ber ^yol^e aufeinanber, fonbern
im ^oer^iftieren nebeneinanber. ftat alfo ber Miinftler e bem
erften aber c^anjcu unb genaueften 5(nblicfc, ber eine bolfc

25 ftanbtge !Jbec liefcrn muf^ bollfommen ^emad)t, fo f;at er

feinen 3^ccf erreicf)t, bie 5Sirfun^ bleibt etrnc^, c ift ein 2$ erf.
($3 ftebt auf einmal ba, unb fo n?erbc e^3 and) bctrad)tct; ber

erfte 2tnblicf fei permanent, erfcbopfcnb, emi^, unb blofs bie

mcnfcblid)C Sd^t>acf)beit, bie Scblaffbeit unfrer Sinne, unb ba^

30 Unanflenefymc be^3 langcn 9lnftrcnflcn macbt, bei tief 511 er=

forfcbcnben 2Scrfen, bielleid)t ba jiueite, bielleicbt l)unbertfte

be^ 5(nblicfg notig; barum aber finb alle biefe 9)tole bocf)
198 Berber.

nur ein 9Inblicf. 28a3 icfy cjefcfyen fyabe, muft idb nid;t toieber

f efyen, unb toaS mir nid)t burd) ba$ Dollftanbiflc @ i n e b e 3 91 n=

6 lie! 3, fonbcru nur bie 9lbh)ecr)fehmg, burd) bie 23iebcr=
jolting befelbcn linberlid) toirb, liccjt nicbt in bcr Stunft,
fonberu in bcm Uberbrujj meine* efcfymadfo .ftann biefer 5

nun einen @runbfa$ ber .S\unft bilbcn? faun cr ami) nur cine

tudittflc llrfad>c
eine3 anbern Salu^ aln^cben?
So rtiumc id; alfo bci .^Scrrn Seffmfl bicfc Urfacf^e, a(g Uv=

fad)c, al^ Wcfc^ ttjc^, unb bcnfc bamit flcnitfl 511 habcn, baft
ber bocfrfte 9(ffeft bcm erften 9(nblicfc iuibcrlid), unb bcr ^in= m
bilbung^fraft ^(cid>faiu 511 cnc\c fci, fol^licf) in bcr Munft miiffe
ty auptanblic! t>crmicbcn tocrbcn. 2Benn bie
bcr Munft cin cr! i[t, 511 chum, abcr c^lcid>fam

5lnfdaucn c\cbilbct, fo inuft bicfcr cine 9lnblicf aucf>

fo
bid d>6nc3
fiir ba ^(u^c, unb fo ttiel Arud)tbarc^ fiir bie 1.5

@inbUbung3fraft cnthaltcn, aly cr cnthaltcn fnnn. Xahcr

fommt ba^ Unenblitfc unb llncrmcf,lid^c in bicfcr bilbcnbcn

^lunft, ba-S fie Uor alien anbern Miinftcn bc d>6ncn fcorauS

F^at, nainliif> ein f>orf>ftc^ ^sbeal ber Scf)onhcit fiir ba

unb fiir bie ^pf)antafie bie fttUc ")iube be^ ^riccf>ifd>en

brucf^; benn beibe finb bie ^Jiittel, un^ in ben 9(rmen eincr
Sntjiicfung, unb in bem 9(b^runbe einc lano\en feligen

511 crbaltcn.
6
fommt g/ fragt ein ^^ilofopl; be Scf^oncn, w bafj e

nur in ber 9Jialcrei unb ^Bilbf;auerfunft cine ^bealfdwnbeit, cin

aliquid immensum infinitumque ^ibt, ba^ fid; bie .SUinftlcr in

ber (vinbilbunfl gum Shifter torftclkn, unb in ber id>thtnft

y/
nicf>t?
Jd) c\laubc nid)t, baft er fief) biefe $vra$e i>on
feitcn
ber ^unft burd; bie S3cmerfung auf Deleft, ,,baft in ben fcboncn

^iinften ba^ J^ ca ^M)onc am fd)^crftcn 511 erreid^en fei";

benn
bie 5 ra 9 e bleibt biefclbe: juarum muft benn ein fo fcf>n)ere3

6
Sitt. 53., X. 4, p. 285.
 rftcs IDalbtfjcn VI. 199

3iel erreid;t fein?"

3lu3 feiner Urfad;>e, glaube id), al3 toeil

bic$unft nur SBerfe liefert, bic einen 2lugenblidt fcorfteften,

unb ju eincm groften 3lnblide gebilbet finb, bie alfo ifyren
Shtgenblic? fo annefymlid), fo fcfyon macfyen miiffen, baft nid)t3
s
5 briiber, baft bie Seele, in $etracfttung be^felben toerfunfen,
s
glcid^fant rube, itnb ba^ DtaJ3 bcr uoriibcr^ebenben 3^^ ^^ r -
liere. 3)ie fcfioncn Aliinftc unb SBtffenfcfyaften bagegen, bic
burd) bic fyit unb 5(bmed>fclun^ ber Slugenblicfe toirfen, bie

(Sner^ie 511111 3Bcfcn baben, muffcu feinen ctnjelnen 5(uc^en=

10 blicf ctn .s3ocf)fte liefern, nie aucf) unfere Secle in bie3 augen-
blicfltdie .sSod)ftc tKrfcf)lin^en U)ottcn; bcnn fonft mirb eben bie

3lnncl)mlid>feit flcftort, bie in ber Jfalgc, in bet SBerOinbung

unb SCbtDec^felung biefer 9liu *,cnbUcfc unb .sjanbluncjen beruf)t,

unb jebcn 9(uc\eublic! nur alfo al^ ein Wlieb ber Alette, nicfyt

3 u f^ n ^ e un ^
S
15 tueitcr nuUt. i8irb eincv biefer ^hi^enblide,

anblungen, eine Jnfel, ein abgetrennte^ .N^od^fte^, fo gebt

ba3 9Sefen ber energifdjen Muiift uerloren. ^\t aber luieberum
ber eine ciui^e 2(ugenblicf bcr bilbenben .Uunft nid)t fo, baft er

and; einen en>igeu

9InbIict geiuiibreu fonnte, fo ift if)r 2Befen
20 and; nidbt erreicf)t. ^Bci .Uorpcrn ift biefer ein^ige etuige 9(n=
blidt bic tooUfommene Sd>6nbeit; unb fofcrn bie Seele burcb
ben .ftdrper mirfcn foU, ift
^ bic bobc gried>ifcf)e 9hil)e. !5)iefe

ift jiuifcben bcr toten Untatigfeit unb bcr aufgebrad)ten iiber=

tricbnen 3Birfung mitten inne; bic inbilbung^fraft faun auf
25 beibe Seiten U)eiter binfd>n)ebcn, unb bat a(fo in biefem 9In=
blide bcr Scelc bic Icingfte Untcrbaltuiuv Xote Untatigfeit
fc^neibetben Jvaben bcr Wcbanfen mit einem Sdfmittc ab;
bie Jigur ift tot, mer mirt fie ernjecfen? 2)a3 Ubertriebne im
5lu>obrudfe fiir^t iuicbcr auf bcr anbern Seitc ben 5lug ber
30 ^fyantafie; benn tucr faun ficb itbcr ba^ Ajod^ftc nod;
c benfcn? 2(ber bie fclige ^uf;e be^ griec^ifd;en

iuicgt unfre Scclc nad) beiben eiten F;in; unb in ifyrem

200 Berber.

3InbItcfe ftellen toir im juojlctcf) ba ftille 9Jieer bor, auS bem

fid; biefc fanfte 3Mle ber SetocQimfl unb Seibenfdjaft erboben;
juglcicf) aucb: 2$ie toenn bie SMle ftcb mebr bobe? toie toenu
au3 bicfcm baucbenben 3 c P^? r e^ u rciftenber Sturm ber eibcn-

fdmft uriirbc? ft>ie tDiirben ficft

nl^bann bic JIutcn tiirmen, 5

unb ber 3(u^brudf auffdnuellen! 9Sclcf> )t>eitc

Jclb ber GJc=

banfen Itc^t alfo in bcm 3(n6Iicfe ber fanftcn ^iif>e be^ griccfU

fcf>en
3(ubrucfg!

3rf c\Iaube, toon 5tt)ei ^roblcmen, ben (>Jrunb in bem 9Bcfcn

ber .Slunft flcfunbcu 511 f>abcn. 58arum ift bet ber bilbenben 10
v
iliuift ba f;od)fte C^cfelj Scftbnbeit ? ^eil fie ne b e n e i nanb e r

toirft, ibre ^Birhmg alfo in cinen 2Iu^enblicf cinfcftlicfit,

s
unb ibr Bcrf fiir einen euu^en 2(nbltcf erfcfmfft. liefer
cinjiflc 3(nblicf liefere alfo ba3 .sSorf^fte, tr>a^
e^i^ feftlwlt in
feinen 2(rmen bie Scbonbeit. MorV>erlirf>c
Scbonbcit ift 15

inbeffen nocf) ntcf)t befricbtgenb ; burcb unfer 3hu^c blicft cine

Seele, unb burcb bie un3 borgeftellte ccbonbeit blicfe alfo

eine Seele burcb. !Jn meld>em ;^uftanbe biefe? Dbne
in bem, ber meinen 2(nblidf emii^ erbalten, ber mir ba^ laiuiftc

2(nfd>auen uerfcbaffen !ann. Unb \t)clcbc^ ift ber? $ein 3 U; *

ftanb ber faulen ^ube, ber gibt mir nicbt3 511 benfen; !ein
tlbertrtebneS im 3Iuybrucfe, bie^ fd^neibet meiner inbilbung^
fraft bie ^ylu^el; fonbern bie fid> c\lcicbfam anfiinbifjenbe $Be=

njc^imij, bie aufc\cbcnbe ))Jor^enrote, bie un3 i\\ beiben Seiten

btnfd^auen lafet, unb alfo einjifl unb allein evoigen 3(nblicf 25

getoabrt.

3luf bie 3(rt (^eneralifteren fid; bic 53ecjriffe be^ Untcrfcbiebe^

toon felbft, unb toir reben nicbt mebr i^on ^ilbbauerei unb

$oefie, fonbern toon Aliinftcn itberbaupt, bie SSerfe licfern,

ober burd^ eine ununterbrocbne (Snercjie tuirfen. 3Sa toon 30
ber ^oefie gilt, toirb, in biefem 5ietracf>te, aucb bon 9)?uftf unb
s

^anj cjelten; benn and) biefe ir>irfen nicbt fiir einen 3(nblicf /
 201
Crftes H)al5d}en VI.

beren SSerbinbung
fonbern fur cine golge Don 5lugenblicfen,
eben bie SBirtung ber $unft macfct; fie fyaben alfo burdiauS
anbre $efee. @ beiftt alfo aucf) nicfyt ben romifcfyen $)id;ter
7
2ao!oon3 ertlart, toenn id) anfiibre, baft fein clamores hor-
5 rendos ad sidera tollit !ein fcbiefeS fcbreienbe DJiaul, unb
fcincn fyaftlicfyen Stnblicf fcortueife: bcnn freilid; arbeitete er

nicftt fitr3 5(iuv, unb nocf) minbcr uwrb biefer 3UA fcine^ (^e=
ma(be3 en)iger ^(nblicf, im ma(crifcf)en ^serftanbe. 31 ber

hjie, n^enn feine gan^e c^ilberung, bie id) nl^ ein emcilbe

10 fiir meine Geele foetracfyte, mir feinen anbern innern 3U =

ftanb be^ Saofoon jet^te, al$ ber in biefem Sd)reie liec^t ;

WeiM
al^bann nidit and; im Wemdlbe be^ idrter biefer $\(c\ fccdfyt*

figiir? J&enn id; mid; an ben Sirgilianifrfjen i aofoon erin=

nere, erinnere id; mid; nicfrt jebe^mal an einen 6d>reienben?

15 ^Denn auf anbre 2lrt f)at er bei fcinem Sdnner^e feine Seele

nid;t $esei$t. 9?uu dnbert fief)

ber ejufytgpuntt. ^ muf
au bem S^efen ber ^oefie,
s
an^ bem enercu fd>en .fitDerfe be^

T)id;ter^ erfldrt toerben, ob biefer 3u fl i>on

^nofoon, biefe
einji^e xHuf^erun^ feiner (Smpfinbung, in meiner (^inbiU
20 bun^fraft .sjanptfi^nr, bleibenber (S inbrnrf toerben follte.

?Jicf)tgcnug, baft clamores horrendos ad sidera tollit ein

erfyabner 3^0 fiir bc\$ Wcbor fei (toenn id) einen 3 u fl f u * ^ a %

ef;6r berftehe) ; e3 muft and) bem 2)id>ter baran (\eleiien fein,

s
ir;n jum .^auptsuge Saofoong in meiner |>bantafie $u macfien.
25 SP ^i e ^ nifyr fo (>at
ber !Dicbter, tuenn id) c^leid) fein fcbbne^

53ilb berfancje, bocf) auf micf) feinen gan^en (vinbrucf Derfef)It.

@g ift nid;t mein 3^ e ^/ ^*i e ^ ^ ^itivl ju unterfucf)en. S<^

fyabe 9BincfeImann c^ered)tferti^t / ber (Dtelleid)t nur gar Hfto=

rifcf)) fagen !ann :
w ber Saofoon be^ Miinftler3 fd;reit nid;t, Vt)ie

30 ber Saofoon be^ Virgil." 3cf) fyabe bie UrfadBe, bie err

Seffing gibt bom Unterfd;iebe beiber ^iinfte, ge^riift, unb auf

7
i aof., p. 40.
202
Berber.

ba3 Sine be3 21 nb lie! 3 surucfgefiifyrt, in bem ficr)

btc

bilbenbe, unb feine anbre Hunft jeige. ger; toollte, bafc err

Seffing in feinem ganjen 2Berfe biefen Unterfdneb be3 2tri-

ftotele3 jtotfcfyen 3Bert unb (nergie $um Gkunbe gelegt

fydtte; bcnn ade fcine Xciluntcrfrf^icbe, bie er ancu bt, laufen 5

Dod) enbltrf; auf bicfcn .s^aiiptuntcrfdneb

VII.

@^ fonnen fritifcf^c ^etrad)titngcn nicf)t leid)t nu^barer fein,

al^ rt)enn Seffing gcgcn Spence iiber ben Unterfdneb bi^putiert/
in ti)cld)cin bem .SUinftler unb Xid)ter Wottcr, gci[ti^e unb

moralifdic 2Bcfen crfd>cincn; bicgc^en nnrb in unb au|Vtf>al6 10

s
ber Dtauern i>on
Xroja, icf) mcinc in ^ocfic unb Munft,
s
ge=

fiinbigt.
(Hotter unb gciftige 3^cfen. ,,Tcin Miinftlcr finb fie nid>t3

al^ perfonifi^ierte ^Ibftrafta, bie beftanbifl bie abnlidie (5baraf=

terifieruiui bebalten miiffen, tuenn fie erfenntlid^ fein follcn; 15

s //2
bem 1)icbter finb fie banbelnbe li>efen. Jcft toeifc nid)t, ob

biefer Unterfdneb fo feft, unb beiben .SUtnften fo ^efentlid)

rodre, al^ er bier aru^egeben mirb unb mid) biinft, ba^ ein

%d) voeife nid;t toon biefer 9trt, ba3 nid>t^ minber al^ ben
ganjen 93h}tbologie in alien fcbonen ^iinften
ebraud> ber 20

unb 3Biffenfd)aften betrifft, mobl einc flcine Slufmerffamfeit

toerbiene.

3llfo finb bie Hotter unb geiftigen 2Befen bem iinftler

nicbt^ al^ perfonifijierte 3(bftrafta? Jyreilicb folange eine ein=

jelne 3igur nid^t^ aly ein fennilidK^ 33ilb eine^ bimmlifd;en 25

SBefen^ fein foil, fo finb bie ba^felbe d>arafterifierenbcn ^enn=

ba^ 2lu$enmerf. 9?un aber trete biefe J^igur 5. @. bei
jcicf^en

einem emdlbe in ^anblung, gefeUt bie .vmnblung floffe auc^

! 2
f-
P .
79, P- 71,
 rftcs IDalbdjen VII. 203

nid;t aug tt;rem Gfyarafter: fobalb tritt bic f;iftorifd;e

<u e in bie Stelle ber emblematifd;en, unb bie Gkftalt ift nicfyt

mebr biird) bag, toag fie ift, fonbern luag fie tut, tenntlid;.
3
err Seffing ajbt bieg 511 ;
nur meint cr, bie anbhtngen miiffcn
5 nicfyt ibrcm Ctyarafter hriberfprecfyen ;
unb aug bem 23eifyiele,
bay er c\ibt, febe id), baft cr in Unterfiid)ung btcfc ^i>iber-

fprucf; fef>r fcin ift. Gine feints, mcint cr, bie ifyrem Sobne
bie SSaffcn (^ibt, fonnc freilid> c\cbilbct lucrbcn ;
benn f;ier Micbe

fie nod; eine Wbttiu bcr iebe; ifyr tonne nocf) atle Hnnuit unb
10 Sd)onl)cit c\etieben tuerbcn, bie ibr al^ (^ottin ber SicDe 511=

fomine, fie merbe bictmcbr alw fotd^e burcb biefe

nocf) fennbarer; aber eine sitrncnbc, eine bevad>tenbe

unb flar nidit. 5d) bin in ber 2lu3bel)nung biefe^ lln=

iebe^ nicftt .C>crrn
effing IKeimuuv
15 (Hotter unb (\ciftiflc SHefcn f ul b bent Miinftlcr freilief) ^>er=

fonifijicrtc 5(bftrafta, unb G^araftcrfiQuren, folan^e er fie

adein, blof in cinem ibnen ^entiiften 5lnftanbe, ober

1
,
bod>ften^

in einer intranfitibcn .sSanblunc\ bilt>en

foil ;
aber al^bann finb

fie e^> nur au3 au^ Wufi, nin fenntlid> 511 fcin.
Ocot,
9Kincrba baben b e f c unb f e n e a n b r e ^il=
s
i i
, 0,11110,

ber Sd^onbeit, nid>t al-S iiH nn biefe iinmer ein innerer

^ ibrey abftraften ^ocfcii^ miire; c\c"fl/ baft fie

chv Don Tid^tern einmal beliebte^ unb fcftc\cfcfctc3 auftere^

x
^ennjcid^cn biefer Wottbeit ift. A sdi
!

lun-ftebc micf) nid^t

25 genug auf ben abftraften $Bc$riff ber Sicbc, nl baft icf) Unffen
fonnte, ob jebe Mfcini^feit bei ber ^MIbiinc\ bcr SScmiS, nub
feincr anbern gottlicfjen Sd>onbeit, ba fei, twcit fie nottoenbtQ
bag 3(bftraftum ber 2iebe ef>arafterifiere ob 5. (?. bay ;

if;rer 2(ugcn, unb bag Sacfyeln if;rcr ^angcn, unb bag

30 eben if;reg Minneg 511 biefein "Bec^riffe fo unentbefyrlid) fci, afg

auf ber anbern Seite bie majeftatifcbe 33ruft ber 3 uno /

3
D. 72, f.
204 Berber.

bie fdrtanfe faille bcr iana, unb bie unfcfyulbtge 9Jiiene bcr
ebe, 511 biefem 53eGriffe eben fyinberlid? fein miifcte. gd) fyabe
me bie "Dtytbolocu e al3 ein fold)e3 9iecu fter allgemeiner 33e=

griffe ftubicrt, unb bin allemal in bie Crn^e geraten, toenn id)

flefcfycn, uric anbre fie am licbften auf fold;e 21 rt angefefyen. 5

So Diet ift cinmal $en)ift, baf^ ^icfiter, unb fein anberer, bie

9Ki)t^oIogie crfunbcn unb beftimint, unb ba toctte icb, fiuluabr

nid>t a(y cine (Valerie abftrafter Jbccn, bie fie ettoa in Jvic^uren

Scigtcn. o bleibc id) mit ben aUerbid)terifcbften efd^td^ten

Sontcr^, tuenn icf> mir fcine Wotter nur al^ Imnbelnbe 5lb= w
ftrafta bctvad^ten Oolite? (5^ ftnb f)immlifcbe ^ttbiDibuen,
bie freilid) burd) if;re anblungcn fid; eincn Gbaraftcr feft=

fei^en, aber nid>t ba finb, biefe unb jene^bec in ^\(\m 511 ^eiflen;
ein au^ncbinenber Unterfdneb. 3senu fann immer bie Wottin
bcr Siebe fein; nid^t aber aftc3, \va% fie bei Corner tut, flefcfyiebt 15

ben)e^cn, urn bie Jbec bcr Siebc in Atcutr 511 re^ra fentieren.
Sultan mavi fein, toa^ er tt>il(;
^tcnn er ben Wottern ibrcn 9tc!=

tarbedicr bcrumreidht, ift er nicf)t al3 ibr ^iunbfd^cn!.

3cf) fdtficfsc alfo: baf^ (Hotter unb flciftifle 5K>efcn ,,bei bem
2)iditer nicftt blof^ banbelnbe 2^efcn finb, bie iiber ibren all- -20

g e m e i nen G \j
a r a ! t e r n o cf) anbre 6 i g e n f a f t e n u n b cf>

2(ffefte ft a ben, ^cldhc nad; G3elegenf)cit ber Urn-

4
ftanbe Dor jenen iorftccf>cn fonnen/ ^ie -Cxrr Seffing fa^ t;
fonbern baf^ bicfe anbren igcnfd^aftcn unb 21 \-

feftc, !uq, cine ^t>iffe eignc Snbtbibualitat if;r h)aF)re 25

SBefcn, unb ber all cm cine 6 bar after, ber ettt>a au$
biefcr Jnbittibualita t abgcjogcn, nur ein fpatercr, unbonfoni=

mencr Scgrtff fei, ber immer unter^eorbnct bleiben muftte,

ja bei ^DicfUern oft in (^ar feinen ^Bctracf^t fomme.

9hm fcf>lie(5e id; meiter. 9Senn alfo in ber ^Jtytbolocu e unb 30

Gkiftevlefyre ber alteften ^)id;ter ber inbilnbuelk obcr biftorifd;

 rftcs IDoilbcfycn VII. 205

fyanbetnbe Xeil bor bcm d)araftcriftifd) fyanbelnben ba itber=

geft>id)t befyalt, unb eben biefe 3)id;ter bod; bie urfprtinglicfyctt

Stifter unb 33ater biefer 2JtytI)olocu c unb Okifterlebrc cjctocfcn,

fo fei bie bilbenbe Alunft, fofcrn fie imubolo^ifd) ift, blojs if)rc

5 $)ienerin. Sie entlcbnt iftrc Wcfcfcopfc unb ^orftcQungcn,

fofcrn fie fie brauc^cn unb au^briicfen fann.
s
^3ci jcbcr ctnjclncn Jigur alfo, unb mithin mciftcnS bei ben
SBerfcn ber 33Ubf;aucr, bie cinjclnc l^cftaltcn bitbcn, forbcrt c$
ber ^Jlangcl, bie rcnjcn, nicf>t aber baS il^cfcn ber
10 ^unft, bie "Perfoncn mchr rf)arafteriftifc(\ &[$ inbiuibucll, au=
jubriufen; bcnn fonft tocrirrcn fie ficb in bie OJien^e f)iftorifcf;cr

^Pcrfoncn, unb laufcn (\Jcfabr, unfcnntlich 511 tucrbcn.

Soba(b e^ aber bcm Miinftler bie ( )rcn$cn feiner s
.slunft

bcrftattcn, bcm X)icf>ter

511 fol^cn, fo^lcid) nimmt ber 3Md>ter,

15 bcm eigentlid^ bie

S

3)h)tbo(ovve flc^ort, fein ^fecf^t ujicbcr, unb

bie 3(norbniuu] bey .slunfttuerf-o tuivb, bcm Urfprungc m^tho=
logifcfyer Jbecn gcmafe, btcftcrifrf>. 53lofe urn ba$ Unfenntlid>c

ju tocrmcibcn, frf;ranfte cr fid) auf bie abftrafte Jbcc cin, ^iot

unb Mrfttflfcit mar fein Wcfc^. Jft aber btc5 Wcfc^, bicfe
20 Jurcfyt i}ef)oben, fann er auf anbere 3lrt boffen, fenntlic^i 511

toerben, al^ burd> bie cinformigc Gbarafteruorfte(huuv ter=

bietet ba^ 9Bcfcn feiner AUmft bicfc ant>rc 31 rt ber ,s\ennt=

lid^feit nid)t; crreidjt er burd) biefelbc c\ar cincn ,Su>ccf,

ben cr

burd; bie abftrafte Jbcc nid>t ertaiu^cn fonntc: fo bat er mit

25 bem Dicfyter cincrlci 3{cd;tc. ^Die cjanje 9Jlr)tf;oIogic ift ci^cnt-

lief) ein Sanb bicf)terifd)er JJbccn, unb and) menu fie ber

^iinfttcr bilbet, ruirb er !I)id)ter.

Unb bei biefetn gan^en ^Prbilcgium bc^ $iinftler3, morauf
fommt fein unumfcbranfter Gkbraud> an? 2(uf ba 9Sort
30 anb(ung. ^ann ber ^i mftlcr, 5. (5. Staler, feinem erfc

anblung geben; !ann cr mebrerc ^Scrfoncn gruppicren,

bie gemcinfdjaftlid^ eine poetifd)e obcr biftorif^e Situation
206 Berber.

fcorfteftcn, fcnntlid) nub fd)on borftellen fonnen; o fo fcergeffe

er ficber bie inncrc unb dujsere Gfyaraftcriftif fcincr otter, bie

il)m fonft einjeln nottoenbig toaren. Jmmerfyin laffe er aud)

feine anbluncj bem abftraftcn Gfyarafter ficfytlid? nribers

fprccben; immerbin male er un3 aud) eine auf ifyren Gupibo 5

^iirnenbc 3lcnu3; benn toenn fie and) in biefcrn 3(u^cnblicf nid^t

bie Siebe felbft blicbc, fo blcibt fie bod), H)a3 fie urf^riings
lid) ift, bie GJbttin bcr Siebe, bie Gutter be^ Supibo.
S
ilann er 4kmi3 unb ben c^etotetcn 9lbom3 in malcrifcf>e $anb=
lun^ brin^cn, fo rufcn ^uir ber 33enu$ mit bem T)id)tcr ju: 10

,,5Sa fd^lcifft bit, (S^tberea, auf purpurnen ^Decfen! Stebe

auf, Unglikffelige, jie^e ^rauerfleiber an, unb fcbla^c an beine

^ruft, unb fla^c ber (\anjcu ^elt: er ift nid^t mcbr, ber fd>one

2lboni3!" unb immerbin tvollcti n?ir aud) 2lboni3 fef>en,

n)ie

ibn bcr id>tcr

fief;t: ,,(5r liec^t, ber fcbone 3Iboni^ liec^t au^= 15

fleftrecft auf bem Wcbir^c. Gin mbrberifd^er $abn bat fcine

jarte .sSiiftc t^crlel5t. "3tod) einen Icfctcn Sender atmet er;

s
fd^Darjc^ ^8tut rinnt iiber ben 2eib, ber blenbcnber ift, al3
6dntce. a3 2id;t feiner 3huien Derlifd^t, bie Sippcn erblaffen,
3(boniy ftirbt." Stirbt 2(boni^ etma al^ bie 3^ ee cbelid;er 20

Siebc unb liicffeligteit unb Scbbn^eit? Xrauert 5Renu, urn

s
bie bee ber ?iebe in )3?a^fe 511 seic^en? 2Birb bie le^tere jebem

gcfunben mutboloc^ifcben 2lu$e be^^ec^en F)ier fenntlicf)

merben, n>eit
fieba^ 2lbftraftum ber 2iebe macf)t? 9?ein, ba^3

Sujet be3 emalbe^ ift bid^tcrifc^, ift fyiftorifdb ; fo aud) bie 25

^iguren be^ ^iinftlcrS? 3 e ^ e ^ ma ^/ ^ a ft er f^ e ^ a 5 u inacben

!ann; tt)ol)l! fo t^cr^effe icf) bie abftrafte 3bee, bie er in eincr

cinjicjen Jiflur nur au^ ^ot borftellen mufUe. Cupibo, ber
?fvd)e pla^t, unb
s
bie 3 u P^ er /
^ er ^ en anr^meb entfitbrt,

X^iana, bie ben (Subvention befud)t, unb SBenuS, bie ibre geri^te 30
aut bemeint ic^ berfprec^e bem Munftler, in bicfcm
blicfe feine perfonifijierten 2lbftra!ta ju fucfyen, im
 (Erftcs XDalbcfcn VII. 207

!cinen ^raftbcntcn ber otter, in )ianen3 @efid;te feine jun(y

fra ulid)e $eufd)f)eit ;

in 3knu3 fcin fd)macf)tenbe Siebaucjeln,
unb Gupibo fcinen fpielcnbcn SBerfityrer.
in 2ttle biefc 2efen
gefydren bem id)ter, unb ber ftiinftlcr lafjt fie ifym, too er fie

5 ifmt laffen fann.

!Jd) toeifi ntd)t, toie enge bem .ftiinftler ber mrrtbifcbe GtyfluS
toerben mii^tc, tuenn err Scffinfl if;m alle f;iftorifcfien unb
bidhterifc^cn Situattonen untevfa^te, ihm nur juHcfec, in ihm
perfonifi^iertc 2U ftra!ta
<

ju fudbcn, unb jeben fleinen Liber

ia fyrud), ber in ber .sSanbhuui rtc^cn bte abftraftc 3^ ee ^
G^arafter^ (ein ^bcl ber neuern 9Jlr;t^oIo0iftcn !) t^orfame,
berbotc. 2ebc atebann n?oW, ^anblunggboHc ^unft! !5)u

bift in ber 5Rt}t^)ologie eine (Valerie einformi^er Jbeen, ab=

ftrafter Gbarattere!

15 ,,2Benn ber ^Dicbter 2(bftrafta perfonifi^iert, fc finb fie burcb

ben 5?amen, unb burrf>
ba3, toa^ er fie tun lafrt, genugfam
rf)arafterifiert. ^Dem Mimftlcr fehlen biefe Wittel. @r muj^
alfo fcinen perfonifi^iertcn 3(bftraftcn Sinnbilber ^ufleben,

burcb tt?elcbe fie fcnntlicb nxrben. Xiefe cinnbilbcr bat bei

ao bem Mnftler bie 9?ot erfunben; rnc^u aber ben Miinftler bie
9^ot treibt, tvarum fell fid) ba3 ber Xid^ter aufbritu^en laffen,
ber toon biefer Wot nicbt3 treife? (J^ fei ibm alfo $e$el, bie

53ebiirfniffe ber Utolerei nidH ;^u feinem ^eid^tume ^u madden,

unb feine 3Befen mit Sinnbilbern ber ,^unft au^uftaffieren.

25 @r laffe feine efen banbeln, unb bebiene fid>

aud>
poctifcber
Attribute" u. f. fa. 2Bie nerne, faie unermiibet bbrt man
5
errn 2 effing fpredben, toenn er bcdi icb toill nid^t toben.

Sollte alle^ bie3 nicbt aud>

auf ben borbetracbteten Jail ber
s
^unft!om^ofition c^elten? 3)er IRaler finbet im 2anbe be

30 T)icf)ter^ ^erfonifijierte 3(bftrafta, bie aucb in feinem Ciemalbe,

burcb bag, toaS er fie tun la fct, genugfam cbarafterifiert finb.

P. 80, f .
208 Berber.

$iinftler cincr ^yiflur feblt bie3 9Jtittel; er mu alfo

fcincn perfoiiift&ierten 9lbftraftcn Sinnbilber geben, burcfy
toelcbe fie fenntlid) tocrben; aber biefe Sinnbilber erfanb bet
S
ifyrn bie 3?ot? $80511 alfo ben Miinftler obne anblung
bie 9?ot trieb, toarum folltc fid>
ba3 ber ftiinftlcr mit
lung aufbriiu^en laffen, ^eun er toon bicfer S?ot nicbt

(S^ fet ibm alfo ^)tcc\cl, and) ba^, \va$ fcincr .SUinft 53ebii
ift im anbern ^all, 511 fcinem 9ictcf)tumc ju madden,
nicf>t
feine

28cfcu nicbt mit Sinnbilbern jn uberbaufen, fie, tt>o

fie al^
s
boberc ^nbitoibuen in anbtung crfrfKtnen, nicbt ^u ^>itppen 10

au^uftaffiercn, unb am minbcftcu c c^ar jum

fetner Alunft 511 madden: w mir finb bic ^erfoncn ber
(o^ie nid)t^ al^ perfonifi^iertc 5tbftrafta, bic beftanbic^ bie

afynltdie Gbaraftcrificriin^ bcibebalten miiffen, ttcnn fie er*

s
fenntlic^ fein follen." $ci biefcm WrnnbfaUe, tua^ inirb au 15

ber ^unft, bie Mompofitioncn licfern foil? Ginc Hia^fcrabe

s
ftymboltfdjer unb allec\orifd>er i>uppen!

(S^ gibt alfo felbft untcr ben .NUinftcn, bte fief) anf 3cidniun^
Ariinbcn, nod? immcr betrarftlicf)c Unterfdticbe, bie cine ober
s
bie anbere mcbr bcm Xid>tcrifd>en
ndbcrn. Xie ^ilbbauev= 20

fnnft entftc^t if;r am uxitcftcn; bie

X
33?alcrci abcr, in ibrcr

^ompofttion jnmal, gumal in ber Mompofitton bidttertfcfKr

C^Jefchopfc, bie urfprihujlicb ^cfcn ber Ginbilbniu^fraft unb

nicbt be3 3(nfcf?auen^ finb, tritt ber ^ocfic n?cit nabcr. 6ic
bat cin T^rama ibrcr ^ia,uren; fie ftcllt altc blof^ in ber 2lbficbt 25

jufammen, urn einc anb(unc^ 511 reprafenticrcn; fie ItifU alfo

fotoicl moc^lic^ toea,, n?a^ ^ur anblun<\ nid^t flcbort, ober il;r

c^ar it>tbcrfprad>c.
Sollte in jebcm ^unfttoerfe toon Mompc*
^erfon mit allem bem 3 u bcbor
s
fition jebe mptbolo^ifcbe iiber-

labcn merbcn, ber if)r gufommcn maa, aber ju biefer .$>anb= 30

fie ber biftorifcbe unb bid^tcrifdie

lung nid;t c^ebort ; f ollte Dialer
nur al^ pcrfonifijicrte Slbftrafta bcl;anbeln follen, bie be^
 (Erftes lDalbcf?en VIII. 209

ftanbtg bie a bnlid)e Gbara!terifierung beibefyalten miiffcn:

toelcb ein fcernnrrenbeS unb jerftreuenbeS Gkfcbleppe toon ftym=

bolifcben 3 e ^ en un ^ d)araftcrifierenben ^prabifaten! Soil

$enu in einem emalbe toon Aompofition nie anber3, al3
5 bie Siebc felbft (unb nidbt blojj al3 bie (336ttin ber Siebe),
erfdbeinen, unb al^ bie Sic be felbft jcbe^mat d^araftcri=

fiert merben; unb alle tcilnc^mcnben Ipcrfoncn cbcnfalte fo,

jebe nad) tbrer 2lrt toes mit bem in 9Jia!e. ^)er "^all

IRaler rt)ar bier in ber Hompofition eine bicbtcrifcben Sujet^

10 burcb .V)anbluiu^ fenntlid)
2)icbter; feine Jiguren foWcn fidf)

machcn; auf biefe anblung follen firf>

bie 5lttribute be^iebcn,

bie cr ibncn gibt: folrfK, bie 511 bicfcr 3SorftcUung nicf>t

^eboren
s
folan^e nur bie pcrfon nocb fcnntlicf) bleibt, laffe cr tocc\; er

opfere bcm Mangel, ber ftotujcnbu tfcit fciitcr Munft fo iwcuiii

15 auf, al^ er barf, unb am allenucni^ftcn marf>c cr bicfen ^3canc\cl ;

bie^ C^efe^ ber 9?ot ju feincr all^cmcincn, nxfcntlicbcn ^icfld:

bei bem Miinftler finb (Hotter unb ^cifti^c SBcfcn perfonifi^iertc

5lbftrafta, ,,bic bcftdnbi^ bie abnlicbc Cbarafterifierunrt be-
6
balten miifjen." %& fao;c unuiefebrt: aucf> bci ibm follen
20 (Cotter unb fleiftiflc efen ficf>
burcb .s3anblun(\ cbarafteri-

ficrcn, n?o fie c^ fonnen; unb blof^ im ^al(, too fie e<3 nicf>t

fonnen, fid) al$ pcrfonifi^icrtc 5(bftrafta, bnrd> ba^ ibnen bei=

c^elc^te Symbol, fenntlid) madden. 3m (^runbe alfo einerlci

efc^, cincrlei Jyreif;cit.

VIII.

25 3Son fciten ber ^icbtfunft !ann e^ feinc noti^ere Se^re geben,

1
al^ bie: ber I)icbter macbe ficb bie Sebiirfniffe ber IRalerei
nid^t ^u feincm ^eicbtume; er ftaffiere bie 2Befcn feiner @in=
bilbungfraft nic(>t malerifd; au, laffe fie fyanbeln, unb aucf>

6
P. 71. P. 81.
 210 Berber.

bie Attribute, toomit cr fie bejeicbnet, miiffen banbelnb, poetifcfy,

nidrt malcrifcb fein. 60 bid)ten bie alten X)icf)ter, bie neuern
malen.
Unter ben 9Romern in tfyrer beften poettfdien $t\t ift &or
alien oraj ein Siebfyaber bon moraltfcfyen 2$efen, bon per= 5

fomftjierten 2lbftraften; biefe $erfonenbi$tung ift mit ein

,auptftrid> fciueS Wcnic, unb bat fctne Cben fef;r berfrf)onert.

2)a eine folcbe moralifd^e ^perfon bei i^m gemeimglicf) fdntell,

mit njcnic^cn, aber lebcnbiflcn 5Utributen, unb red^t in bie

anblung ber Dbe auf cinmal bineintritt, fo lieben tr>ir ben 10

angenebmen S^lpben, bie fcbone @ulpF;tbc, bie un^ fo flelcflen

bohiberraufd>t. 3Sie fiif^ ift fein Silb ber lacbelnben 5Benug,

bie ber Scbcr$ unb bie 3lmor^ umflattcrn. 5!?eld) ein 33ilb/

trenn 3nrrf>t
uub Sor^c ibren Merrn aud>
511 Sdbiffc t>er=

fol^en, aud^ binter ibm ju *fferbe fien, and) be^ 9?acbt^ urn 15

bie tid^er ber ^Heiden flattern; n?enn ber ^ob mit feinem

Juf^ an bie Slrmen, unb an bie ^alafte ber

s
.smitten ber 3Jicid;ti=

gen mit flletdjen Scf^lac^en anpocbt; n?enn ba^ $lurf-

3d>
fomme jet3t auf bie Dbe ,vSora5en3, bie an folcben ^>er=

fonenbicfjtungen bie reid>fte ift, unb voo bie perfontfi^icrten 3lb= 20

ftrafta ben 5lule^ern mand^e faure S^iertelftunbe

^aben. )a3 &lud felbft, bie ^otmcnbigfeit, bie

nung, bie Xreue u. f. to. finb al^ moralifcbe 2Befen in biefe

Dbe jufammcn^ruppiert, unb ba3 C^an^e be^ efanc^e^ felbft

ift einem perfomfi^ierten 3lbftraftum fleujibmct. 93can errat 25

e^, bafj icb toon ber Dbe an3 (^liirf

2
rebe. 33ajter fucbt
3
fyier, toie gen)6bnlid% in ibr feine lieben ^ilocu en, unb Ge^ncr 4
gebt bielleidH auf ber anbern Seite $u n?ett, baf^ er fie fiir eine

9lbbanblun$ i tber ben 2Irrifel (^liic! erflart; bocf) n?ir toollen

o^ne borc^efaftte ^IReinun^ lefen. 30

8 3
Lib. I, Od. 35. Herat., ed. Baxt., p. 49.
4
Eclog. Horat., edit. Gesner, p. 71.
 (Erftes IDalMjen VIII. 211

fetcf) ju 2lnfange ruft ora^ nid)t eicjentltd) ba3 liidf

afS em 2(bftrattum an, urn nad) GJeSnerS -Bteimmg einen

locum bariibcr burcf^ufjanbefn ; fonbern bic ottin be3
GHiicfS, unb jtoar junacfcft bie, fo 511 21 nt turn bere&rt
5 tmirbc. ie cjanje Dbe tritt alfo gfcid) au3 bent Sicfcte eine3
a II gem c in en 33ccjriffc3 ux$; unb iuirb etn rdmifcfcS,
em Jamilicnftiic! bcr Stabt 2(1150, cin 2(Itarftiicf in bem Compel
biefer Stabtflbttin. Gin Gintoolmcr ton 2(1150 follte auflebcn,
s
urn imS bicfc Dbe au^ feiner ^aterftabt 511 erflcircn, unb toie

10 tDiirbe ber unS mit mancfcni cbrlicf^cn locus communis au3=

Iacfen, ben it)ir bem C^Iticfc ubcvhaupt biefer Dbe anbicMen,

au<?

iueil ir>ir nicft bie (5l)re fiaben, bie Wbttin 511 fenncn, ber bie
Dbe al-S cin JnbiDibualftitcf getuibmet ift.

9Belc^e^ ftnb nun bie 2lttribute biefer Wottin? ,,Sie fann

15 ernicbrigcn unb erfyofycn!"
So gcfa^t, mare bie3 2(ttribut

freilicf) nicf)t al^ locus communis; allein,n>ie e^ -\Sora5 fafl*/

mirb e romifcft. ^ic3 (Wiirf in 2(ntiunt ift cine ")i

omcr^ottin;
fie bcfcfnifti^t fief)
mtt ben ftebo(utionen bc otaat^, bic -Ooraj

Dicllcirf^t cbcn bamal^ tor fief) faf>

:
fie flibt unb ftiir^t ^rinmpbc
20 um. So nxnifl bcr afrifanifef^c Jupiter cben bcr rbmifcf^c
,
unb bie Wabonna in ^orctto tolli^ bic Wabonna in

ift, fo ift nicM fo c^anj bicfc ^yortuna jcbmcbe anbere:

fie ift 2(ntium eic^cn, unb romifcf) (\efinnt.

,,^itu^ um ihr ^ilb a,cf)t ber flchenbe Sanbmann, unb bcr

25 Scfnffcr bc^ farpatf)ifd)cn 9)Jccr3 mit feiner ^itte/ ^cf) toeifv

nicfit, iuarum 33ajter bicriibcr bi in ben IKonb reift, unb ba

sortem forttmae fucf)t; aucf) ift mir bic c^nctfd^c (Jrftaruiuv
s
baft bie Stiirme bc^ Diccr an3 unbcfanntcn Urfacf^cn fonuncn,
nicbt borauggefe^en merbcn fonnen, alfo bem GHiicfe juju*

30 fcbreiben finb, u. all^emein; unb enblid) bie Mlo^ifcf^e

f.
tr>.
511
5
Grldutcrung, baft bag $fitcf auf ^Kiinjcn mit STorndbrcn, mit
s
Vindic. Horat., p. 152.
212 Berber.

Sdjiffanfern, unb toer toeifc toomit mefyr? gebilbet tocrbe, ift

fur mid) unb fur oraj nod; $elel)rter. 3>ermutlid; F>at

bcr Ginfaltiflc! an ntcfrtS $ebacbt, al3 bafc 2lntium, bie

nuiu3 ber Jv rtuna 2anbcinu)ofmcr babe, unb nafye an ber
.

See lie$c, ber cmpel beg 6Uicf3 alfo toon beibcrlei 3(rt Seuten 5

crhattc.

fitrcfrtet ber raubc Racier, unb bie fliicfrtiflcn Sc^en:

Stabte unb Golfer, unb ba luilbc Satium, bie Dtiittcr bcr

barbarifrf>en Moni^e, unb bie bcpurpurtcn ^mannen." 3niein

flenommcn n?are nirf)t^ Ieid>ter

gu crflaren, al^ biefe Stropbc; 10
fie fdnlbcrtc nainlid; bie Wottin be3 Wliicf^ rbmifd)
bor ibr miiffen bie Jeinbe, bie 9tebetten, bie 2;t)ranncn

Bittern; aber nun bcr 3 u f a :

Iniurioso ne pede proruas

Stantem columnam ;
neu populus frequens 15
Ad arma cessantes ad arma
Concitet imperiumque frangat.

60 finb iiber nid>t

fo leid>t
artic^crc Tin^e c^efa^t ^crben, al^
fl
iiber biefe ftefycnbc Sdule; ^ajtcrn biinfte fie fefyr ern=

pf)atifd) 3(ufluft 511 fein, ol)ne 511 bebcnfen, ob aucf) bie 5^"^c,
20
s
bie rcbcllifcbcn ^af alien Miom^, bor bem Sturje ^uc^uftg fo
bangc fein nntrbcn. C^c^ncr tocrftanb, bem locus communis:
de Fortuna, ben er in biefcr Obe fanb^emdf^^jcbcn DJicnfdwt,
auf ben fief) anbcre auf cine Sdulc ftii^cn/ obne un3 ^u
tt>ic

fac^en, tme fid) bicfer 9tt(flcmeinfat5 ^tifd>cn Racier unb cty= 25

tljtn, 53arbaren unb t>ranncn

fcfncfc. ^JJeinc 3Bcnii3feit finbet

in bicfer ftebenben Sdule nun? nicb:3 al^ eine ftebcnbc

Sdule, cine Sdule, bie inelletdrt in 2(1150, mit bem Seamen
S^om^ bejeicbnct, toor bcr ^ortuna ftanb, \v\t ja fonft bem
liicfe, bcr 3hil)e, bcr Sicfyerfycit folc^e Saulcn pflecjen l;inge= 30
6
Baxt. Horat., p. 50.
 rftes 2Balbd?en VIII. 213

7
fteftt $u toerben. 9hm fiel ora ba<3 33ttb if;re I1ntott(en3 ein
4

tote, toenn fie ifyren guft au^ftrecfte, unb bte Sdule ftiir^te?
60 toare biefer Sturj ein Stnnbilb, bem ^oeten ein ofung&
$eid)en bon bem Stur^e S^ornS. 3 n au f en toiirbe ba SSolf
5 ju 2Baffen eilen, 511 2Baffen aurf) bic nocf; Saumenben rufen,
unb ba S^eid;, biefe unflcfycure SSdtfauIc, ^erOrerf^en. 5)ic

ganje Dbe laftt mutmafjen, baf? mancfte jur 3^it ora^ ficf>

rcgenbe 3Mle i^m biefen Sturm pro^ftcjctt, ober mit feincm

^Bilbe, baf^ Jyortuna fcf^on bamal^ if;ren (\rofjen fyl) ju rccjcn
10
fcf)ien, urn an bte Sdule 511 trcffcn. 3Bic abet fiirc^ten fid?

bafcor !Dacter unb Sc^tf;en, 33arbaren unb ^ranncn fetne

Corner, feine ^attiotcn? >3oraj fa^t ntdbt, baf^ jene fid;

b a toot, bor biefem Umfturje fiircfUcn; fonbern, baft fie bie

(Sottin be G3lucf3 fiird;ten unb fcficucn; ftc, bic iiber 9"{oni

15 toad^e, unb bie Sdule beSfelben bor fid) ftabc; bic abcr ami)
mit cincm ^ttftftofte baSfclbc ftiirjcn fonnc, bicfe 9UImad;tiflc
fitrcf;tcn unb fd)euen Sct)tf)cn unb ^arbnrcn (benn n>a3

!6nntcn ibr bicfc fiir ein anberc3 Dpfer brin^cn, a(y ^vttrcf)t?),
unb toarten auf ben Slugctiblicf t(>rc3 ntfd^IuffeS, ber bamal^
20 fid) fdnen 511 ttdfjcrn.

tft bie Dbe ein romtfcbe^ ^attotta(= unb ein 9(ntiatt=

Jamttienftucf flctoefcn; fie fan^t an, f\nnbolifcber ^u

toerben :
Te semper anteit saeva Necessitas

25 Clavos trabales et cuneos manu

Gestans ahena ;
nee severus
Uncus abest, liquidumque plumbum.

Settbem e ^unftrid)ter bon efd^macfc flibt, tft mefyr alg etner

mit biefem 33tlbe .?)oraj nid;t jufricbcn getoefen. Sanabon
30 juerft unterftanb fid) 511 fagen, baft bie^ ematbe, in fetnem
7
Addison s Dialogues upon the Usefulness of ancient Medals,
p. 47.
214 Berber.

detail genommen, fcfyoner auf ber Seintoanb, al in einer

fyeroifcfjen Dbe roare. 2>cf) toeift nicfjt, ob SanabonS efiirjt

fyierin nicr/t fein unb rid;ti$ bleibe, ob id) oleid; ben Sport iiber
8
ifyn flelefen: quod haec imago non placuit bono Sanadonio %

sui ingenii homo est, delicatus mehercle! et venustulus. 5

3d) lueift nicbt, ob biefer sui ingenii homo, delicatus mehercle

et venustulus mit ber mad^tigen SBiberlecuwcj jufrieben fein

fonnte: neque enim intellexisse videtur quam divina sint:

ahena manus, severus uncus. $/ ber nid)t fein genug ift,
ba^ ottlid^e in einem ahena manus, in einem severus uncus 10

gn erbliden, fiil)le mit Eanabon ^leidB, unb c^Iaube, baft jeber,

ber bie Dbe in einem Strome fortlieft, bei biefem 5Mtbe e^ fiif;(en

iuerbe, baft er feft^cbalten ^mrb, baft er Dor einer bemalten

Seiiuuanb ftcben bleibc; unb ba \vill niemanb in ber Dbe.
Diogen alfo afte biefe ^erfjeuge attirail patibulaire, ober 15

Sefeftigun^roerle, Stymbole obcr

f;ocf)ften ber ^Jlacf)t Jor=
tunenS fetn, bie eberne .s^anb unb ber severus uncus mogcn
crrn Mtolj fo c^ottlicf) fd>einen,
aUS fie Pollen, bie Stelle bleibt
eine ber froftic\ftcn im Moraj.
Db aber be^ucc\cn, Un il ,,biefe Attribute fiir ba^ 5Iuge unb 20

nicM fiir ba^ Webor c^emadU finb, unb aHe 5kflriffe, bie n)ir
burcf) ba^ 5(uc\e erbalten foUten, n?enn man fie un3 burcf) ba^
C^ef;or beibriiuvn \v\ll, cine ^roftere 5{nftrengung erforbern,
//9
utib einer ^eriiu^ern AUarbeit fa bifl finb? ,^err ^effing tut
mir mit biefem (^runbe, meni^ften^ fo roie er ir/n au^briicft, fo 25

ifl
ein C^enit^en, al3 Sanabon ober Mlo^; benn toare ein

,
ben man urfyninfllid^ burcb ba^ 3htc\e erbalt, be&
ntdit fiir ba-o Wcbor, lucil fid) mit bem Dbre nid>t
feben

laftt;
s
fo Dcrlore bie ^oefte ibren ^anjcn 3lnteil an finnlid>cn

(ye^enftanben be 9luge3; unb tua^ bleibt if;r ba iibrig? 9^ic^t 30

alfo, U)eil bie Slttributc: Siac^el, Mlammern, 33lei, fief) feben

8 9
,Jllo<},
Vindic. Horat., p. 154. aof., p. 83, Slum.
 rftes IDaibdjen VIII. 215

unb nicfyt fyoren laffen, nid)t begtoegen macfyen fie bie Stelle

froftig; benn toer ft>irbnid;t gleid), toenn er uncus, plumbum,

clavos fyort, m d)t fogleid) mit feincr inbilbunggfraft uncum,
plumbum, clavos f e I)
e n? 2Bem toirb Slnftrengung notig f ein,

5 ficfy biefe $)inge, toenn er fie burcfy bag (M;6r empfdngt, fo

!lar ju benfen, alg toenn er fie fa^e? 2Begen ber 5(ttribute
felbft alfo faun Voofyl bie SteKe ora^ nicfyt froftig n^erben;
aber hjo^l toegen ber ftom^ofition biefer Attribute
gu einem ^Btlbe. ^)ie Necessitas gefyt bor ber
10 gortuna borauS n)o^l! unb h)ir erfaarten, moju fie

gef;en, n?a^ fie auSricfyten rt)oHe. Sie trdgt $eute unb S^agel
n)of;l! moju tragt fie fie? @g f^^t i^r aud^ nidf)t
Slammer unb f lie fun b 33(ei f)ier it>irb ber poetifcfye

Sefer ungebulbig toa3 brandy id) atte^ bag 311 Voiffen, h)a^
15 i
fy
r fe^ 1
1, ob e r n i d) t f e \j
{ t ;
tuag fie bat ober nid)t f^at ; id;

^ore ja nicbt, tvag fie bamit toil!, ober foil! %d) ftef;e Dor
einem toten Giemalbe. 2Bag fie bamit foil? anttuortet err

lo: 10 ,,fie fo(I bamit bie 9)tad)t beg Cs)liicfg antigen, bie

ottin an^eigen, ber niditg tuiberftebt, ber alleg meicften mu^,

20 bie (^ottin Don unmanbelbarem 2SilIen. 3Bie fd^on alleg

!Dag Wemalbe mufe alien QefaHcn, bie poetifcfyen eift

atte err 5llo gefagt, bie malerifd^en eift

fyaben, fo recf)t! aber bie poetifd;en (Seift f;aben? 3<^

nriijjte nic^t, Voag in ber SBirhmg beg emalbeg ^]oetifcf)eg

s
25 n)are. X)er ^)ic^ter ^at einen anbern $infel, bie ottin gu

cfyarafterifieren, ber nid;tg n)iberftebt, ber alleg toeicfyen rnu^,

bie Don untoanbelbarem 2Sillen ift, alg bafc er ifyr ein Stiic!

33lei, unb GJHfen in bie anb gebe, unb fie bamit traben laffe;
bie minbefte anblung, ja bag blo^e 2Bort: fie ift bie ottin,

30 ber nic^tg toiberftebt, ber alleg meid^en mufe, ift beffer, alg eine
mit 9JJorbgefr>ebren tuanbelnbe Jigur. ^ur^ nic^t bie $Be*

10
Vindic. Horat., pp. 154, 155.
216 Berber.

fd?affenl;eit
ber Slttrihttc jclbft, oaft fie filrS 2Iuge ftnb, aucfy
nid)t eben bie ^jebauftfyeit ber Attribute ift ber gefyler beg

fonbern bie ompofttion berfelben 511 einem bloften

511 einem Symbol, ba3 nid)t3 tut, ba mit feinem
profaifcfyen nee abest bloft ba ftebt, bamit ifyr nid)t3 an ifyrem 5

llnuvbamje fcble, bamit fie al* ctn ^oUi^e^ Symbol in einem

Wenuilbe V ara biere bie3 beleibi^t ben Sefer, infonberbeit

in cincr .sSora^ifrf^en Dbc. 6r ruft il)r c\leid>fam ^u, an ber

anblnn$ ber Dbc mit teil^nnebmen, ober fid) 511 madben, tt>e^

auf eine Scimuanb, an eine 3i^anb, in ein Giemalbe ber 5or= 10

tuna.
Unb ftne fam .^oraj 511 ber toten JVic^ur? 2BaF;rfd)einlid\
baft cr fie Don einem foldjen Wcmalbe fopierte, baft er fie mit
ben 3 u flen fopiertc, mit benen fie Dielleidjt im ^empel ^u 5ln=
tium an^utreffen mar. ^a alfo in einer Dbe .^oraj auf ben 15
locus communis be3 (yii tdf^ ein befrembenber J-ebler fein

Unirbe, ba finbct in einer Dbe auf bic Jfartuna toon 2lnso

meni^ften^ cine cntfdnilbi^enbe Ecutumv (5^ Ucremi^te ein

Wenuilbc, ein fd>one^ f\>mbolifdf)C^ (^emalbe, ba ein Scba

bedXempel^ fein fonntc, in toclcben biefe Dbe, al^ ein 6cfya$, 20
aud>
bingebortc. Wan frttificre .^oraj nicf>t al^ id)ter,

fonbern f)ier al T)icfUcr fiir 2(1150.

^d) finbe alfo ntcfttS minbcr, a(^ ein 2(bftraftum, ba^ GJlitcf,

in biefer Dbe ab$ebanbelt, mie man etn)a, menu man fid) bic

Ubcrfdmft au einem 2$6rterbud)e erflart, mcinen fonntc; e^ 25

ift bie (^litcf^cjdttin in 2lnjo, eine r6mifd)^cfinnte liicf^ttin,

bic and) nacfy ben bamaligcn llmftanben fid; S^om-o
annebmcn foil. 3lu3 2(ntium alfo, au^ ^iom, unb au ber

bamalic^en 3^it miffen and) bie pcrfonifi^ierten Sbeen biefer

Dbe i irf)t ncbmen,
?
ober man fcbielt. 2lud) err lUo^ fd^eint 30
mit fcincn (Srlauterun^en au Bteinen unb s
JJ{iinjcn" n)o^l
11
Vindic. Iloiat.
 rftcs tPalbcfjcn VIII. 217

nid)t ben nb^Dedf gefyabt 511 fyaben, fid; felbft bon bem
fd)en 33aue bicfer ora$ifcf)cn Dbe 3?ed?enfd;>aft ju gebcn,
toie e bod; bei ifyr bor^iiglid) ancu nge. 28enn iiberfyaupt bcr

(Sebraud) perfonifijierter efcbbpfe au einem Irmfcfyen SMcfyter

5 erflart toerben fottte, fo ift bcr crftc ba^it oraj, (Sr, bcr biefe
fd^oucu GJcfpcnftcr ungcmciu licbt, unb in @infulmm$ bcr=

fclbcn fcf;r cfmraficriftifd) ift; cm Mcnncr ra j WW u "3

bicfe
Seite!
5lbcr auc^ ber cpifcfte 2)id>tcr bat ^erfonifijicrtc Jbecu nbtig,
10 bic man gemcinifllid) ^Jiafcfnncn 511 ncnncn ^cii3oF;nt ift n?ie

foil er fie erfcf)affcn? 3tl fvnibolifcftc 2Bcfcn bc3 ^iinftlcr^,

al^ 2UIc^oricn, obcr aly banbclnbc Subjcftc? S^cnn cm
S)id;tcr c^ notifl bat, .fief) Dom .SUinftlcr 511 untcrfdnnbcn,
fo ift 3 bcr 2)id;tcr bcr Cpopoc, infonbcrbcit in fcincn
<

15 D)Jafcf)incn id) tuoUtc, bafi .**Scrr i cffin^ barauf c\cfonuncn

tuare !

%d) Wcifj, bafi mand;c fid; Scibcnfdmftcn, 7uc\cnbcn unb

s
Saftcr unb ein flanjcS ccr moralifd)cr ^crfoncn 511 ^Jcafdnncn
^crfonifijicrt [;abcn; allcin, id) iuci^ aucb, iuie froftic^, ^uic

20 uberfluffig biefe ^afcbincn oft ganje Gkbid)te l)cruntcr

erfd^iencn finb, bloji luctl fie al^ ^crfonifi^icrte 2(bftrafta

erfdjicnen, iucil il)ncn JnbiDibualitdt fcblte. (Sin n)irflid)e$

2tbftra!tum in ^perfon 511 malcn, ibnt auf5crc Wcftalt 511 gebcn,

uin t$ bic^terifcf) bcfannt ju madden, ^e()t obne Symbol nid;t

25 an; benn im Snncrn, im SBcfcn cinc^ abftratten 33cgriffc^

lichen nidjt garbcn unb Gkftaltcn. 2)er 2)id)ter Iduft alfo

Gkfabr, bafs, iucnn cr un3 cine laiuje 6eitc f;crab bic llnfd;ulb,
ben S^eib, bie -ittaturlefyre u. f.
\v>.
fijmbolifcf) gcmalt bat, tt>ir

f)interr;er fragen: Voie faf; ba !Ditu3 au? 2UIc cinjclncn

30 d;araftcrifierenben 3 u 9 e fwb tocr^cffen; n)ie !ann icf) fie 511=

fammenncfymen, bafj ein QanjcS 3Mlb l)or mir fte[;e? @r l;at

bie Slrbeit ber >anaibcn

oef;abt, inuncr neue 3iiflc 311 fdjopfen,
218 Berber.

bie abet augenblicflid) toieber rt)e$fd)lupfen, unb jet ftefye id),

unb fyabe in meinem lodfyerigen Siebe nicfytg.

9?un foil biefe abftrafte *perfon al Diafcfyine fmnbeln ; natiir=

lid) nid)t anber3, al3 au3 ifyrem 28 e fen, fate bie Unfdmlfc,
bcr 9ieib, ber 3orn banbeln mufj. So febe id) ja jebcn ibrcr 5

Xritte fcorauS; jebe ibrer S^eben errate id) fd;on au ibrciu

92amen; nur btefcn brands id>,

nut bie 5bee felbft, unb ba3
iibric^e luirb poctifcbe @in!leibung f ein 3kbejicrat. ^a-o (\anje

3Befen ift au einem 53eflriffe flefd>affcn,

unb in ein 2Bort ein=

ge^iillt; fann e mid>

alfo riibren? epifd>e Setuunbcrung in 10

mir errec^en? mir emeu ungetoofynten ^rof^en 5(nblicf (\e=

h>df)ren? Sine folcbe Scbbpfun^ burc^ ein 2Bort, ba^ jebcr

nacbfagen, ba3 jeber borau^ au^bcnfcu fann, ift Spielluerf.
omer^ WafcMnen finb feine abftraften ^e^riffe; eg
9^ein!

finb Subjefte, bie au^ fief) banbeln, bollftimmige JnbiDibuen. 15

fann
92id>t e au^ einer millfuvlid^en Jbee erraten, tvie bier
id>

unb ba Jupiter unb Juno, unb 9)lmertoa banbeln tDerben, toeil

fie Ginfleibunc^en biefcr Jbee finb. 9U(e feine (hotter finb er=

bicfitete ^erfonen; aber ^erfonen, mit boflftanbig beftimm=

ter T)enfart, mit Sd^uad^beiten unb Starfe, mit J^eblern unb 20

Xugenben, mit allem, ^a^ 511 einem bafeienben 3$efen c\eF)brt.

6ie jeigen nid>t

blofc ebanfen, 2Borte, anblungen; fonbern
id^ fef^e auc^ au^ ber 5(rt, au bem 3 ll f amm cnbanfle biefer
cbanfen, 3Borte ; .^anblungcn, baft fie au3 bem Jnnerften
eineS Jnbitoibuum^ flieften; ber ^poet bejaubert micft, baft, 25

folange id; lefe, icf> ein fold^e-o 3$efen glaube. Jbr .C^erren

Htlegoriften, ibr ^amenfd>5pfer toon ^Rafdnnen, i^r gbeen=

bilbf)auer ber epifcben 1)icbtfunft ba tut ibr nicf)t! Jbr malt,
il)r fcf)ilbert; unb fo lefe id) eueb aucft, al dialer, al^ Scbilberer;

n\d)t al ^id^ter, nicbt al^ 5lr>eite ^>rometben3, nicbt al

fer unfterblicber (Hotter unb fterblid^er 9JJenfcfyen.

2(ucf) bie fleinen SBefen ber (Einbilbung, iuelcfje bie

 (grftes IDcilbcfjert VIII. 219

be3 omerifd)en ebid)t3 gleicfyfam nur einmal queriiber

burcfygefyen, Surest, cfyredfen, unb bie unerfattlicf) toiitenbe

3tt)ietracfyt erfcfyeinen bet ibm 12 perfonlicfyer, al Slllegorien

erfcr/einen; bie lefcte 5. @. al bie dm>efter

unb efellin 9Jiar3 ,

5 be3 9ftenfcbenft>urger3,
mit i^m in (Skfettfcfyaft, mitien im
Sc^lac^tgetiimmel. &ie al(e^ bdmpft ba 5IIIegorif(f)e in

ber fyofyen 3^ ee / //^ a fc ft e / unb, inbent

anfan^ flein, fidB erbebe,

fie auf bem 33oben ber (Srbe einberc^ebt, ibr .aupt in ben 3Solfen
^abe/ fair fefyen immer bocb me^r eine ^Berfon, al^ einen 33e=

xo griff, unter einer ^erfon toorc\efteHt.

giir perfonifijierte ^Ibftrafta, fur aUecprifcbe ^afcbinen,

al^ folrf)e betrad^tet, fyat pmer feinen lUa^; nur ben 9ieben
13
feiner $elben lafit er 3, bie Giebete u. f. \v. 511 aUeflorifieren,

bie alfo au ifyrem 3Wunbe, nicbt aber eigentlicf) au feiner

15 Sc^5pferl)anb famen, bie alfo gefprod)en unb c\ebad>t, nicfyt

aber bicbterifcb c^ebilbet, gleicf)fam im Webicbte gefeben irerben

follten. 3lber aucf) felbft ba fucbt er fie, too er tann, in ba3

Sid^t eine^ beftef;enben $Befen3 ^u fleiben; er flid^t fie in bie

enealocu e ber (Hotter; er flibt ibnen einen biftorifcben 3^ft W>

20 er malt ba3 5tlle0orifc^e nid>t au^ mit ^prdbifaten, fonbern

la^t e^ taum burcf) ben ^amen, burd) bie f;iftorifd;en $u
burcf) bie bid)terifcbcn Attribute burd; b lief en. 60
ift 3 bei Corner ^au^t^toecf ju aUegorifieren, unb am minbeften
^u alle$orifieren fiir ^iinftler.

"

Iliad. A, 440-443 ;
Iliad. /, 2.
13
3. (*. Hgamemnons 9Jebe nou ber ottin 2lte, T, 78 etc. ;

Don ben ebeten, Iliad. /, 499.

220 Berber.

IX.

omer3 ^Jtebel ift eiu poetifcfyer -ftebel; ift cr aber bamit

einc poetifdje 9?eben3art, cin !imftlid;er 2lu3brucf, ftatt ,,un*
1
ficfytbar tocrbcn?" SBenn 2ld;illc3 nacfy bem in bic 2Bolte bcr=

borgnen unb fd;mell entriicftcn eftor nod; breimal mit bcr

Sange guftofct, foil bie ,,in bcr Spracbe be3 >id)ter3

lueitcr 5

nid;>t3 ^eificn, al^ ba^ SldnHcS fo ^Diitenb ^c^efen, baf3 er nod}

breimal geftoten, el)e cr gemerft, ba^ cr teincn geinb bor fid^
l;abc"? 3^ ^ ar f f a ^ cn ^ a & / id) bci omer ^cinc fold()e ^>f;rafc^-
fprad;c bc3 ^Dicbtcr^ nid)t fcnnc, unb nid)t fcnncn mag. omcr,
cin Jvcinb allcr fiinftlid)cn Jyigurcn bcr (Sinflcibung, bic nid;t^ 10

al^ fold^c, nid;t al o poctifcf)cr 3icrat, fcin follcn (nad; crrn

cffinfl (Marunfl, \va$ ift bicfe 2Solfc, bicfe poctifd;c 9icbcn^-

art anbcr^, al3 cine fold;c ^ffiortblumc?), omcr fairb auf
3 e ^ en ^ c
s
fold>cm Kcgc cincr bcr mid)tcrncn !Did;tcr unfrer /

profaifd) bcnfcn, unb poctifd) fprccftcn, bcrcn gradus ad Par- 15

nassum bic 3^ u bcrfammcr ift, ifyrc GJcbanfcn bcr ^]rofa in
cine Sprache bc ^id>tcr^ ; in poctifd)c 9icbcartcn 511 bcru)an=
bcln. 33ei fold)en mag allbann cine profaificrcnbc (Sd;ulcj=

^ofttion ftattfinbcn: ,,cr nwrb mit einer ol!c bcbccft, ba6 ift,

cr marb au ben 3lugen be geinbc^ n)CQGebrad;t; 2(d;ill ftic^ 20

breimal nad) bcm bidcn S^cbcl, ba^ ift, er U)ar fo nnitcnb,

bafi cr nod; nicfrt mcrfte, fein Jyciub fci ^cg." 2Ca fame abcr
l;crau^, mcnn man fo bet Corner lafe, unb aud; fcinc (Hotter,

if;rcn .
pimmcl, ibrc GJcrate u. f. u?. burd; ein folcf)c ba^ ift

profaifiertc, unb aflc3 ju ^oetifc^cn ^pf;rafcn mad>tc? 25

s
Jicin! Corner tDci^ toon Stebearten nicf>tg,
bie nid;t^ al

folcfc tudren. 2)cr 9^ebcl, in ben bie (hotter f)ullen, ift bei U)m
it>irflid)cr 9iebel, eine l>er[;iUlcnbe SSolfc, bie mit gum 3Sunbcr-
baren fcincr Jiftipn, mit gum epifcfyen fj.i>0o^ fcincr otter QC-
1
p-92-
 (rftcs IDalbdjcn IX. 221

fyort. 6olana,e cr mid) in biefcr poetifdjen 2Mt, in ft>eld)er

otter vmb elbcn !ampfen, Voie besaubert, feftfycilt; folange

mid) feine 9Jtinert>a
burd) bicfc ttmnbcrbarcn unb fd;rccflid;en

Sluftritte fiifyrt, unb mtr bic 2lua,en crfyofyt I;at, nicbt blofc

5 ftrcitcnbc 9Jicnfd>cn, fonbcrn and) tdmpfenbe unb bertwmbete

otter su erblicfcn; fo lan^e fel)c id; and) biefcn Stcbcl ebenfo

glaubi^, al3 ben ott fclbft, bcr bic 2Bolfc urn feincn
s
uxbt. -8cibe, ber Wott unb feinc olfc, f;abcu ein

poetifcbe3 2Bcfcn; n?cnn id) ba eine ^rofaifteve, mufs and;

10
fyintcr ben anbern cin c\ramnmtifd>e^ ba ift !ommen, unb
bann bcrliere id) bic (\anft in\)tbifdu djopfitng in joiner.
3c^>
bin nicf^t inebr in bem epifdien STrcffcn eine ^Dicbterg,

fonbern in einer biftorifd^cn Jyelbfd^ad^t ; id; Icfe nad) ber

Xaftif, id) fcbe nacb bem o;eirobnlid)en 2tu^enmafu\
15 err Seffin^ fd)eint barnacf) (^efcbcn ^u bnbcn;
2
iiberrebet cr un3, barnad) feben 511 fonncn. ,,Gincn
lid;en D^cbel faf; 2ld>iUc3 nicbt, unb ba^ Qanjc .Uunftftiicf,
ii^omit bie otter unfid^tbar madden, beftanb and) nicf>t in

bem 9?ebcl, fonbcrn in bcr fcbnellen Gntriicfuiuv 9tur urn

mit nn^ci^en, baf? bic (*ntritdunft fo fcbnctl c^efdicbcn,
fcin mcnfd)lidK 2(1^^ bem entriicftcn .Slorper nad)fol^cti

fonncn, built if;n bcr icbtcr borber in Stebcl cin; nid;t hjcil

man anftatt be entrucften 5lorpcr^ eincn Stebel ftcfcl)cn, fon=

bern \w \l ir>ir
ba3, \ra5 in einem Siebcl ift, unfidjtbar bcnfcn."

licf)cn 9icbcl fab 2(d)iHc nid;t." Ja! ^cr poetifdfye clb fab
i()n, unb brcimal fticft er nod; mit feinem Spicfte nad; bem
Siebcl. ff
^a flunftftitcf, \vomit bic otter unficbtbar macbten,

beftanb in ber fcbnellen Gntriicfunfl!" SSunberbar! too icb

30 mir fcbon ftirffame otter, eine njunberbare Gntriidung

benfcn !ann, unb benfe, bin id; ba nicfit ein 6fru^Ier, am
*
P- 92-
222 Berber.

ftebcl abbin$cn 511 tooHen? ,,9?nr nxil bic Orntriicfung fd)nett

toorcu itfl, built ibn bcr Xicbtcr cin; nicbt, nxil man cincu Dicbcl

a,efcben, fonbcrn, nxil fair bag, toag in cincm 9?cbcl ift, un=
fidUbar bcnfcn." 60! unb bcgtocgen ftoftf 2lcbilleg brcimal
nad> bem 9tebcl, nicbt, tocil cr einen ftebcl fab, fonbern, ttcil 5
er bag, nxi3 in einem Sicbcl i[t, fid) al3 unficf^ibar bacbtc! D
bcr )omcrifcbe Xon=Cui5ote ! o ber Geri^antifd^c Corner!

^tcptun berfinftcrt bie 5lu$en 3(dhiUc ;

in bcr ^at abcr
"

finb bc^ ^IdnllcS 2ln^cn nid>t

tcrfinftcrt, fonbcrn 2Bag
man ung faflcn toill! Dicptun (^icf^t bcm
bocf> 2(d>iUcg Xnnfcl 10

nm bic 2hiflcn, cr riicft Snca^ fort; cr fyat if;n in Bicbcrbcit flc=

brad>t, ibn crmabnt, nid)t nMbcr 3ldnl(cg jit ftrcitcn, if;n l>cr=

-- nun bcm
lafjcn mujj cr crft guriicf font men, urn
3
31 d) ill eg ben 9?cbcl toon feincn 2lnflcn ^n ncl>mcn,

nnb 2W>iUeg bat feincn OJcbcl Dor 2lu$cn ^cbabt! Gg ift 15

nnr f o f
o flcfaflt, baf^ fcine 3lnc\cn Dcrbnnfclt itiorbcn? 2lcbillcg
befommt bag IMcbt fcincr 2ln^cn ancbcr, cr crfcuf^t, cr ftntjt

i tber bag timber; cr fiebt ben S^icfi anf bcr G rbc, ben
btntpcii! cr crftaunt, cr f^ricbtmtt ficb, mit fcincr

Scclc, muttnafct anf bic otter- - ,,5Sie/ n?irb em omcri= 20

fd)cr Drtbobor fac^cn, ,,ift eg nicf)t ein ftra flid^cr Uni^lanbe, an

bcm }fcbcl bcr (Hotter 511 jmeifeln, n)cnn man cin fo augen=
fd cinlirficg timber bcr 35erblenbunQ, cine fo fcierlid;e Scene

ficl>t?
-cr .C>omerifcfye
Hotter fllaubt, mufs aua) bie 2Bolfe
i(>rer .\Sanb c\laubcn!" 25

Die SSolfcnbogmatil ber ^riednfcfKn (Hotter mnfe errn

Seffiitft anbcrg bcfannt fein, alg mir; benn er faf;rt fort, Dinge

511 bebauptcn, bic timber allc fcbbnc Sicbtbarfeit omcrifd>er

(!rfd>cinnn^cn laufen. ,,Unfid;tbar fein," fa$t er, ,,ift

ber natite

licbc 3 u fi attb ber Hotter $omcrg; eg bebarf fciner Slenbung, 30

feiner 2lbfdmcibnng bcr 2icbtftral;len, bajj fie nic^t gefe^en

3
Iliad. Y, 341, 342, etc.
 (Erftcs lDalocf)en IX. 223

toerben; fonbern eg bebarf einer @rleud)tung, einer

be fterblid)en eficfytg, toenn fie gefefyen toerben fotten.

lafjt omer aud) ottfyeiten fid) bann unb toann in eine SSolfe

fyiitten, aber nur algbann, toenn fie toon anbern ottfyetten

4
5 nicfyt toollen gefefyen toerben." golgenbeg mirb jeigen, bafe
err effing in feiner 25oIfentF)eorie ber griecfyifcfyen otter

ein $eer fei.

,,Unficf)tbar fein ift ber natiirlicfye 3 u ftflttb ber otter;" tote

fommt e^ benn, n>cnu id) frac^cu barf, bafe otter toiber

10 2BiUen fonnen gcfc^cn toerben? bafe man fie unbermutet
iiberrafd?cn barf, njcnn fie nid)t gefefyen fein toollen? @g
toar ein laubenSartifel bei ben riccben, ba^ nicbtg QefaF>r-

5
lid;er fei, alg ein folder iiberrafcf)enber 2(nblicf, unb manner
un^liicfiid)e Unfc^ulbige f^atte bariiber ein Dpfcr toerben
s
15 miiffen. ^allag, bie feufd^efte ber bttinncn, bie toor ^eufc^=
^eit fich fclbft faum nacft ju fefyen toac^te, bie too^l am minbe=
ften unter alien ottinncn jene falfc^e 3 un 0fcrnW eu b&
fa, fid; 511 berftccfen, unb bod) flefefyen tocrbcn ju toollen,
s
biefe jungfraulicfye $aUag njalilt fic^ ben ficberften, ben ge*
20 ^eimften Drt, um ibre orgo abjule^en; fie babet fid), unb
ein ebenfo efyrlicfyer 2:irefiag itberrafd;t fie, fiefyt fie toiber
fein en 9BiIlen, erblinbet. Jnbeffen um ben Unfcbulbi^en
etnigertnafjen fdmblog ^u fatten, gibt ^allag if>m nic^t
bag efid)t toicbcr; benn bieg liefs il)re ^ungfr&ulu^teit nic^t
25 ju; fonbern bie abe ber SBeigfagung. SSie ^atte ^allag
toiber if>ren unb irefiag 2BilIen iiberrafc^t toerben !onnen,
h)cnn ,,unfid)tbar fein ber natiirlid^e 3 u ftan ^ ^ er otter

toare"?

2Sie ber ^aUag, fo fling eg aud) ber babenben !eufcf>en

30 3Mana. a(t)bon faf) fie, ebenfallg toiber feinen unb ber

4
?aof., p. 93.
5
Callimach. hymn, in Pallad. Dianam, etc.
224

ottin 28illcn, unb toarb su teine. o fling c fclbft bcm

Jupiter, ba cr in feinem liebften SBcrgniigen einmal fcinc
SBolfe fccrgeffen f;atte.

Jd? mill folcfye geftortcn d;dfcrftunbcn bcr (Hotter unb

(Mbttinnen ntd)t aufoafylcn. IRctnc "JRufc ift bicSmal nid)t 5
fo, imc bic cfynxfter 5lmor3, bic,

luic Me "JJtabdjcn allc tun,

^cvlicbtc (]cm bcfdjlcidjct.

ba$ Gpi^rannn au^ bcr 5(ntholo^ic 6 an,

5jd) fiif;rc, ftatt allcr,

c^erje, in feincr naiuen 6cf)alf F;eit

in feinem einfaltiflcn :
10

,,2$crbe ja niemanb in meinen 2$affcrn eitic ber ^ajabcn, obcr

bic 35enu3 mit i^ren OJrajien nacft oenja^r, felbft h)enn e

ofyne SRorfa^ fetn folltc; bcnn immcr ift narf; .^omcr 3(u=
fprucfye ber offcnbarc Slnblicf ber (Hotter ^cfafjrlic^, unb mer
barf Corner miberfprccf)cn ?" Urn bie berborc^ne cfyalffyeit 15

cin^ufe^en, bie in biefem (5pic\ramm licgt, merfe man fid; ben

$)oppelfinn, ber in bem 2Sortc ,,offenbarcr 3lnblicf" liec^t;

ber @pi$rammatift meint nacft; Corner meint w ol;nc frembc

einflcibunfl, n)ic bie Gibtter finb/ !Die Stelle omer3 bc=

\tat\c\t alfo unfere 9J2etmmcj, unb fd;cint gar cin 2(jiom in 20

bcr gricdn fd;cn 9JtytI)olocu e (^c^orben ju fein.

Juno namlid), bie bem 5(d;iHe^ ju i(fe mill, mad)t ben

Sel)rfprud;7 baft, n)cnn 5Ic^iUe^ eincn OJott fleflcn fid; fel;cn

miirbe, fo miiftte er crfd;rccfen: bcnn Jurd^tcrlid; ift bcr

2lnblicf bcr Hotter, faenn fie offcnbar (tucnn fie ofyne mcnfd;- 25

lid;e GinbuIIun^) erfcfyeinen."

2Sie ift unfic^tbar fcin alfo

ifyr natiirlic^er guftanb?

97ac^ biefem 2Irjom fc^eint omer in feiner $<m^n otter-

bic^tung gu toerfafyrcn. inb bie (hotter unter ficfy, fo finb

fie ancf) unter fid; fidjtbar; follen fie aber unter 9ftenfd;en 3

6 7
Anthol., L. IV, c. 18, epig. 33. Iliad. Y, 131.
 rftcs IDalbd?cn IX. 225

toirfen, uncrfannt obcr erfannt, barnad) rid)tet fief;

ba Gcfycma
8
ifyrer @rfd)einuns. (Sine bid)te 3Bolte toarf Supiier urn ficfy,

ba cr auf 3ba fafc, bic Srf;Iad;t iibcrfcbcn, unb nid)t gcfefyen

fcin itooHtc. Grine SSolfe i[t bei Corner mel)r al cintnal bic

5 SUcibunfl bcr (Hotter, toenn fie in cincr Situation, bic nicfyt

auf anbrc luirft, in cincr intranfitttocn StcKuiu] crfcbcincn.

3f;r ^brv>cr ift jmar niir, mic cin ftorpcr, bcr Scbcngfnft
if;rcr 3(bcrn ift nur c^lcid;f am 9
^htt, b. i. nid;t fo grob lr>ic

nnb irbifd;, al^ cin tncnfd>lidf>cr

il brpcr; bod; abcr innncr
10 55 1 nt, ba^ ju tocrgicftcn, cin ilorpcr, bcr 511 Dcruntnbcn, lute

mcit mef>r 511 fcf;cn ift. So inirb SScnu^ toon !I)iomcbc ber=
10
iuunbct, ob cr fie Qleid) al^ Qottin erf cunt; nnb urn fie ju
trbftcn, er^n^It if;re Gutter Xionc," \vc\3 fd;on toon jcfycr bie

immlifcf)cn Don ben Stcrblicfcu F>aben ertcibcn miiffcn, itic

15 ^!Jlar toon jmci fciner tapfcren Jvcinbc (^cbnnbcn, in^ efa ng=
ni^ (jctrorfcn, brcijef^n donate lanfl gcfangcn (\cF;a(tcn, nnb
mit genauer 7Jot toom DtRcrfnr ^cimlid; gcrcttct fci; trie

bcrttjunbct, ^phtto toern^nnbct ^ua^ barf ^5, bic

fd;cn (yefc^id;ten l)cr 511 ersa fylcn, bie adc twcni^ften^ fo toicl

20 ^eigen, baf; nach bcr ometifc^en ottert^eoric ber Sa 511

f;ocf) flinc^c: ^UnfidHbar fcin ift bcr ^nftanb bcr (hotter, cincr

6rF;of)iing be^ eftd;t^ bcbarf 3, urn nur toon 5)(cnfd;en (jc=

fcf;en ju ^tocrbcn, nicf^t abcr cincr 2(bbrcd;unii bcr id>tftrar)Icn,

urn nid)t (^efcf;cn 511 fein." 33raud;t 3 biefc nid;t cinmal, n)ie

25 nnmbc\lid), baf^ cin G)ott nMbcr 2BiI(cn crfannt, c^cbunbcn, tocr=

nnmbct ^tocrbc? SScnn cr ben mcnfd)lid)en 2(uc\en feincr

9?atur nad; ntd)t blof^ cnt^cF;t, fonbcrn biefetbcn burd) cin
9Bunbcr erft erf>oF)t
toerben follen, ^toie finn(o al^bann, feincr
9?atur nac^, toern^unbbar, fiir ben elbcn ubernjinbtid; 511 fcin?
30 9ftan Voirb mir antvoorten: urn einen ott, nm eine ottin

8 I0
Iliad. 0, 50. Ibid., 330, 331.
"

Iliad. E, 340-342. Ibid., 381.

226 Berber.

&u erfennen, mufeten bcm iomcbc3 erft bon einer anbern

ottin bie 3(ugcn erbffnet tocrbcn; aHcin fyier rcbc id; nut bon
12
bcm 3>ertounbbarfcin burd? feine 9Jatur, unb fcblie&e

flerabcbin: em bertmmbbarer ilbrpcr muf} and) em burd) feine

ftatur nicfyt unfidrtbarer ftbr^er fcin; toenn unfcr 2luge ifw 5
ber 9iatur bc3felben nac^ nicft trcffcn fbimte, toic fonnte nadf)
bcr ^atur be3 G)otterleibe^ meine anb ihn treffert?
Sarum aber 5)tincrtoo bem iomebe3 crft ben S^ebel toon
ben 2Uiflen nebmen mu^te, urn (Hotter unb ^JienfdKn in bcr
13
Sdjlacbt ju untcrfcf^cibcn? ^c^ fann gerabcnKfl fagen: njcil 10

er poetifcfy cincn 5?ebcl bor ben 2hiflen battc; allcin id) n)Ul

Corner profaifd) ertldrcn. 2Senn bie -ftomcrifcbcn (Hotter un

v
mittelbar auf !Nenfd?cn, unb mil ^enfrfjcn anrfcn, 5. (5. ftrciten,
fdmpfcn, "pferbe lenfen, furj, menfcblid^e ^aten tun tuoHen,

fo nebmen fie burd>(^dn^i^ bei Corner aucb blof^ menfcblid;e 15

Weftaltcn an; e^ ^eif^t al^bann jebe^mal bei Corner: w er

14
fid) biefem, obcr jcnem clben." Unb freilicb in biefer

mar bcr (^)ott nicfH $u erfcnnen, bcnn cr h?ar menfd)=

lief) eingcfleibct; nur au^ ben ubermenfd>lid>cn ^aten, au^
hnmberbaren 33egebenf>eitcn fd>Ioffen bie elben, 20
f)ier obcr ba ein G5ott feine anb mit im Spiele ^aben
miiffe. Sic fiircfyteten fid; alfo, einem fo fcerflcibeten GJotte

511 begegnen, rt)eil c3 bei if)nen cine 53iajimc getoorben: Reiner

lebt lanflc, bcr einem $otte mibcrftebt, ober fd^abct/ TO

a,riedfyifd?er (SI;rlicf)feit fragt cin clb ben anbern, fo offen ^u 25

fein unb gu fagen, ob cr cin ott, obcr ein Stcrblicber fei,

bamit er toiffe, mit h)em er 311 tun fyabe. Unb mit

13
5lud) otter gegen otter ftnb tiertvimbbar, unb 3npiter tafjt ber

3itno unb SD^inerua broken, ba^, menu fte nirfit $urii(ttwcf)en, er fie
auf je^n 3a^re tang unfyetlbar uertintnben molle. 0,404,415.
13
Iliad. E, 116-130.
14 Minerva
Neptun (Iliad. 2T, 45) (Iliad. A, 86, 87; x, 227).
 (Erftes !Palbd?cn IX. 227

Iifd;er Dffenfyer-^feit entbeoft fid; ber ott, toenn er ing c=

brcinge flercit, bafc man il;m aug bem 2e$e toeicfyen follte.

$ur$um, toeil bag Qan^e omcrifd)e ^reffen tooll toerfleibet

toanbelnbcr (Hotter ift, uxil ber id)ter bicfc ,r>potbefc nnffenk

5 licfy
alien clben unb 6trcitern tooraugfettf, freilicb fo $ebort
eine "DDiinertoa
baju, um biefc eingeforperten 2^efen Dor anbern

^Kenfrf^en fennDar 511 madhcn. 5(ber nicftt alfo, bafe fie bag
GJeficfyt 2)iomebeg erhobeu burfte, um UnfterMicfye ju

fehen; benn bie Unfterblicfyen gHd^cn f;ier 5)ienfdien; fonbern,

10 um ihm bicfe unb jene morbenbe Ji^ur fennbar 511 madden,
ba^ fie ctn)a^ mehr fei, alg mofiir cr fie anfcbe, baf^ fie fein
5
5)2cnfcf, fonbern ein tuanbelnber fei/ (>3ott it.
f. f. fur$, f^ier

erfcfyeincn bie otter in einem Mnbcrnben 3>c(;ifulum $t\fys

fam, unb in biefem %e(;ifulunt follcn fie fennbar, nid;t fic^t=

15 bar merben.
9^un aber falle bag SMifuhtm n?eo, laffet fie blof^ otter

fein; bie 2Bunbe, ber 6dimcrj bleibt ibnen, cr ift nicbt mit bet
1

eftalt mc^^efallcn, in ber fie fid> menfd^Iid bcrforpert. * IJJarg

fd)reit auf, berlaf^t bie Sd^lacbt, unb i^ebt bimmelauf; bie Gk=
20 ftalt beg 2lfamag ift alfo RJC^, unb fcbt ba! bie ^olfenbiille
18
ift um ibn; mit ^Bolfen ^ebt er jum .^imtitcl. Unb nodf) in

feiner bimmlifdKn eftalt fiiblt cr ben Scbmerj, ben if)m ein

9Kenfd; jufugen fonntc? 3ft bie unbc nidit ber eftalt
Slfamag ojcblicbcn? Sic gebort 9J(arg; ber bimmlifdie 3lr^t

25 mu^ fie fyeilen; fein gottlid)er Mbrper tear feiner 9?atur nacr)

alfobcrhnmbbar, h)ie alfo eben feiner 9?atur nad; nid;t

bar? ober gar nid)t anbcrg alg unfid>tbar?
^ein, mein Corner ift toicl 511 finnlic^, alg baf5 er fein
ebicfjt burcf) toon fo cjeiftigen ottern, unb toon fo feinen
30 2Ulegorien, toag bie 2Sol!e ^ier unb ba bebeutet, toiffen follte.
inem perfifd;en po^oiften n^iirbe eine fold)e innere Unficfyfc
15 I6
Iliad. E, Iliad. E, 867,
127-130.
228 Berber.

bartcit bcr C )bttcr

s
cjcfallcn babcn; altcin cin ftricd)ifd)c>3
9
rmtt in bcr Gtyopbe avid; an ottfyeiten fcfrbne Slbrpcr unb
Mmmlifcbc Wcftaltcn crblicfcn: c toill fie fcfton ibrer -ftatur
nacr; in bicfer fcbbncn Sicbtbarfeit fcbcn, unb nicbt erft burd)

cin 2\>unbcr, obcr burcb bic aufjcrorbcntlidc Wnabc bc^ Ticf^ 5

tcv3, cine rlcuc^tung, cine t^o^ung bc3 fterMicf)cn Wcfid)!^

nbtic^ haben, fie an^ufdmucn. J*iir fold; cin 9luftc finb bic
flricdnfcf^cn (Hotter c\cfcf>nffcn. .^at abcr ber ^irf^ter c3 nbti^,

fie nidH febcn j;u laffcn, fo Hcibc cr fie in cine S^olfc; er iicrfc

9tcbel bor unfcrc 9Iuc\en. Ginc fcld)c S^dfc, in ber fie cr= 10

fdnenen, bat aufserbcm ja fo inancf^c bobcn Stebenbc^riffe:

ben 33cflriff be^ immlifd^cn unb Grbabenen, ber cincm F>imm=

lifdkn 25cfcn jufommt; ift fie ^lanjenb, fo ber ^racf^ti^flc

^bron cinc3 ubcritbifc^cn SJcgcntcn; bunfel, fo ba GJch^anb
be^3 3^niflcn unb Jiircfyterlicfyen; fdbn buftenb, fo bic 3>cr- 15

fiinbi^crin cincr lieblid^cn, anflcnebmcn Wottbeit allc bicfc

9tcbcnibccn lichen fd>on
in unferm finnlicbcn ^crftanbc; fie

baben ben ^id>tern alter tyittn bic bortrefflidftcn 5MIber

(^cfdmffcn: unb Corner folltc biefen cblcn Wcbraucfi bcr 5^olfc

untcrlaffcn, nicf)t ciiuicfebcn I)aben? (^r allcin battc bainit 20

nn bloft ein o!u3^o!u ciner ^octifdcn 3{ebcnart
niad>en Pollen, uni bier cine SntrucfunQ, bort cine innerc Un=
ficf)tbarfeit, bod) nid^t fo flcrabcl)crau3 ju fac\en id; fa^e
nocfnnnl^, fo fcnnc id) Bonier nicbt.

Jyvcilid; in ben fyatcrn .^citcn, ba man bie omcrifcbc 25

quintcffcnjiiettc, unb au ibr ein ^aar ^Trovfen

en Wcift abjoc^, ba Untfite man nicbt a,emift i^on

ber inncrn Unfid^tbarfeit ber Giotter, bon i^rcn mr;ftifcbcn fc

fdhcimmgcn, bon bcm i\bcrirbifd;cn ibrer Gpipbanicn it. f. ft>.

511 berniinfteln; allcin folcfye ^^co^banicn, folc^c fcinc 5Reta= 30

pf;r)fif iiber bie D^atur bcr otter gcl;brt in ben $rei ber

fpatcrn Patoniftcn unb ^tytfyafloracr, unb in bag

 rftcs IDalbdjcn X. 229

9Jiurntc(n if;rer e^eimnijfe. Jd; ben!c bod; after, baft toir

fyier nid;t iiber 3am6U$u8, fonbcru omcr reben.

$ur$, id; tin mit bcr Urfad)c jufrieben, baft, toenn bcr 93ialer
mit feincr 2SoI!e nicbt unficbtbar madbcn tann, cr and; bem
s 2)id;tcr bic ol!e nidjt nad)affcn barf; unb n)a Oraudrt 3 ba
meitcrc 3(Mcgoricn unb cutuno;cn itbcr ben ^icf>tcr, unter
bcnen ber !Did)ter bcrlorcn QcF>t?
9tad> meinc.ni WcfiiMc 90-

biU;rt ben a,ricd;ifd;en (yottcrn bic fdionftc id;tbarfcit unb

3ugcnb al cin ^rabifat ibrcy 5i>cfcn;
unb o^nc foldbc fid)
10 eincn 2(pol{o, cincn 33accf)U^, etncn Jupiter bcnfcn 511 follcn,

fid; bie Unfid^tbarfcit al3 ben natiirltcf)en ^nftcinb bcr (

s
)ottcr

Uorftctkn 511 nuif)en, ba*3 fann fcinc ^riecfnfcbc Scele, f ein

a,ried;ifd)cr ^id;tcr unb .Sviinftlcr, ja fdbft fcin lueifcr (S pifnr.

9Jiit bem 5kt3riffc fd;oncr 3id^tbarl eit c\ef>t
ba3 2i>efen
ber
15 (Hotter, ba3 l^cbcn i(>rcr Gicfd;id;te unb atcn, bic fo c\enau

Ocftimmten 3tufcn ibrer JbcalQcftaltcn, ba^ ^InjicfKnbe il)rc3

llmcian^C o mit Silicnfcbcnfinbcvn, bao flanjc MraftuoUc bcr
s
Dh;tI)olD^ie Derloren. Jd) fete nid>t mcbr bie fcKwen ftnn=
licftcn gricdnfdficn (Hotter, id) fchc fid>tbar fcin iuollcnbc ^>hait=

20 tome! lliit cincr folcf)cn ^\>potf>efc ift mcinc Ocftc m\>tho=

Ioi3ifcf)e unb poctifcfn ,

unb Stimftcntsiichmg c\ctotct! Jdf) ma^
bie fcl\erifd>e 9icui^fcit nicftt, icf> blcibc Dei bcr altcn c\ricd)t=

cf)cn

3)ilbcr, bie .^crr cffinc\ nu joiner anfiibrt/ finb

25 nidht iibcrfcW, nur inbtrcft, unb nad>
cinjclncn 3 U 9 CU forges
fteflt fie entbaltcn abcr nod) in bicfcr ^orftcKung fo incl

cbcn, bafj id) an bcr tlbcrfe^uncj Corners, burd) cincn DrigU

nalgcift, in unferc Sprad)e nid;t bcrjtucifle. Jd; Icfe,
1
aof., p. 94, ff.
230 Berber.

lob! meinen omer in feiner Sprad;c, nod) immcr aber

toiirbe id; ifyn mil Gntjucten in ber meinicjen fyaben lefeu tooHen,
toenn ein 2fteinfyarb bafcon aud) nut cincn $erfucfy cjeliefert

fyatte. liefer ftwrbicje 9)iann befaft fo biel $abe be3 2lu&

brucfS, bie $oefie einer fremben S))racbe in bie unfere 511 pro= 5
faifieren, obcr u>enn man liebcr ttjitt, bie ^profa unfrcr @prarf)e

fo gefcbicft jam cinfiilti^cn 9(bcl ber ^oefie eineS fremben

3(u^brucf^ 511 erbebcn, bafc ibn bie 5)hife unfre^ 3>aterlanbe

beftimmt 511 baben fcfnen, ber 9)Junb frember 9Zationen unter

un3 511 iwcrben. 2)ie^ ift, Voie id) c^laube, ber .^auptjug feiner 10

Sierbienfte; unb n)ie fycitte er biefe burcb cine Ubctfcfcung

omer^ nicbt geftei^ert! G)riecf>e
mu^ ic^ iiberbem fd[)on

tuerben, ^enn icf) Corner lefe, icb lefe ibn, n?o ic^ ^olle: tuarum
bcnn nid>t in mcincr ^3Jiitterf prad>e ? Jn^ebeim mu^ ic^

ibn bocb in biefer fd>on je^t lefen; in^gebeim iiberfe^t ibn 15

fid) bie Seele be^ Sefer^, rt)o fie fann, felbft n>cnn
fie ibn 0rie=

cf^tfcb bbrt; unb icb finnlicbcr efer, icf) !ann mir obne biefe

cjebeime ebanfeniiberfefcuncj focjar !ein n^abrbaftig nu^

bare^ nnb Icbcnbicjcd 2efen ,C>omer^ benfen. 9hir bann erft

lefe icb, al3 borte icb ibn, tocnn icb mir ibn iiberfe^e; er fincjt 20

mir unb ebenfo fcbneU, fo barmonifcb, fo ebel

griecbifcb bor,

fud)en meine bcutfcbcn Wcbnnfcn na^ufiiegen; albat\n

if>m

unb alSbann nur toermag mir unb anbern bon omer icf>

lebcnbige beftimmte 9tecf)enf4>aft ju cjeben, unb ibn mit ganger

Seele ^u fiiblen. gn jebem anbern ^atte, glaube icb, lieft 25

man ifm aU Commentator, al^ Sd)oliaft, al^ Scf)utcjelebrter,

ober S)3racblebrlinc\, unb bie3 Sefen ift unbeftimmt ober tot.

Gin anbereS ift, fagt SSinrfelmann, omer berfteben, cin
anbere3, fid) benfelben er!Iaren fonncn; unb bieS gefcf)iebt in

meincr Seele nicbt anbcr3, al^ burd) erne cjebeime Uberfe^uncj, 30

burd) eine fcbnelle Umtoanblung in meine S)enfart unb Spracbc.
Uberbem ift biefe, in 33etracbt bie tlberfe^erin omer3 ju
 rftes IDalbdjen X. 231

toerben, toeit iibcr bie fran^bfifcbe unb englifcfye I)inau3; fie

allein !ann bielleicfyt cincn ^Nitteltoeg jtoifd>en Umfcfyreibung

unb <Scf)ufoerfion,
toie bie meiften lateinifdjen finb, finben;
unb biefer 9Kitteltoeg beifte mit einem altbeutfdfyen SBorte,
5 beffen ftarfer Qe brand) un3 burcb fo manege fcblecbte 5lu&

iibung fcerad)tlid) unb

lacberlid) getoorben: 2^erbeuif(f)ung.

greilicf) n^erbe icftmeincn Bonier, and; iuenn 5Reinf)arb ifm

iiberfe^t (xitte, in fciner Urfdbrift immerfort ftubieren; nur

Voiirbe id) mid) aucf) nid^t fcftamen, bie Uberfefeung nebenan

10 Iiei3en ju f;aben, bei jebem ftarfen ^Bilbe, bag id) in meiner

9Jtutterfprad>e c^an^ fiiblen \v\ll, in fie fyinein ju bliden, mit

ibr 511 ^etteifcrn, fo lefe icb Corner.

33eburfntg ift
g alfo nid^t, iucnn id> mir einen ^Jlein^arb^
fcf^en omcr mimfcf)e; e3 ift ^patrioti^mu^ efii^l fiir

15 feinc ^abre ^efemetbobe, Wefiibl fiir meine 9Hutterf^racf>e

geoicn fo mancbe fiiyateinifdK llberfet^ung toon eftor unb
2
3(nbrcmacbe 5. 6., u. f.
to. betracf>tet; cfiibl enblid; Qe$en
3
bie untoicfHic\eu (^riinbe, tooinit man ein C^enie, ba ju inter=
^retieren ba ift, bom Bonier abfcbreden, unb bintuegfec^nen
20 toil!. 3Sie, toenn ^>o^e
and) fo gebacbt batte, too toare ber

englifdK Corner (^eblieben? Unb toirb tooM ein bernunftiger

Sngla nber, ber omer griecf>ifd(> lefen lann, ifw nid)t lefen
toollen lueil ibn ^>o^e englifcf) geliefert?
2Senn bte^ flute Bonier bier nic^t tootlig an feiner
25>ort iiber

25 StcIIe ftcf;t, fo batte e^ bocb irgenbtoo anber^ eine SteUe i>er=

bient, unb id) fal)re fort. ,,&$ ift unmbglicfy," fagt err fief*

finfl/ >ie mufifalifd^e 9)ialerei, toeld>e bie 9Borte be^ 2)icf)terg

mit boren laffen, in eine anbre Sprac^ie $u iibertragen/ unb

8
Klotz, Epist. Homeric., var. loc.
3
ftiebets ^eben 3Dfein!)arb [Denfmat be emi 3. W. W., an ben
>errn
e^eimenrot ^t(o^. 3ena, 1767], pp. 60, 61.
4
?aof., p. 95.
232
Berber.

an cincm anbcrn Drte,5 too er bic fortfd;rcitenbe Vernier

omcr3 Dortreff(id) enttoidelt, entgefyt ibm and) nid;t ber $or*
teil, ben ifym fcine Spracbe a,ert)abrte, ,,bie ibm nid;t allein atte

moglicfyc Jyrcifyeit in aufung unb 3 ufAtnmenfe(ung ber 3ki=

sorter lafct, fonbern and; fiir biefe gef)ciuften 23ehDdrter eine 5

fo flUi Jfltcfyc Drbmmg bat, baft ber nacbteiliflcn Sufpcnfion

^ejiebun^ babnrrf; abflcbolfeu mirb." SJitr F;aben biefe
if;rcr

^cmerfungen einen alien (^ebanfen mieber in bic Seelc a>

brad;t, ben id; bet joiner iminer empfnnben, unb 511 bent biefe

einifle 3 u ^c mit entbalten. 10

Corner fanfl, ebe fd>riftfte((erifcf)e "iprofa

ba tear, er toeijj

alfo Don feinen gefc^loffenen ^criobcn. 9itd;t, alS ob in ibm

s
fcin einjiflcr |>unft mare; bie bat er, mcin efer, unb bat er
nid)t flcnufl, fo flecffe ibm nod) mebrere 511. Jcf) rebe Don
feinen UnterfcfyeibungSjeicfyen, in mclcfie unfre S^rad^lebrcr 15

ba SBefentlid^c ber ^criobc feinen, fonbern Don ber 3 u f am=

menorbniuifl Dielcr ciujclncu 3flc S u ^ ncm fl"5cn GJcmalbc,
baS bal;er anfan^t, luo nnS bic SadK in bie 2lua,en fid, 3 U 3
fiir 3 U ^ wn^ meiterfii(}rt, aber biefe $\\c\t Dcrfcbranft, fo

umfef;rt, bafi ber Sinn bc C^anjcn anf^ebalten, ba^ er nid;t 20

ef;er DoIIenbct ift, bi3 n>ir
ju Gnbc finb. Unb bie^ Alittiftftiidf

ber profaifcben ^criobc, bef)anptc id;, bat Corner nidf)t. 33ei

if;m fiiUt c\Ieid>fam 3 U 3 na <^ 3 IU3 an^cinanber; er fd;reitct

mit jcbcm 33choortc n>citcr;
Don cincr SSerfrf)ranfung, Don
einer fiinftltcbcu Sufpcnfton bc Sinned njcift er nid>t. ,,1)er 25

lyricdjc Dcrbinbet ba^ Subjeft c\leid) mit bem erftcn ^rabifatc,

unb Icifjt bic anbcrn nad^foI0cn; er fa^t ,rnnbc ^IJaber, eberne,

ad;tfpeid)i^e.
<0

So miffen mir mit cin3, moDon cr rebet, unb

Voerben, ber natiirlicbcn Drbnung be3 ^enfcn-S Qcmiifj, crft
mit bcm ^tnflc, unb bann mit feinen 3ufaflig!citcn befannt. 30

^Diefcn 58orteil ^>at unfre Sprad;c nid^t/ ftcine neuere S^racfK

^>at i^n, bie $ur ^rofa urfpriin^Iic^ gebilbet toorben.
6
p. 116. ?aof., p. 117.
 (Erftes IDalbdjen X. 233

Unb Voenn in biefem 3 or ^f^ rc ^ en ^cn eben omer3

^Ranter Deftest, unb feine Spracfye (er pflanjte fie auf feine

)id;>ter fort) unb nur feine Spracfye bieS gortfcfyreitenbe

$ur -Stanier, jum Gkfe$e ifyrer 3ufammenorbnung macfyt,

5 n)ie in einer Uberfe^ung; fo toirb omer in einer Uberfeung
nad) biefer neucn &onftruftion3manter, bie einmal ein efct}

unfrer 6pradjen getoorben, feine Earner, ba SBcfcn

feiner $oefie, ba$ nut jcbem 3 U 9* Jvortfrf^reitenbe Derlieren;
er ttnrb profaifiert tDerben. ^profaificrt, nicfrt in ben JarOen,
10 in ben Jiflimn feiner 55ilber ; fonbcrn in ber 3lrt if;rer Stcttung,
in ilompofitioit unb 5Ranier, unb ba benfc id;, F;at er mel)r

ijerloren, al^ burd) jebcS anbere! Gin folder Serhtft $efyt

bie 5Irt be^ Stu^brucfS in feinem oan^cu 2Bcr!e burd;, er ift

ber ftroj^te, benn er Hubert ben Wang feiucr sIRufc.

15 3^ ncf;mc fein 5Mlb i>om
^erabftcigcnben ^tpoUo, unb fage :

So h)eit ba^ 2eben iiber ba^ C^cmdlbe geF;t, fo toeit ift F)ier ber

$)id;ter iiber ben ^profatften einer neuern Sprad^e. 2(poIIo

ftcigt Don ben of)en be^ Dh)mpu^, ergrimmt, 33ogen unb

ilbc^er auf ber Sdntlter. %d) fef)e ibn nicf)t allein F;erab=
20 fteigen, ic^ F;orc if>n. ^it jebcm Scftrittc crtlma.en bie ^sfeilc

urn bie Sd)ultcr be5 3 nu fl

cn ^r 9C ^ einfyer, c\lcid) ber

9^ad)t. 3^un ben Scfnffen Qcgcmibcr, unb fdmettt

fit^t er

fiird[)terlid) crHingt ber filberne S3ogcn ben erften ^feil auf

bie 5Raultiere unb unbc. Sobann faf^t er mit bem giftigern
25 ^Sfeite bie IRenfdjen felbft; unb iiberall lobern unaufborlid;
oljftbfjc mit Seid)namen. ($$ ift immogltcft," fagt .^err

Seffing, beffen orte id) mid; metftcnS bebtcnt, ,,bie mufi!alifd)e

2Sorte be^ 2)id^ter5 mit fybren laffcn, in

^Jialerei, ti3eld;e bie

eine anbere Spracfye mit ju itbertragen/ Unb ebenfo un-

30 moglid;, faF;re id) fort, ift 3 bem gortfd^reitenben be3
ba^ mit jebcm 3wQC yteitertritt, in einer neuern S^rad^e

fiir ?yuf^ nad^ufolgen. TO jebem neucn SSortc ift ein

mdlbe.
234 Berber.

lafjt un omcr in cincr neucrn Spracfye fyoren: e8

fci in ^Sope felbft, ber Qetoifc ba3 Utafs feiner Sprad)e fo ber=

ftanb, al3 fein $>id)ter bielleicfyt bor unb nad) ifym. Umtoerfen
7
muj} er bie 3&orte, cr muj} umfd)reiben. in 2Bort bei omcr
toirb ibm ein abgetrennteS Slomma, cin fortlaufenber 3U9 5
ftefyt in tbm einjeln ba, tote cine Grrflarimg. ier nimmt er

einen Umftanb t)orau^ ; bort erttdrt er tt;n, toarum er fei ; !urj,

bie fortfrf^reitenbe ")3ianier ,s;>omer3 ift toeg. omer^ 33ilb ift

eine au^^e"^Ite Sd>ilberei, ein Fnftorifcfye^ (^emalbe, ftitt*

ftebenb, nut mit poetifrf^cn Jyarben. ^ie s$oefie )omer3, ancf) 10

in $ope^ Spracbe, ift poetifcf)e, fc^ongereimte ^rofa.
Urn bie Scfmnerutfeit einer omerifd;en Uberfetnmg ju
^eigen, fiibre icf> nod) eine (Si^enheit in Corner an, bie id; feiner

Spradnnanier abcjemertt, nnb Don unfern Sprad;en nod^

toeiter abt^ebt. Sie ift ein fletoiffeS SSieberfommen anf einen 15

^auptjug, ber ba toar, nnb jet^t ba^ 33anb fein foil, urn
fd>on

ba3 Bilb toeiter^nfiifyren, nnb bie anleinanber fallenben

s

3iifle jn einem GJanjeu jn

fcerfniipfen. G reinpel mogen and)
bie^ erflaren.^er srnic\e 3(pDl(o fteic^t bom DfyntpuS, er=
grimmt, Mocber nnb 53oc\en auf ber Sdnilter ift ba Silb ao

au3? ^ein! e^ ro((t fort, aber urn bie fd)on gelieferten 3u

un^ im 3(nge 511 erbalten, fd^eint e^ bie folgenben blo
ben borigen jn enttoicfeln. Modf^er nnb 53ogen auf ber
ter? 5 a ^^ e Weile erflatu^en anf ber Sd^ulter.
- Qr-
$r immt ftieg 3Ipo(lo nieber? %al fie erflangen auf ber 25

Sdwlter be^ 3 orn ^9 en - r f^ e O nieber er $i n 9?

fie ftan^en alfo mit jebem Xritte be^ Change g. -Jhm ift

omer ba, too er auSgincj; er fcf>ritt fort, inbem er juriicftrat;

er Ijat jeben uergancuien 3U9 erneuert; nod) fyaben toir ba^

Dor 2lugen. 3(uf eben bie 3Irt rollt er fein 5BiIb toeiter. 30
let^te 3U9 erinnerte un3 an bie Mtte be^ Sd)reitenben,

The by Pope, Book

7
Iliad translat. I, v. 61-72.
 Crftes H)albd?en X. 235

unb toirb faeitergef iifyrt : ber Sc^reitcnbc ging bcr

gleicf). SBegfaegen 3lpotto 9?ad?t urn fief) getoorfen, fyat ber

$)idjter nid)t 3e^ 5 U f a gen, ^r Iflfet eg erraten, eg toar ein

frember 3ng in feinem Gkmalbe fyter, an bie ju benten, bie er

5 jetjt, mit yiadjt umbecft, Dorbeiftrid) er ftort ftc^ nicfyt im 33ilbe ;

be^ ge^cnben GJotteS. 5?un ift ber GJe^enbe bie Scfyiffe Dor=

bet, tt>eit
DorDei, er fi^t, er fc^ncUt einen ^Pfeiltrifft er,
fo ift ba 33ilb 511 Gmbe aber
mufi e3 nic^t ju @nbe fein.
; nocf>

T>a3 53ilb be^ Hingcnbcu Socjcn^ tuare al^bann berloren, e

10 totrb erft luteber crtuccf t fiircfyterlid) alfo erflingt ber
filberne 53oa,en; nun fafet ber ^Pfeil, ber erfte, ber anbre,

2^iere, unbe, ^enfc^en, Sd)eiterf)aufen flammen; fo flogen

bie ^Pfeile beg (55otteg neun Xage burd^ bag ccr. 3e *
ift bag GJemalbe 311 @nbe; ber GJott, Sogen, $feil, bie 2Birlung
15 berfelben, alleg ift Dor 3(ugen; fein $ug berloren; fetne J^^be
mit einem borbeifliegenben 9Borte meggeftorben; er toecfte

jebe ju reciter $t\t toieberfyolenb ^ieber auf: bag 33ilb roUt

jirfelnb rt)eiter.

60 mac^en eg niebt unfre )3oetifd)en Srf)ilberer: fie malen

20 mit jebem $Borte, unb mit jebem ^Borte ift and) bie ^arbe
h)eg, ber 3 u g t>erfcf)munben am (Snbe fyaben n)ir nur eben ;

bag Setste, nid^tg mef;r. So aber nicfyt ber erfte ber !Did)ter;
er toebt mieberbolenbe 3"fl^ ^in/ ^ ^nm jnjeitcnmal bag 3ilb
S

tiefer einpragen, einbriicfen, unb einen Stacfyel in ber Secle

25 fcuriicflaffen, h)ie (Su))olig, ber ^ombbienfrf^reiber, toon bem

gro&ten 3^ebner G5ricdf)enlanbeg, bem ^erifleg, fagte. !Die

5Ranier ber $ompofttion feiner Silber gleirf)t ber S^recf)art

beg Ult}ffeg, beffen SBorte roie bie Sc^neeflocfen flogen, bag ift,
h)ie Alining fagt, crebre, assidue, large, r la^t feinen

30 6tein unben)egt, urn jum 3^ e ^ e 5 U treffen, unb feine ^feile

finb, ime bie beg ^fyiloftet rtjieberfommenb.
5Jienelaug n?irb ben dauber feiner @f)re unb feiner attin
236 Berber.

toor bcm $eere anficfytig, unb ,,freut fief;

toic cm 2otoe, ber auf
einen cjroften 9faub fdllt."
9hm todre bag $8ilb ju @nbe,
aber fiir omcr ift g nod; nid;t genug
tief in bcr Seele. 28ag
ift bag: bcr auf einen cjr often $ or per fdllt? omer
fdbrt toicberbolenb fort: UKnn cr einen gefydrntens
&i f$/ obcr cine
r toil be 3^ C 9 C flcfunben. 9hm \vi\u
un3 n>ieber ba 53ilb feiner Jyrcubc 511 it>cit Dom 3luge entfcrnt,
e^ rollt alfo mcitcr: fjungrig twar cr, oieri^ berfc^IinQt
cr ^I Unb urn ben Ic^tcn Stadbel in bcr 6cclc ju laffen, Don

fcinem (^icri^cn Bd^ingen, Uon fcincr erf;afd;cnbcn Jyrcubc, 10

fo ertoccft Corner bintcr if;m etne laute !ommenbe

fd;nclle mnbe, bliibenbe jungc 3^G er toerfolflen if;n.
ift bag 53tlbflanj; ic^ fef;e ben oierigen Sotocn, ben

fcin (5rhafcf)cn,, unb, luaS bcr ^Haub fci, feine J^rcubc, unb
fcine bic Wcfafyr ucr^cffcnbe Wtcrig!cit. So frcutc fid;
S
33icnc= 15
8
laitS it.
f.
n). Sctn Wcmdlbc ift cin ilrei^bilb, two cm 3 U G
in ben anbcrn fdllt, too ba3 3>orit3e juriicffc^rt, urn ba 5^
^enbc 511 entiuicfeln.
s
3<^ miifttc adc -8ilbcr, allc G)leicf)niffc $omer3 abfd;reiben,
iuenn id; aQc 53cifpiele gcbcn tDoHtc; benn fie finb allc nad; 20
cincr s
3Jtanier. 9iid;t immer ftromcn neue 3 u9e ^ er 3 u >
bit

bori^cn fommcn nneber, malen U)citcr; bcr ^ans ber gi$urcn

fcl)rt in fid; ^uriicf, unb brid;t plo^licf) ab. anblung unb

(Smpfinbutui, 3 u ftan ^ un ^ Setoegung VDed;feln; unb gcmeinig=
lid; ninimt fid) ba^ 2Bort, ba^ bic anblung tvicber erncucrn, 25

ba ein iBanb Dorigcr $\[$t fcin foil, aud; baburd; au, baft
e^ einen 3scr3 anfdngt, unb alfo bie ^ebe auf fief) ftii^t. 3C^C^
33ilb omcrg ift cine mufifalifcbe IRalcrci; bcr cjegebene Son
^ittcrt nod^ eine 2Bcilc in unfcrm D^re: it)ill er erfterben, fo

tont bicfclbe Saite, ber ttorige ^on fommt Derftdrft micbcr; 30

allc Ucrcinigcn fid; jum Sollftimmigcn beg 53ilbeg. So iibcr=

Iliad, r, 21.
 rftes IDaIbd}cn XI. 237

toinbet omer ba inberni3 feiner $unft, baft ifyre 2Birtung

gleicfyfam jeben Slugcnblict toerfd;U)inbet; fo mad;t er jeben

gng feinc3 5Mlbc3 banernb.

3$ fyabe ein paar ^robcn toon bcr feinen 3\unft omer in

5 feiner 33ilbcrfompofition toon feitcn ber Spracfye gegeben, urn

511 jcigen, baft id; 511 eincr Ubcrfcfcimg toicllcid;t 8d;toierig=

feitcn finbc, toon bcncn mand?c nid)t3 tuiffen, bie red;t toiel

toon omer3 itberfe^nng fprcd^cn fonncn; inbeffen bringen

mid; and; biefe SdjUMcrigfeitcn nod; nid;t jur SSer^ueiflung.
10 3(nd) (>icr
ba^ C^enie Nat finben; t$ mirb ^crftiicfcn, nnb
lt>irb

tutebcrf;olen nnb micbcr toor^ 2(nge

ftcrben laffcn,
nnb bcm omcr tDcnigftcno nad;cifern. 3$ tooHte,
s
err Seffing fid; iibcr bic^ ^icbcrfommcnbc in omers> lMlbcrn
erflarcn mod;te. omcr fcf)ilbert nicbt; \vo cr aber mnft, ba
15 brand;t er ba3 angejcigte Alunftftiicf, urn mittelft jeben 3(ngen=
blicf fd;minbcnber, abcr UMcbcrfommcnbcr Sione ba (yanje
cine^ GinbrndNS 511 liefcrn. 5ln^ bcr Xonfnnft fonnte biefe

(Sncrgie feiner "Dtanier am beftcn crldntcrt tuerben.

XI.

Uberfyanpt muft man nid;t bcnfcn, baft cin ^^ilofopb, ber

20 ben Unterfcbieb ^ifcf>en ^>oefie
nnb einer fc^bncn ^nnft jn
entuncfcln untcrnimmt, bamit ba ganje 2Befen bcr 2)id;t=

funft tooUftanbig erflarcn ^ollc. .^err Seffing jeigt, toa3 bie

X)id;tfnnft flegcn ^Ralcrei gcfwltcn nid;t fei; nm abcr 511 fcfyen,

n?a fie benn an fid; in if;rem gan^cn 2efen toollig fei, miiftte
25 fie mit alien fd;it>efterlic^en ^unften unb 2Biffenfd;aften,
5. @. DSKuft!, an$funft unb S^ebehmft toerglic^en, unb philo?

fop^ifcf) unterfd^ieben yrerben.

,;
^alerei foirft im S^aume, ^Poefie bnrd; 3^f D ^
burcf) giguren unb Jarbcn, biefe burd; artifulicrte
238 Berber.

^ene l)at alfo Jtorpcr, biefe anb(nna,en ju eioentticfyen c-

Qenftanbcn." So weit ift .err Seffing in feincr (Snttoicflimg

gefommcn. 9hm ncfyme em pfyilofopfn fcfjcr Xonfiinftler fein
Bcrt auf:
s
toic fern baben ^3ccfie nnb Xontunft gemeine
3te$cw, ba fie bcibc bnrcb bie 3citfotge iwrfen? 2Bie gefyt jene 5

ab, ba fie anblunQ fingt? I)cr S^ebcfiinftlcr faf)re fort:

jebc Kcbc !ann .anblun0 fcbilbern: ^oefie? trie bcnn bie

tote in ibrcn attungen nnb 2(rten? Gnblid^

berfcr)iebncn

bicfe ^beorien jufammcn, fo bat man ba3 5Bcfcn bcr ^oefic.

2(uch bei ber je^trtcn einen oeite bcr $erfllcicfyung ift
g in= 10

bcffen, aU
ob mtr an bcm iBcfcn ber s$oefie immer ettoaS jnr

^crccbnuiu^ fcble. 3^ ncbmc 2cffing ba ba^ 2Bort auf, h)o

1
cr bic cache au3 il;rcn erften GJriinbcn fjcrjnlciten berfpricfyt.

C5r fchlicfU fo: ,/IBenn e3 n?abr ift, baf3 bie "Jftalerei

jn if;ren
^acbabmun^cn ganj anbre 9ftittel, ober 3 ^^n
c gebranrfit, 15
x
al3 btc Vocfic; jene namlich 5^0 uren un ^ S^rben in bent
Dannie, biefe aber artifnlierte 6ne in ber 3e^ n)enn nn=

ftreiti^ bie 3 e ^ eu c^ n bequemeS 3Serhaltni^ 511 bcm 53ejei^

neten babcn miiffcn: fo fonncn nebcneinanbcr c^eorbncte

3cicbcn and) nnr (^cgenftanbc, bie nebeneinanber, ober beren 20

^cile nebeneinanber ejiftieren, anfcinanber fola,enbe 3 c ^ crt
aber anch nnr (9ec;enftanbe an^bhicfcn, bie anfcinanber, ober
beren ^eite anfeinanbcr folgen.

^CQcnftdnbe, bie nebeneinanber, ober beren Xette neben=

cinanbcr crifticren, beiften ^orpcr. ^ola,licb finb .^orper mit 25

ifyren ficbtbaren Gigcnfrf)aften bie eigentlicf)cn Gkcjenftcinbe

s
bcr ^alerei.

,,G5e^cnftanbc, bie aufeinanbcr, ober beren Xcile anfein;

anbcr folc^cn, bciften iiberbanpt anblungen. Jyolfllicr; finb

.vSanbtnn^en ber eic^entlirfje (Seflenftanb bcr ^ocfie/ 30

3sielteicf)t voiirbe bie ganje Scf)lnfefette untriiglicf) fein, toenn
1
?aof., p. 101.
 rftes IDalbdjcn XI. 239

fxe fcon cinem fcftcn ^3unfte anfingc; nun aber laffet un3 gu
ifym fyinan. ,,28enn e3 toafyr ift, bajj bie 9ftalerei ju ifyren

;ftaci)al)muna,en ganj anbre 9ftittel ober 3 e ^ en flebraucbt,

ate bic ^oefie"; allerbing-S toafyr!

5 ,,3 ene ttdmlid) Jiguren unb 5 ar ^ en in bem 3?aume, biefe

aber artifulierte Xone in bcr 3C ^-" Srf^on nicfrt fo bcftimmt;
benn ber ^Soefie finb bie atttfulierten ^one nidbt ba^, n?al
Jarben unb Jicuircn ber ^Kalerei finb!
w 9Bcnn unftteitig bie 3 c eu cul bequemc 3 ^ i
2>erf;dltni^ yd
10 bem 55e3eic^neten fyaben miiffcn." (S bcn bamit fddt alle 3Ser=

gleid^ung iueg. Die arttfuliertcn 2onc baben in ber ^foefie

nid;t eben ba^felbe 58er^ciltnt^ su if;rem ^cjeirf^netcn, ba in

ber ^Ralerei ^iguren unb Jarbcn 311 bem if;riflen baben. ^bn=
nen alfo jnjei fo terfd)iebnc Xhnflc ein britte^, einen erften

15 (Srunbfatj jum Untcrfcfticbc, jam $8cfen bciber .S^iinfte flcbcn?

^)ie 3 e ^ eu ^ er ^nlcrci finb natiirlicb; bie Skrbinbung
ber 3^ifben mit ber bejeidmeten Sad^c ift in ben Gn$enfd)aften

be 53eeid>neten fclbft flcflriinbct. ^ie 3 c ^ cn ^ cr ? ^efie

s

finb millfurlicb; bie arttfuliertcn ^onc baben mit ber

20 (SadBe nid)t (^emein, bie fie au^riicfen foUcn; fonbern finb
nur burd) cine allgemeine .sionuention fiir 3 c ^^ en flnge*
no mm en. Sbre S^atur ift alfo fid> t>b(li(^ un(^leid>,
unb ba3
Tertium comparationis fd^rtJinbct.
^JJialerei ttnrft c^anj im ^aume, nebeneinanber, burd>
3^cfien,
s
25 bie bie Sacbe natiirlid; bura^
geivien. {>oefie
aber nidH fo
bie Succcffion, toie jene ben ^aum. 21 uf ber burd>

5ol$e ibrer artifulierten ^one berubt ba^ nidbt, rt)a^ in ber

JRalerei auf bem ^ebenetnanberfein ber Xei(e berufjte. X>a^

Succefftbc ibrer 3eic^en ift nicbt^ ate conditio, sine qua non,
30 unb alfo bloft einic^e mfdjranfuna,; ba .^oe^iftieren ber

3eicf>cn
in bcr jfMerei aber ift 9tatur bcr .^unft, unb ber
runb ber malerifd^en Scfjonbeit. ^oefic, toenn fie freilic^
240 Berber.
i

burd; aufeinanber folgcnbc Xdne, ba3 ift, SBorte fairft, fo ift

bod; ba3 2lufcmanberfolejen ber bne, bic 6ucccffion bcr
I^ortc nid;t bcr "Diittelpunft ibrcr SHMrfung.

Urn bicfcn Untcrfdncb bcutlidhcr 511macbcn, mufs cine S5cr=

flleirfnmg 5U>ifd;cn jtuci burd; natiirlidje 9Jiittcl iwrfcnbcn 5

.SUtnftcn Qcmarfit nxrben, jtoifcbcn Walcrci uub Xenhtnft.

burd; ben 9iaum,
s
faun ich fa^cu: l>falcrct iuirft c^anj

ufiI burcf> bic 3 c ^f^ c - 9Ba3 bei jener ba3

OtcDcncinanbcrfcin bcr garbcu unb Jviflurcu 3runb
S
ift/ bcr (

bcr Scfbnr>cit, ba^ ift bci bicfcr ba3 Slufeinanbcrfolgen bcr 10

Xbnc, bcr Wrunb bc 3So^l(langc5. 2lMc bci jcncr auf bcni

Hnblicfc bc3 .Slccjifticrcnbcn ba^ 2ll of)loicfallcn, bic SSirfung
bcr Alunft bcruf;t; fo ift in bicfcr ba^ 6ucccffit>c, bic 2}erfniip=

unb 5(btDecf)feIung bcr ^bnc ba^ Dtittcl bcr muftfalifcfrcn

5^ic alfo, fann id) fortfabrcn, jcnc, bic 9)ialcrci, 15

burd) cin Hcnb^crf ben ^Bcflriff bcr ^citfo^c in un3 er=

h)ccfcu fann, fo mad)c fie bic^ 9(cbcn\t>er! nic 511 ibrcr .^aupt^
fad?c, namlidv alS ?3ialcrci burd) Jyarbcn, unb bod; in bcr
3citfol$e 511 tDtrfcn; fonft (^ebt ba^ 25-efcn unb atte ^irhmc^
ber ilunft i^crlorcn. .^icrubcr ift bag Jarbentlabier 3 cu fl
e- *

Unb alfo ini WegcntcUc bic ^hifif, bie ganj burd; ^citfclflc
ttirft, nmd>c c nic jum auptgh>edfe, egcnftanbe bc^ 91aum3
nuififalifd) 511 fdiilbcrn, n?i.e unerfabrne Stiint^cr tun. gene
Vtcrlicrc fid; nic au3 bcm .^ocjiftcntcn, bicfe nie au^ bcr Suc=
ccffion; bcnn bcibc finb bie naturlid;en ^DJittcl iF;rcr 2Bir= 25

hmg.
53ci bcr l^ocfic abcr ift bcr 9(uftritt c^canbert. ^ier ift ba3
^latitrlicbc in ben 3cicbcn, 5- 6. ^ucftftaben, ^lanc^, XonfolQe,
s
gur ^irhtn^ ber $oefie toenig ober nicbtg; ber Sinn, ber burd;
eine ftnftfiirlicbe tlbereinfrimmung in ben Shorten licgt, bie 3

eele, bie ben artifulicrtcn ^onen eintrofint, ift at(e. 2)ie

Succeffion ber dne !ann ber ^pocfie tiid;t fo ^efentlid; be^

 (Erftes XDalbd?en XL 241

rennet toerben, al bet 9Merei ba3 $oerjftieren bcr garben;

^
benn ,,bie 3 e en fyaben gar nicfyt einerlei 33erl)dltni3 511 ber
2
bejeidjneten 8ad)e."

$)er runb ift toanfenb; trie toirb ba<3 Gkbaube fein? @I;e
5 fair biefeS fefyen, laffct un3 jcucn crft auf anbre 5(rt fid;crn.

5)2alerci mirft im 3? a um e, unb burcf) cine fitnftlid;c 3k>r-

ftedung be^ 3laum5. 9JJufif, uub allc cncr^ifcficn iliinfte

tmrfeu utrf;t blofe in, fonbcrn aucf) burcf) bic 3^tfolgc, burrf;
cinen fitnftlirf>cn 3eittt>erf>fcl
bcr Xonc. Sicftc fic^) nicfyt ba
10 3Bcfcn bcr ^ocfic and; auf cincn fold)cn .^auptbcgrtff bringcn,
ba ftc burd; it>itl!urlicf)e ^cicbcn, burd; ben Sinn bcr 9Sortc

auf bie Sccle iuirft? 3Sir mollcu ba l^ittcl bicfcr 2Btrfung

3e^
S

^Iraft nennen; unb fo, ^uic in bcr 33tctaph^fif 9? a urn,

unb $raft brei (^runbbc^riffc finb, mic bie matbcmatifd^en
15 2Siffenfd;aften fid; alle auf cincn bicfcr ^cflrijfe jurucffufyrcn

laffcn; fo tr>ollen n>ir

and; in bcr l)eortc ber fdjbncn 2Siffcn=

fd;aften unb ^liinfte fatten: bic iUinfte, bie 2Ber!e licfcrn,

tvirfcn im Dtaumc; bie Mitnfte, bic burd; Gucrgic iuirfcn, in
bcr 3^ r f^ c i ^ fcftbncn SBiffenfcfyaften, ober biclmcr;r bie
20 einjige fd;bne 9Si(fcnfd;aft, bic ^ocfic, mirft burd; 5lraft.
2)urd; ^raft,bic cinmal ben Morten bchrobnt, burd; Slraft,
bie burd; ba^ Dbr geF;t, abcr unmtttclbar auf bie Seele
^r>ar

tt)irft. 2)icfc ^raft ift ba3 cfen bcr ^ocfie, nicbt abcr ba^
Sloejiftente, obcr bie Succcffion.

25 9hm mirb bie 5 ra 9 c : ^clcftc Wegcnftanbc tann bicfe

5lraft beffer an bie Seele bringcn, Wcgcnftanbc bcS S

foerifticrenbe egenftanbe, obcr egenftdnbe bcr 3 c ^f uc=

ceffionen? Unb urn micbcr finnlicf) 511 rcbcn: in Ujclcbem

^cbtum h?ir!t bie poetifd;e 5!raft freier, im Staumc, cber in

30 bcr 3eit?
Sie toirft im S^aume baburc^, baft fie ifyre ganje 31ebe
2
aof., p. 101.
242 Berber.

finnlid) macfyt. 53ei feinem 3eid)en mufc bag

fonbern bet Sinn beg ty\fyn% cmpfunben toerben; bie Seele

mufc nicfyt bag 3Sef)ifulum bcr $raft, bic 2Borte, fonbern bic
raft felbft, ben Sinn empfinben. (Srfte 5Irt ber anfd)au=
cnbcn Crrfenntnig. Sic bringt aber and) jeben Gkgenftanb 5

gleicfyfam ficbtlid^ Dor bie Seele, b. i.

fie nimmt fo biel 5Rerf=
male fcufammen, urn mit etnmal ben (Sinbrudt ju madden, ber
^Sf)antafie if^n bor 5tugen ju fiibren, fie mit bem 2(nblicfe 511

tdufdhen. 3 tt)e ^e *^ r ^ ^ er cinfcbauenben ^lenntnig, unb bag

3Sefen ber ^oefie. ^ene 2trt fann jeber leb^aften ^ebe, bie 10
s
nicfyt 2Bortflauberei ober ^f;ilcfopf>ie ift, biefe 51 rt ber

gufommen unb mac^t

allein ifyr 2Befen f bag finnlirf)
fommene in ber $ebe. -Dlan fann alfo fagen, bafj bag
erfte cf entitle ber ^oefie njirflia) eine 2lrt bon^ftalerei,

finnlicf)e <s or ft el lung fei. 15

Sie ttrirft in ber 3cit; benn fie ift S^ebe. Wc^t blofc

erftlic^, fofern bic 3?ebc natiirlicfyer 5lugbrurf ift, j. @.

bcr Seibcnfcbaften, ber Scnjegnn^en ;
benn bie3 ift ber 3^anb
bcr ^oefie; fonbern borjii^lic^, inbem fie burcf) bie Scbnellig=

feit, burcf) bag 0ef;en unb ^ommen i^rer 35orftellungen, auf 20

bic Sccle toirft, unb in ber 5lbn)ccf>felun(^ teilg, teilg in bem

anjen, bag fie burd) bie 3 e ^f^ c erbaut, encrivfa) n?irft.

^ag crfte bat fie aurf) mit einer anbern Wattunc^ ber 3^ebe gc^

mem; bag lete abcr, ba^ fie einer 2lbn)ecbfelun$, unb $lt\fy
fam ^elobie bcr Ssorftellun^en, unb eineg Ganjen fafjig fei, 25

beffen ^Teile firfi narf^ unb nacfy aufeern, beffcn ^ollfommen^eit

alfo encrcu fiert bieg maa^t fie &u einer 5Jiufif ber Seele, n>ic

fie bic GJriecben nannten: unb biefc ^tacite Succcffion ^at

err Seffing nie behibrt.

^cineg toon betben, atlein genommcn, ift i^r Qanjeg 5Befen. 30

97icbt bie Gner^ie, bag IRufifalifcbe in ifyr; benn bieg fann nirf^t

ftattfinben, \renn nicf)t bag Sinnlicf;e ifyrer SorfteUungen, bag

 rftcs lt)aI6cf?en XI. 243

fie ber Seelc bormalt, borau^gefetjt nMrb. 9?id)t aber baS

JJfalerifcfye in ifyr; benn fie toirft energifd), eben in bem %lafy
einanber baut fie ben 53egriff bom finnlid) bollfommnen an*
gen in bie Seele: nur beibe3 ^ufammengenommen, fann id)

5 fagen, ba3 3Sefen ber ^oefie ift ftraft, bie au3 bem 9?aum
(Gkgenftanbc, bie fie finnlid; marf^t), in ber &\t (burd) etne
Jolge bieler ^eile ju einem ^ociifcfien Ganjen) h)ir!t: fitr$

alf o f i nnI i
d) to oI ( f o mmene 9t e b e.

$lad) biefen 35orau^fcl5unc\cn Pollen h)ir 311 errn effing

10 juriicf. 53ei ibm ift ber toDrnebmftc Csic$enftanb ber ^3oefie

anblungen; nur aber cr fann nu^ feinem 23e$riffe ber

Sncceffion biefen ^Begriff auSfinben; id) fleftefje e^ gerne, id)

nid)t.

^Jegenfta nbe, bie aufeinanber, ober beren 2:eile aufein=

15 anber folgen, finb .^anblungcn." 3 2Sie? icfy lafje fo biel ic^
toill aufeinanber folgen, jebe^ foK em Aorpcr, ein toter 3(n=
blicf fein; bermoge ber Succefficn ift feineS ncc^ ,C>anblung.

3c^ fefye bie ^cit flicben, jcbcn 2lugenblicf ben anbern jagcn
fefye id; bamit .s^anblung? Sserfdnebcne 5hiftritte ber 3iatur
20 fommen mir toor 2(ugcn, cinjcln, tcte, einanber nadbfolgcnb:
febe id) .^anblung? 9?ic ttirb ^pater Caftcl^ Jyarbenflabicr
mit feinem fucceffifcen ^orfpielcn ber ^arbcn, unb n?enn c

and) 2Mlen= unb Sdilangenlinien n?drcn, ,^anblungen lie-

fern; me n?irb cine melobifd)e Alette bon ^oncn etne $ette toon

25 anblungen bei^en. 3$ Icu^ne t$ Ifo/ ba(5 egenftdnbe,

bie aufeinanber ober beren eile aufeinanber folgen, be=
rtjegen itberbaupt .^anblungen bei^en; unb ebenfo leucme
id), bag, n?eil bie id>tfunft Succeffionen liefre, fie be^megen
$anb(ungen jum OJegenftanbe babe.
ju einer $)anblung nur bie
S
30 er 5egriff be^ Succeffiben ift

fyalbe ^bee ;
e^ mufe ein SucceffitoeS burc^ ^raft fein;
8
i aof., p. 101.
244 Berber.

fo mirb cmblung. J>d;

bcnfe mir cin in bcr 3eitfola,c mir=
fenbe3 2Sefen, id) bcnfe mir 3>cranberungen, bic burd) bie

$raft ciner Subftanj aufeinanber folgen; fo mirb anb=

lung. Hub finb anbhmgen bcr egenftanb bcr &id;t=
fun ft, fo mettc id;, mirb bicfcr cgenftanb nic au3 bcin trocfucu 5
$>co\riff
bcr Succeffton bcfttmmt mcrbcn fonncn; $raft ift
N
bcr l)iittclpunft ibrcr opbarc.
Hub bic^ ift bic Mraft, bie bcm Juucrn bcr 3Sorte anflcbt,
bic ^aubcrfraft, bic auf mcinc Scclc burrf; bic ^pbantafic unb
N
(5rtuncruui3 mirft; fie ift ba iBcfcu bcr J>ocfic.
^cr Sefcr 10
ficbt, bafi mir fiub, mo mir marcn, bafs ndmlid; bie ^oefie

burd; miUfiirlid;e .3cichcn mirfc; baft in bicfcm 5SiI(furlid;cn,

in bent Sinne bcr 2fiorte ganj unb $ar bic ,S\raft bcr ^]ocfie

licc^c; nid;t abcr in ber Jv^ c ^ cr ^onc unb 2Borte, in

ben tauten, fofcrn fie natiirlicfye l^autc finb. 15

.V)crr ^cffinc; inbcffcn fd)licftt au btefer Jol^c l^on 2oncn

1
nub Morten allc^; nur fchr fpdt fallt c ibni cin; baft bic

3eid;en bcr ^ocftc millfitrlid; mdrcn; allcin aud) bann

ponbcriert er nicbt, ma^ ber Ginmurf: s^3ocfic mirft burd; mil(=

fiirlid;c 3 C ^)CU / f a Ocn moUe. 20

Xcnn mic loft cr btcfcn Ginmurf? ,/Daburcb, baft mit bcr

3d;ilbcnnui torpcrlicfrcr Wc^cnftdnbc bic ^aufdnuu^ ba^
S3auptmcrf ber ^oefic, toerlorcn
t
c\cf;c, baft alfo jmar 9iebe an

fid), abcr utcftt bie finnlic^ uonfontmcnfte S lebe, bic ^socfic,

^orper fd;tlbcrn fonne." 2)ie Sacf>e

fcf)cint jct an bcf[crm 25

Drtc. (Sbcn mcil bie ^oefie nid;t malerifd) c^cnug fcin

fann, bei SdnlbcrunQ forpcrlicber (^e^cnftanbe, fo muft fie fie

nirfjt fdnlbcrn. 3tid>t,

bamit fie nicbt 5^alerei fci, nicfyt

meil fie in fucccffben onen fdnlbcrt; nid^t mcil bcr 9?aum

Wcbict be ^a(er^, unb bloft 3eitfol(^c ba^ CJebiet bc$ 30

fei id; febc bet atlem fcine Urfacbc. ^3)a Suc=

*p. 107.
 (Erftcs ZPalbdjcn XL 245

ceffitoe in ben %6nen ift, U)ie gcfagt, ^cm $oeten toenig; cr

hrirft nicfyt burd; fie, al3 natiirlicbe 3^icf;cn. 2lber toenn ifyn

feine Kraft toerldjjt, toenn mit feinen 33orftellnngen un=

er

abfydngig toon feinen 6nen bie Secle nid;t tdufd;en fann,

5 ja, bann gef;t ber ^poet Derlorcn, bann blcibt nid;t al^3 cin

2Bortmaler, al^ cin f\>mbolifd;cr S^amenerlldrer. 3lbcr bafj

fie I)ier nod; nid;t am bcftcn Ortc fei, mag fcin cignc 5>cU

5
fpid scngen. SScnn c A^aKcrS Gnbjnmf ift,
iui-5 in feinen

2Upen ben Gnjian, nnb feinen blaucu ^rubcr, nnb bic if;m
10 dr;nlid)cn obcr nndbnlid)en Alrdntcr berSmdfjtg fenncn 511

(ef;ren r adcrbiiu^ Dcrtiert er al^bann ben $\wd bc3 2)id;tcr,

mid; 511 tdufcf)cn, nnb id;, al Scfer, mctncn 3^^ m ^J ^ u -

fd;en jn laffen. al^bann bcr $ruub, nnb fein anbrer.

2)ic ift

2I6er iucnn id; nnn Don .sjatlcr^ C^cbid;te 511 etncm OotanifcfKn

15 2ef;rbnd;e geF;e, iuic id; ba ben Gn^ian nnb fcine ^riiber

ir>erbc

fennen lernen? 9Bie anber^, al3 njtebcr bnrd; fucccffitoc

^one, bnrd; 9icbc ? !i)er S3otanift toirb mid; toon einem Xeitc

jnm anbcrn fiihren; cr iuirb mir bic SScrbinbung biefer ^Teilc

flar mad)en; er \uirb ba^S .ftrant meincr (5inbilbiuu>3fraft
20 teihuetfe nnb im ganjcu toorjujnMcn fndKn, toaS freilid; ba
3(ugc mit einmal iibcrfiebt; er mirb aUe^ tun, U)a3 bei .^errn
Scffing bcr id;ter uicftt tun foil. SSirb cr mir berftdnblid^
tt)erbcn? 2)antm ift
nid^t bic ^vratic, nxnn id) feinc 29ortc

bcrftcbe; er mufj mir Har toerben, er mnft micb anf ^emiffe 5(rt

25 tdufcbcn. ilann cr bic3 nicf^t; fcbc icf) bie Sad;e blof^ im ein^

gctncn, bcntlid;, nid;t abcr im ganjen, anfdiancnb, cin: fo

hjerbe ic^ alSbann alk 9?C(3cln, bie crr Scffing bem 2)ic!)tcr

gibt, aucf) bem Skrfaffcr eine botanifcficn Scbrbud;^ gcben

6
lonncn. 3d; tucrbe 511 ibm fef;r crnftbaft fac^en: ,,9Sie $e-

30 langen h)ir ju ber bcntlicben Ssorftcltnn^ cine- ^ingc im

Staume, eine^ Alrautg? Grft ktracMcn U)ir bie ^Tcile

5 6
p. 108. p. 108.
246 Berber.

felben einjeln, Fnerauf bie SSerbinbung biefer eile, unb cub*

lid) ba3 (^an^e. Unfre Sinnc berricbten biefe berfd;iebenen

Dperationen mit einer fo erftaunlicben Sd)neflig!eU, baft fie
un3 nur eine einjige ju fein bebiinfen, unb biefe ScbneUigteit
ift unumganglid; nottoenbig. Wefcfct nun alfo and), ber 5

fcbriftlicbe .Ura utevlebrer fiibre un in ber fcbbnften Drbnung

Don einem Xeile bc3 egenftanbeS 511 bem anbern; gefe^t, er

h)iffe un bie 3>erbinbung biefer 2:ei(e aucf> nod) fo liar ju

macfcn, ^ie biel $t\t gcbraurfit er ba^u? 2Ba^ ba^ 2(uge mit
einmal iibcrficht, jdWt er um> merflid) langfam nacf) unb nad) 10

511, unb oft gefdnebt e^, bafi h)ir bei bem lettfen 3 U 0^ ^ cn
erften fcbon uergeffen baben. ^ebennod^ fotlen fair un au^
biefen 3u fl eu eut Wanjc^ bilben; bem 2(uge bleiben bie be-
trad^teten Xeilc befta nbig gegenhjartig ;
e^ fann fie abermal
unb abermal^ iibcrlaufcn; fiir ba3 Cbr Mngcgen finb bie fcer=is

nommenen ^teile Derlorcn, iuenn fie nicM in bem Weba d^tniffe

jurucfbleiben. Unb blciben fie fd>on

ba juriicf, Vr>elcf>e
5)iiibe,

U)eld)e 5(nftrengung foftet e^, ibre Ginbriicfe alle in eben ber

Drbnung fo lebbaft ju crneucrn, fie nur mit einer mtifcigen

cfd)h)inbig!eit auf einmat 511 iiberbcnfen, um ju einem etttai= 20

S
gen 33egriffe be^ (^anjen ju gelangen! Solcbe ^Befdireibun=

gen mogen fid), nxnn man bie Hume felbft in ber anb bat,

febr fcbon bagcgcn rejitieren laffen; nur fiir fid) aHein fagen

fie toenig ober nicf)t."

So fprid)t .sSerr ^effing ^um Xid)ter, unb n?arum foH id)

ebenfo jum .Urauterlebrer fpred)en, ber mid) blofs burcb

lebren n?i(l? 3^ fe^ e ^e ^ ne ^era nberung be^ ^aHe$, eben=

benfelben (^egenftanb, einen .^orper, ebenba^felbe 5)?ittel, ibn

ju fdiilbern, ^ebe, ebenbiefelbe .^Sinberung in biefem 93iittet,

ba SucceffiDe ber $ebe, 5Sorte. Jvotglid) mufi bie Mtion

fid) fo gut auf ibn, al3 auf jeben 91>ortfd)ilberer ^affen.

golglicb mu(j bie Urfacbe: ,,6ucceffion berbinbert irlorper

 Crftes ZDai6d?en XII. 247

ju frfnlbern," ba fie auf jebc 9iebe trifft, ba jebc 5Hebe in foldjem

galle nicfyt ba3 >efinitum,

al3 ein 2Bort, toerftanblid), fonbern,
al3 eine Sad^e, anfd^auenb macfyen mill eigentlid) aufcet
bem Gkbiete ber ^oefie liegen.

s Solglicfy and) in bemfelben fein eigentlid)e,

!cin ^6d;fte^ $efe geben fbnnen, fonbern nnr ein
griff bleiben, au bem tuenig ober nic^t^ gefolgert merben fann.
5)Jeine ganje Schlufefcttc fcingt t>on bem bo))pelten runbe an,
baft ba^ SuccefftDe in ben ^tonen bcr ^oefie fein an>t=,

10 fein natiirlirf;e^ W\ttd ifyrer 3Birfung fei; fonbern bie

$raft, bie biefen Xonen millfiirlid) anfytingt, unb nacf) anbern

efe^en, al<3 ber Succcffion ber ^one, auf bie Seele toirft.

3tt)citen^, baft ba3 Succcffbe ber ^one ja nid)t ber ^Soefie

all ein, toielmel;r jeber ffiebe jutommt, unb alfo toenig in
s
15 if)rem innern J8efen beftimmen ober unterfcfieiben fbnne.
18enn nun
S
.S)err Seffing Succeffion in feinem ^udBe jum
.^auptgrunbe be3 Unterfdnebey ^Difdicn ^oefie unb 9J?alerei

mac^t, ift ba rt)obl bie ridrtigfte (i5renjfcf)eibung ^u erirarten?

XII.

Um auf einen frudbtbarern $Be$ ju fommen, al^ biefer trocfne

20 ^ebenbegriff ge^ahrt, mad)t ,v>err Seffing einen Sprung, ben
icr) if;m nic^t nacbtue. /r
T)ie ^oefie fcbilbert burc^ fucceffiDe
Xone; folglirf) fd)ilbert fie and) Succeffioncn/ folglicb bat fie

and) Succeffionen, unb eigentlicb nicfit^ al^ Succeffionen jum

cgenftanbe. ucceffionen finb ."oanblungen ; folglid)"
unb
25 folglicfy l)at ^err Seffing tva er mid; aber mof)er fann
er <3 baben? T)en -Begriff bcr ftanblung fanb er in ber Sue*

ceffion; unb bajs fie nur fortfcbreitcnbe (^egenftanbe fa^ilbere,

p. 101, f.
248 Berber.

fd;lof} er, nxil fie in fncceffuxn Sonen fd;ilbert too bletbt

f;ier bic $efet, bajj ba 5(nfeinanberfolgen ber one

$ette?
in bcr 2)id;tfunft ba3 toare, toa ba 9?ebcneinanberfein ber
Jvarben in bcr 9J}alerei, toeld;e proportion ift in bem Snccef=
fiocn bcr one, unb in bem Sncceffibcn bcr Gkflcnftanbe, bic 5

fie fd;ilbcrt? $$ic toctt fatten bicfc eincn Scfmtt? SKie

fann man
ami) nur an SBerflleidnmfl bcnfcn? Unb toic uxit
tucniocr cin^ an bem anbcrn 511 fcf>licficu? Unb menn fie
ami) benn Succcffioncn fcf;ilberte, toarnm miiffcn biefe Snc=

ceffioncn anblungen fcin? u. f. \i. ^Dif renjfc^eibung nad; 10

fold) cincm 3ii)fe fann faum rid;tii3 fcin.

jiiaum ricf)tic\ bon fctten ber ^JZalerci, ^if^r 3Sefen fci, 5\or=

per 511 fd^ilbcrn/ lucni^ftcnl bin id; mir fortfcfncttenbcrcr

S
anbIunQcn bcr 33?alerei bcitjufu, al^ tDouon )crr Seffitui cin
s 2
^ctfpict flibt, na mlid; cine ^rapcrie, bie in if;rcm SBurfc 5luci 15

5iod> mtnbcr abcr toon feitcn ber 2)id^thinft, iuo an bem

Sncccffiucn bcr Xbnc menifl ober nidtts folgt. 9?idfit, bafs fie

fcine Alorpcr fd;ilbcrn follc; benn fonnen feine fucceffilKn

s
"^onc $ccy:iffc Don focjiftierenben !Din^en ermecfen, fo febc 20
icf) nicf)t, tote ir^enb bic ^ebe, bic Mofj borbarc ^icbe anfd)aits
cnbc Grfenntniy toirfen fonntc; benn 33ilbcr, untvbc id;

fac\cn, finb nicf)t borbar. So fel)c id; nicfjt, ftnc ir^onb bic
")tebc
jufammcn^angenbc ^Bilbcrbcflriffc crtoccfen fonnc;
benn bic fncceffbcn ^bne baiu^cn nid)t jnfammen. So fcbe 25

id; cnblid; and; nid)t, n?ic in ber Scele an3 bielen ^ci
cn ein GJanje^, 5. 6. bcr Dbc, bc Setocife^, be

cntfte^cn fonntc; benn bie ganje Sncceffion ber Xbnc

mad;t fcin fold;e3 Wanjc^; w fiir ba Df;r finb bic tcrnommcncn
Xeilc jcbcSmal bcrlorcn." &$ lafjt fid; alfo F;ieran3 at(e^ 30

obcr nid;t3 folcjcrn.

*P. 114, f.
 (grftes rDafbcrjcn XII. 249

ftod) toeniger folgt fyieraug ,,bie Untauglidtfeit ber Qanjen

3
descriptive poetry," bag Unpoetifcfye aller malenben ^oefie.
Wod) toemger fyieraug, baft bag SBefen ber )id;t!unft
4
gortfcfyreitung fei; baft bic 3)id)ttunft nut eine ein^ige @ia,en=
5 fd)aft ber &orper mi&en miiffe; baft @inr;eit ber malerifd;en
33eitt)6rter ifyr 9^egel fei
5 -
3>a
ni(f)t einmal, ba(i fief) ,,nur au^ biefen tunbfa^en bie
gro^e ^Kanicr omcrS beftimmcn unb erfldren lie^e." Jrf)
(eugne crrn Seffiiifl toiel, unb in feinem C^Jrunbe aHe^, aber

10 barum (engne id; nid;t alle Sadden, bie nur er anf biefen
runb baut. Darf id; bon Corner anfangcn?
Corner malt nidbt3, al^ fortfd>reitenbe anbliingen ; alle
.ftorper, alte einjelnen Xiiu^e nur burd; ibren 3(ntei( an malt er

ben anbhmgen, gemeinigtid^ nur mit einem 3 u 9 e Stein* -

15 c\en i(>n ja befonbere llmftanbe, unfern ^Blicf auf einen ein=

jelnen forperlicben (^e^enftanb lander ju fyeften, fo h>eift

er

burcb unjafylige ^unftgriffc biefen einjelnen cgenftanb in

eine ^ol^e toon 5(uv^enMirfen, in beren jebem er anber er=
//e
fd>eint.
d^on! l>ortrefflicfi
! bie toabre 9)Janier ,C>omer^!

M 97ur ob Corner biefe ^anier c\en)dblt, toeil er mit fuccef=

fiben Xonen fdulbern oolite/ Voeil er for^>erlid;e G)egen=

ftdnbe anber^ 511 fdnlbern Derjroeifelte, ^eil er befor^en mute,

ba)^, n?enn cr un^ in ber fd;onften Drbnun^ ton einem eile
be^ egenftanbed ^u bem anbern fiibrte, baft, er un3 vt>enn

8
25 and) bie SScrbinbuufl biefer Xeile nocb fo flar u madden n^uftte,
bem 9lufle jvuar bie betrad>teten Xeile in ber ??atur beftanbig

blieben, ftir bag Dbr bin^e^en bie bernommenen

)
bie 9Jtur;e beg ^Dicbterg, berloren n^are ob beg=

Corner feine egenftdnbe in eine e toon 3lugcns 5^

30 blicfen ^efe^t, ift mir nie bei omer foeigefatten.
9Benn feine ebe 5. 6. ung ben 2Bagen ber guno tiidt fiir

3 4 5
p. 112. p. 101, ff. p. 102.
6 7 I08.
p. 102, f. p. 101. "p.
250 Berber.
9
tiicf
aufammenfefct, cntfommt ba ber 2)id)ter bem
2}erfud;c, em Sloerjftenteg nicfyt mit golgetonen 511 fd)ilbern?
3$ fe(;e 9tdber, 2lcbfen, Si, 2)eicf)fel, Piemen, Strange,
nid)t urie eg beifammen ift, fonbern erft langfam gufam*
m c nfo mm t. Grft toerben mir bie 9idber, nicfyt blofc bie 5

WJiber, fonbern bie eile berfelben, bie ebernen Speid;en imb

Die golbueu Jelgen, unb bie Scfyienen Don @rj, unb bie filberne
s
Jiabe u. f.
ID. lan^fam botflcjaMt, bann er[t 5(d)fen, bann
erft ber 3i^, allcS in feinen Xcilcn; imb e(>e
ba^ le^te Stiidt
bran ift, babe id; ficberlid) bag erfte crc\cffen. X)er 2Sa0cn 10

jufammcn; unb Xrol^

s
ber }>bantafie, bie fief) jc^t bag
beg ageng mit cine m ^Blicfe unb bocb in alien feinen

Xetlen, 5. @. bie ef)ernen Spcidf^cn unb bie flolbnen JVHflcn, unb

bie Sc^icnen Don Grj u. f.
iu. auf cininal anfd)auenb benfen
!6nne! fe a ^f
v;d> ^ fflum, iua^ .ftomcr getan batte, urn 15

c^Icichfam bie ^iMrfun^ fucceffiuer Tone ju fd^uacf^en, urn

burd) u n 5 a f;
( i$ e R unftgriffe ung bag .^oeriftente c^egen=

tvartiif 511 macben. Siegt eg bier einmal am flaren 33egriffe

beg Xoeriftenten in alien feinen Xeilen, ^reld>e flrofjere ^iibe,
meldie fcftiirfcrc 51nftrengung loftet eg, biefe lanflfamcn ^in= 20
briUfe alle in eben ber Drbmmci fo lebbaft gu erneuern, fie nut

mit einer mafticjen Wefdnuinbi^feit auf einmal 511 iiberbenfen,

um ju einem ettDai^en 33e$riffe beg Wanjen ju gelangen."

5(rbeitete ber X)icf)ter auf biefen ^Be^riff beg Wanjcn, ba er

ung feine Xeile jerle^te, um ifm nad)ber in alien biefen Xeilen 25

jufammengefe^t barjuftellen; fo fa$e id), bat er ebenfo r>er=

c^earbeitet, alg ^Brodfeg, toenn er ung tranter malt.

3 u f ammen f e ^ en / ^ e anblun^ ber fommt >ebe

gar nid)t in ffiedmung; bag ^acbeinanberjufammenfe^en

it)ag mit einmal a^eigt, gebad>t
tucrbcn follte, ift 9lu$enmer!; 30
bieg ift bei beiben gleid), ja bei omer burdf) bag
y iliad.
E, 722-731.
 rftes IDalbdjcn XII. 251

fetjen nod) langfamer. ,,2>ocfy nid;t bio ft ba, too Corner mit

feinen ^Befcfyreibungen toeitere 2lbfid;ten berbinbet, fonbcrn

aucfy ba, too eg ibm urn bag blofte 53ilb 511 tun ift, nnrb er biefeg

33ilb in cine 31 rt toon Wefdncbte beg GietjenftanbcS berftreuen,

5 urn bie Xeile bcgfelben, bie toir in ber 9iatur nebeneinanber

febcn, in feinem GJemdlbe e b c n f o na t it r H d) auf cinanbcr

folc^en, unb mit bem JyUffe ber 9tebe gleid;fam
Sduitt f;alten ju laffen. Xcr 55ogen beg ^anbarug
10
j. C." aber h)ie fann err Seffing (net in omerg 53e=

10
fc^reibung eine ^parallele ber $ol$e in ben Xoncn, mit bem
Sloerjftieren ber Xeile, unb ber Xeile beg Dbjeftg mit ben Xeilen
ber 3iebe finben? 98enn .\Somer ung ben 33o$en beg ^pan=
barug malen toitt, unb ung erft auf bie Sagb beg Steinbodg
fii^rt, aug beffen .sSornern ber Soflcn flemad;t h>orbcn; unb
15 ung erft ben Jyelfen jei^t, ir>o ibn ^anbarug erlec^t, unb nun
erft bie Corner beg teinbocfg (angelang augmi^t; nun erft

fie in 3(rbeit flibt, nun erft ung jeber 3(rbeit beg Miinftlerg $u=

fc^auen IdfU u^er fann fagen, Corner ^abe bag 6ucccffitte

feiner Sefcf)reibung ber 3tatur beg .ftoerjftcnten c\(eid>fam

20 naber brin$en, unb bie Xeile beg ^Bo^eng mit bem ?v^ u f! c ^ cr
9iebe Sdfmtt batten (affen! Statt, baft fie burcb biefe $omt*
rifd>e
banter naber jufammenfommen foUten, febe id; fie fid)

better binaug jerftreuen ; unter inelen anberen fremben

(^agb, Stcinbocf, Crt beg @rbafd>eng, Drt ber

25 Safle beg gefariten 6teinbodg, 58cr!ftattc beg

lie^en fie tterftedft; unb bdtte Corner mit feiner 0>Jefcbicbtc

beg
33oc^eng barauf ge^Derft, um mir nad^ber mit einmal a((e

Xeile beg Softeng anfdhaulid) ju c^eben, fo bdtte er eben ben

fd>led)teften 28e$ genommen. 5Reine ^bantafie h?enigfteng

30 fyat fid>
ber GJcfdhicf>te iiberlaffen, bem ^panbarug einen 53ogcn

ju jimmern, aber ibn fief) nadjber in alien feinen Xeilen auf

I0
aof., p. 106.
252 Berber.

cinmal &u benfcn, bie frembcn 3iige in bcr efd)icf)te erft

gulaffcn nxld;e 9Jtul;e! toeld)e 2lbfonberun$! Corner malt

ben Sdjn lb 2ldnlle3 in mefyr al3 bnnbert prdcbtigen SBerfen,

nacfy feiner -Dfaterie, nad) feiner Jv rm nac >

fy
a ^ en 5^ urcn /

toclcfte bic nnflebenre JvladK bc^felben fiillten, jo umftanblid), 5

fo Qcnan, baft e3 ncuern .Vlitnftlcrn nicf>t

fefrtoer Befallen, eine
in alien Stiicfcn nbcrcinftimmcnbe ^fi^ 1111 ^^ barnad) ju
mad>en. (5r malt bicfen Sd)ilb nicftt al^ cinen ferti^en l>Dllcn=

bctcn, fonbcrn al S einen tocrbcnbcn Sd>ilb. 6r ^at alfo

aud> bier fid>
be^ befdmebcnen .Sviinft^riffe^ bebient, ba^ ^oeji= 10

fticrenbe feine3 Ssoriunrf^ in ein ^onfefutiiic^ ju bern^anbeln,

unb baburcf) au^ ber lanfltoeiliflen 5Ralerei eineg

lebenbic\e Wema lbe einer ,^anblun(^ 511 maeben."

11

c\! rid^ti^er We^enfa^ mit ^ir^il! Db aber omer

91>erben be 6d>ilbe^ era,riffen, um ^leid>fam
mit bem 15

$onfe!ntiben ein .^oerjftierenbe^ 511 liefern ? ob er ,,bie mebrern

3iic\e fiir bic i>erfd>iebenen
^eile unb Gic\enfdmften im ^aume
in einer flebran^tcn .Uiirjc fdmell aufeinanber folgen laffe,
ba m i t \\) \ r fie a 1 1 c au f e i n ma I
5 u Ij 5 r e n g I a u b e n

foil en/ ob e3 mit bem 2i>erben be3 Sdnlbe^ fein fttotd ge= 20

ttjefen, ben 9^aum in bie 3 e ^f^ c 5 U ^ermanbeln, unb uu8

bnrcf>
biefe ben 5lnblicf e i n e 3 (^an^en ^u ^eben, ben fair nur
12
burcr; jenen faffen fonnten? Sollen biefe

befommen, fo befenne icb bie Scbtoa cbe meine^

biefen $\wd an mir nicf^t erreid^en ju !onnen.

ober nocb Voeni^er G5emalbe auf bem Gdrilbe fein; moc\e id^

fie and; fterbenb ojefe^en F>aben; id) erftannc iiber ba^ 2Ber!,
aber nid)t mit bem c\lanbic\en GUrftaunen eine 2lnnen5enc\en /
bem je^t ber c\an%t Sdnlb bor 5ln(^cn, bei bem ba^ 5lonfe!u=
tibe in ein $oeriftierenbe Vier^anbelt n^are. 9?ur in bem 30

au^)te be3 gottltcficn ^iinftler^ !ann ber 6dbilb mit alien

"?ao! v p. 118. "p. 107, f. 116.

 rftes lUalbdjen XII. 253

feinen giguren cin malerifcfyeg an^eg gebilbet fyaben; id)

mufc aufg neue ben Sdnlb fjerum, toenn id) bie mit jebem fuc*
ceffifcen SBortjuge berlorne 3^9 ur toieber fefyen foil, unb bod)

too finb fie, toenn id; fie u einem garden Scfyilbe orbnen foil?
5 ag 2B e r b e n f e I? c n fyat fyiersu nidjtz getan, unb !anrt

md;t tun, e^ fei benn, urn micf) nod) better u jerftreuen;

^ac^einanber tuerben ift unb bleibt ber ilnoten.

omer^ Spracfye fei fo bortrefflid;, al fie fein fann,

2Sort liefre ein ^ilb, o^ne alle Sufpenfion ber ^B
13
10 fo fdfynett fortfc^rcitenb, al^ ^iana in ifyrem ange; fott

bie^ fc^nelle Jortfcfyreitenbe ba fein, urn gleirf)fam ba in*

berni^ be^ 9iaiun^ 511 minbern, ju bernic(>ten, urn baburd) ben

tdufd;enben 2(ublicf eine^ r a it m I i d) c n egenftanbe, eine^
^orper^ im ^iaume u ertuccfen bicS !ann feine 9iebe.

15 2)a^u n)of)l faum ^irb omer S

feiner fd^rcitenben 3^anier fo
treu gcbliebcn fein; ba ju cben nicbt fiir jcbe^ ^ing nur ein en
3ug gefjabt; ba^u am uxmgften ba^ fonfehttitoe ^Berben
getodblt l)abcn, w um bie Xeile feine^ $egenftanbe3 mit bem
gluffe ber ^)icbe cinerlei c^ritt batten 511 laffen." X)ie^lann
20 feine 9?ebe; nod) minber n)iU g bie 9iebe be^ 2)id)ter^; am

minbeftcn tuollte e^ ber erfte ber Didder. Seine gan^e

^anier jeigt, baft er nid)t fortfd^rcitc, urn uu3, e^ fet, njobon
s
e^ fei, ein ^3ilb beg Oaujeu bard) Succeffion ju gebcn,
fonbern burd) bie ^eile,
er fcfyrcitet toeil U;m an bem 53ilbe

25 beg $anjen ganj unb gar nid;t lag.

%<fy
mollte urn alleg nid)t, crrn Seffing einen fallen
Sinn angebicbtet l;aben; in ber Sad)e felbft mit ifym eing,

mac^en micf) nur in bem Srunbe ber Sacf)e feine Scfyliiffe unb
SSerbinbungen berlegen. $)iinft jemanb biefer Unterfcf)ieb

30 unbetracbtlirf), fo liegt mir ni($tg baran; anbern toirb er be^

tradjtlicfy fdjeinen.
I3 f.
Saof., p. 115,
254

omer ift immer fortfd;reitcnb in anblungen, toeil cr ba*

mit f ortfd;reiten mufc, toeil alle biefe Xeilfyanblungen
6tucfc feiner oanjen anblung finb, nxil er em cpifefyer
id>tcr
i[t. Jcfy braucfye alfo ben SBagen bet 3 u
Scepter bc3 Hgamcmnon, unb ben 3)ogcn be3
nid)t tueitcr fcnncn ju lernen, al^ fie, in bie anWung mit

ciiujcfloditcn, mitmirfcn follen auf mcine Seele. Xarutn

alfo l;ore id; bie (^cfdndHc bc ^Bogcnd, nicfit banut mir biefe
ftatt C^emdlbc fci; fonbern urn einen ^Be^riff bon feiner

3tarfe, toon ber ^iad>t

feiner 2lrmc, mitf)in toon ber ilraft 10

feiner Sehne, feine^ ^feilg, feineS 6d)uffe^ yam toorau^ in

mid; 511 pflanjcu. ^Bcun nun |>anbaru^ ben s^3o^en s

toor=

niutmt, bie 6el>nc

anlcflt, ben s
|>feil anfcttf abbriicft! -
luebe bent Dienclau3, ben ber s^fcil einc3 folcf^en 53ogen^ trifft,

luir fcnncn feinc Stdrfc! err Seffinvj fann alfo fagen, nicf>t
15
s s
c fei Corner mit feiner $cfdnd>te be^ -Bogen^ urn fein $ilb,
unb blofj urn fcin 33Ut>
ju tun gettoefen. Um md)t3 mtnber,
al5 hierum; bie Sttirfe, bie ^Iraft be^ 53ogcn^ tt>ar
feinc Sad;e;
fie, unb nicftt bie Gieftalt bc^ ^Bogen^, gef)ort jum (yebid)te;

fie, unb feine anbre @igcnfd)aft, foil F>icr

energifdb mittnirfen, 20

bafi loir, n?cnn nad)l)er ^anbaru^ abbriicft, n?enn nad)F)er

bie Sebnc fcf>rt?irrt,
ber s$fcil trifft um fo mebr ben ^feil
empfinben. Xicfer (ner$ie jufol^e, bie in eincm $ebid;te
ba^3 .^aupta^erf ift, erlaubt fief) ,omcr, au ber Scf)lacf)t auf
bie Jaflb jit fpajieren, unb bie $efdncbte bc^ iBo^en^ $u bicftten; 25

benn id>
febe feine anbre 5(rt, bicfcn ^egriff in alter 6tarfc

barjuftellen, al^ burd; (^efcbid>te. ^Durc^ cin 33ilb fbnnen ttoir

ci^cntlid> nur Weftalt lernen; au ber eftalt miiffen h)ir

OirbtV, au^ biefer Stcirfc erft fc^lief^en; burd^ cine efd;icfyte

lernen ^tir biefe unmittelbar unb toenn e^ bem enerflifcben 30

Miinftlcr, bem ^Did)ter, blofr um bicfc Starfc %u tun ift,

foil er fief) anbre 5lrbeiten aufbiirbcn? 2)cr -JJtoler male

 (rftes IDatodjcn XII. 255

eftalt; er aber nnrfe Starfe, Crncrgic. $>ie toirft aud) omcr

toon Slnfange ju @;nbe ber Sefcfyreibung ;
nur freilid) nid)t,
toenn id) ifw in ber Umfteibung lefe, bie err efftng mit bem
Scfyuffe ^anbaru3 mad)t; au3 if)r ift blofc cin fucceffifceS,

5 nicfyt aber (ber aupt^ecf be trf)ter3!) cin cnergifdjjcg 33ilb

ju fyoren: tuobei tuir nicf;t burd; fucceffi&e ^one malcvifd;,

fonbern in jcbent ^one ener gif cf) getdufdbt tocrben, bafj )uir
jufammenfa^ren foUcn, tocnn enblid; ein fold;er 33ogen
trifft.

10 Gin (5Hcid;e3 $\{t om Scepter 2l0amemnon3; icf) bctrad;te

bie C^efdnditc bc^fclbcn gar nicbt ,,al^ cincn AUinftflriff, ung
bei einem einjclncn ^inge tocrmcUcn 511 macftcn, ofjne fid) in
14
bie froftige SBefcfyreibung fcincr ^cile cinsulafjcn/ Sein
Scepter ift ein nralte^, fonigUcftc^, gbttlid;e^ Scepter! ^Der

15 Segriff foil tuirfen; unt allc anbren Munftcjriffc unb 2Ule=

gorien bleibe icf) unbcfiinttnert.

15
2)er IBagen ber Juno trirb befcfnicben. SBarum? 9?atiir=

lid), )uei( id; of;ne ben id>ter

biefen SBaijen nicf^t gefeben,
meil id) i^n erft lennen lernen inuft, urn cincn Mmmlifd^en
20 SBagen ju fennen, 2Sarum toirb cr sufammcngcfe^t? 9iatiir^

lid), toeil n?ir einen ^immlifcf)en 55acjen nic fo gut fenncn

lernen, al^ tt>enn er erft in fcincn ^cilcn ba licgt, nnb jnfanu
mengefe^t mirb. Urn alfo bie 3sortrcfflid>fcit biefc^ 6ttcr=

toagcn3, urn ben innern 2Bcrt allcr feincr Tcilc, um fcinen

25 fnnftltcfyen 53au ^n fd)ilbern, toirb er jnfamniengefctjt; nid)t
aber, um biefe ^eile fucceffit) ju fammcln, ba man fie fceji^

ftent nid)t fe^en fann. ^a^ 3 u fammen fe & cn ^*. ^ cr ^e^ n

5lunftgriff , fein quid pro quo, um un3 fo ba^ Wanjc 511 geben ;

ben gan^en 3tnblic! ju fammcln, ift

fein 3 rt?ec^
30 im 3 u f amm ^ n f^^en felbft licgt bie Gnergie ber
s
me^r. ^et jebem eile follen tutr auSrufcn: pracbtig!
I4 I5
?aof., p. 105. Iliad. E, 722-731.
256 Berber.

gottlicfy ! f oniglid) !
i(t bieg, ift bief er 33egriff finnlid? bolt
fommen in ber Seele, bag GJanje mit feinen Xeilen tear nicfyt

mein 33Ub, bag mag ein $utfd>cr

lernen. $)er 2Bagen ift ju=

fammen, bie (Snercu e alfo toollenbet, id) rufe nod)malg aug;

prad)it$! flottlicfy! fbni$licfy! unb laffe :Juno unb 9JJinertoa fut=

fcbieren.
2)er Sc^ilb be SlrfnllcS
16
mirb unter ber anb
tuarum tuirb cr? SJatiirlicf), toeil cr mcrben foil!

fyat 2Baffcu notig, Xbcti fleht ^ulfan barum an; er bcr=

fpricfyt S, fte(;t auf, arbeitet toarum fo(I cr nicbt arbciten? 10

^m ganjen $omerifcbcn C3ebicbte finb (hotter n^trffam; if>re

s
3luftritte toecbfeln mit ben Sluftrittcn ber )ftenfcben ab; nun

ift ^ac^t, bie JpanblunQ ftebt; Tsulfan baben U)ir folange nic^t
gefefjen, fettbem er al3 binfenber ?DJunbfcbcnf ber (hotter er=

fcbien; 5lc^ille^ f)at feine Si^affcn mit ^atroflug berloren; mm 15

flefye XF)eti^ jam SSulfan, nun fann SSulfan fcbmicbcn: ber

Sc^Ub ift merbenb. Xie ganje Scene ge^ort ^ur $anblung
be3 (Sebicbt^, jum G5anc^e ber (Spopdc, unb ift feine Jigur, bie
au^ fcincm ^ocm borrufe, feine ^Befonbcrbcit ber ^omerifcbcn
Wanicr. ^rn 2Berbcn, in ber Sdtopfung be3 6cfnlbe^ liegt ja 20

bier atte ,^raft ber (Sncrgic, ber c^anje 3^^ **>& Tid^terg.

33ei jeber JyiGur, bie SSulfau auforiibt, bctrunberc icb ben fd>af=

fenben C^ott, bei jeber 53cfd^rcibung ber Sftafce unb ber glacf)e
erfenne id; bie Wa cb t bc^ Scbilbc^, ber bem 2ldnUc3 \v \ r b,

auf n?eld)cn ber in bag IJntereffc ber ^anbliing bcrfloditne 25

2efer fo fcbnlid), al XfyetiS, n?artet.

, ic^ fenne feine Succeffionen in omer, bie al3 Aunfts

lg 5lunft(^riffe ber 9?ot, eineg 53ilbeg, einer 6cbi(berung
ba bag 2Befen feineg (Sebidrtg, fie
fein fodten; fie finb

finb ber ^lorper anb(ung. 3 n \*btm 3 u e

ber epifcben 3

i^rcg ^crbcng mufe ^nergie, ber 3^ e ^ omer liegen; mit

16
Iliad. 2, 478 etc.
 (Erftcs IPalbcbcn XIII. 257

jeber anbern ^typotfyefe toon $unftgriffen, bon (Sinfleibungen,

urn bag &oerjftente ber Scfyilberung $u bermeiben, lomme id)

au3 bem one omer3. 3d) toetfj, baf$ biefer 33ortourf groft

fei, baft fein grof$ere3 inberni3 ber Mraft eine 2)id)ter3 ge^

5 legt tocrben tonne, al nicfyt in fcinem Xone 511 tefen; aHein

ne^me
be^tt>egen ic^ meinen 35ortrurf nidbt juriicf. 2Ser in
bem 3 u fc mm mf c w be^ 2Bagen^ ber 3uno, unb in ber e=

fc^ic^te be^ ^Bogen^ unb be3 Scepter^, unb in bem SSerben

be^ Scf)i(be nid)t^ al einen $unftgriff bemerfen n^ill, urn
10 einem forpcrlicfcen 33ilbe u entfommen, ber n?ei^ nirfit, n?a^
anblung be (3ebirf)tg fei, an bem omer feine nergie
F>at

berfcfylt.SBcnn joiner ein forperlirf^e^ 3Mlb brauc^t, fo

[filbert er ^, n?enn e^ aucf) ein ^berfite^ fein follte; er tt)ei6

toon feinen Munftgriffcn, toon feiner poctifc^en 2ift unb e^

15 fdf;rbe: Jortfcfyreitung ift bie Seele feine^

XIII.

aber ift omer and; nidBt ber ein^ige !Dicbter; e^ gab

balb narf) ibm einen X^rtau^, 2(na!reon, ^Pinbaru^, 5ifd)t)lu3
u. f. ir. Sein ZTTOS, feine fortgc^enbe Grjablung, bermanbelte

ficfy mcf;r unb me^r in ein /xe Aos, in ein GJefangartige^, unb
20
brauf in ein eiSos, in ein C^emdlbe; (3attungen bie nod) aber f

irnmer s^oefie bticben. Gin 6angcr (/xeXoTroio?), unb ein ltyri=

fcber 5Raler (ciSoTroids). Slnafrcon unb $inbar, fteF)e alfo gegen

ben Gkfdhicbt3bicbter (ewoTrotds), Corner.
Corner bicbtet erjdbtenb: ,,e^ gefcbaf)! e toarb!" bei iE>m

25 !ann alfo alle3 ^anbhtng fein, unb mufc ur anblung eilen.

^ierf^in ftrebt bie nergie feiner 5Rufe; ftnmberbare, rii^renbe

33egebenf)eiten finb feine 2BeIt ;
er ^at ba 8cbopfung3=
2lna!reon fd)ftebt 5n)ifcf)en efang unb
258 Berber.

ung ; feint (Sr^dfylung hnrb ein iebd)en, fein iebd)en

em CTTOS beg iebeg$otteg. @r fann alfo feine SBenbung,
,,eg tear!" ober n \$ toill!" ober ,,bu follft!" fyaben gcnug,
toenn fein jtcAos ton Suft unb greube fcballt: eine frofye

Gmpfinbung ift bie (Jnergie, bie 9Jhife jcbeg fciner Gkfange. 5

s
$inbar f>at ein grofceg tyrifcbeg Gkmalbe, cin lab\;rintf)U

Dben^ebdube im Sinne, ba^ eben burd) anfcbemcnbe

urc^ 92ebcnfiourcn in mancfyerlei 2icbt cin
nxrben, tro fein ^cil fiir ficb, n)o jebcr auf

(^an^e georbnet erfcbeinen foil, eiti c Sos, ein poetifdf^eg 10

C^cmd lbe, bei bem iiberall frf^on bet ftiinftlcr, nicf^t bie

fiditbar ift. ,%& finge!"

^o mag nun SSergleicbung ftattfinben? ^a

s
^omerS, ^(nafreong, ^inbarg, h?ie berfrf>ieben!

bag 2Serf, h)orauf fie arbeiten! er eine tuill nicbtg, alg 15

bitten: er erjcifylt, er bejaubert; bag anje ber 5k$ebenf)eit

ift fein 31krf; er ift ein >id)ter boriger 3d*en. ^er anbre
\v\[[ nid^t fpred^en; aug i^m fingt bie ^reube; ber 5IugbrudE
einer lieblid^cn Gmpfinbung ift fein (^anjeg. 2)er britte

fprieH felbft, bamit man ibn F)bre: bag GJanje feiner Dbe ift
20

ein Webaube mit Symmetric unb bober ^unft. $ann jeber

feinen $\wd auf feine 2trt erreidien, mir fein GJan^eg boll?
fommen barfteQen, micr) in biefer &nf<$auung tau=

fcben tt?ag mill icb mef)r?

(g ift eine Idngft angenommene, unb an fid) unfdnilbige 25
#r>potbefe, bag (Sanje jeber OJebidbtart alg eine 2(rt bon e=

mdlbe, i?on (^ebaube, Don ^unftmerfe 511 betracbten, tt?o alle

Xeile jit ibrem .^auptjn)ecfe, bem (^anjen mittoirfcn follen.

53ei alien ift ber ftaupt^rtKcf poetifd>e ^dufdnuig; bei alien

aber auf t?erfd>iebne 5(rt. $>ie f)oF)e n?unberbare Jsllufion, 30

gu ber micb bie (S^opoe be^aubert, ift nicbt bie fleine fiifte ^mp=
mit ber mid) bag 2lnafreontifd>c Sieb befeelen
 (Erftes H)al6d?en XIII. 259

nod) ber tragjfd)e Slffett, in ben micfy ein Xrauerfpiel berfetjt

- wbeffen arbeitet jebeS auf f e
i n e Sdufdwng, n a d) f e i*

net 2(rt, mit f ein en 9Jiitteln, ettoaS im toollfommenften

$rabe anfd;auenb toor^uftellen; e3 fei nun bie3 (SttoaS epifcfye

5 ,anblun0, ober tracu fcfye anblung, ober eine cinjigc 2lnafre=

ontifcfye (Smpftnbung, ober ein boHcnbeteS (9anje ^inbarifcfyer
s
^3ilber, ober alle^ mufe inbcffen inncrf;alb feiner GJrcttjcn,
au unb feinem
feinen ^Jlitteln 3^^ beurteilt tocrbcn.

$eine ^inbarifc^e Dbe alfo al^ eine (fpopoe, ber bag Jorts
10 fdjrcttenbe fef;le; fcin Sicb ate ein 53ilb ; bent ber Umrif; mangle;
fein Sebrgebic^t al^ eine %abti, nnb fcin Jabelgebirfjt al3 be=

fc^rcibcnbc
s
^oefie. Sobalb ttrir nic^t urn ein SBort ^oefie,

^ocm" ftreiten mollen, fo fyat jebe cingcfii^rtc C^ebic^tart il;r

15 eine anbre; jebe aber if;r eiflencS. 3(u3 einer mufe id) nid;t auf
bic anbre, ober t3ar auf bie ganjc X)irf)t!unft (ycfci^e bringcn.
2Benn alfo Corner nid)t3 al^ fortfc^reitenbe anblungcn
malt, unb fur jeben $6rper, fiir jcbeS ein^elne X)ing nur einen
1
3u$ ^dtte, fofern e^ an ber ^cmblung teilnimmt/ fo mag
20 bamit feinem epifc^cn ^beal eine Gkniige gefcbef;en. 3Siel=

lcid;t aber, baft ein Dffian, ein Hilton, ein 5llopftocf fcbon ein
anbereS 3beal fatten, mo fie nidfyt mit jebem 3"flc fortfc^rciten,
s
tuo fid) if>re
3J?ufe einen anbcrn GJang tt)af>lte? 3>iellcicf)t

alfo,baf^ bie3 ^ortfdneitenbe blofs OTn^ r ^ epifd)e 9Jlanier,

25 nic^t einmal bie 5JJanier feiner !Dic()tart itberf)aupt fci ?

1)er 5lunftrid;ter foil ^ier ein furchtfamcS 3>ielleid)t fagen;

ba^ GJcnie entfcf^eibet mit ber ftarfen Stimmc bc 53cifpicl^.
s
j?od) minber barf id;, it>enn micf) bie ^>rarj3
omer auf
bie 53emer!ung fiil)rt: Corner fcbilbert nid)t al^ fortfc^rei=

30 tenbe ftanblungen," fogleid) ben >auptfa brauf fcf)lagen:

s
/;
b i e $ o e f i c fcfyilbert nicfytg, al^ fortfd;reitenbe anblungen ;

1
aof., p. 102.
260 Berber.

folgltcfy finb anblungen bet ei$entlicfye egenftanb ber ^oefie."

2Benn id) 3 bei omer bemerfe, bafj ,,er alle eingelnen 2)inge
nur burd; il;ren 2lnteil an biefen ,s)anblun$en, gemeiniglicf;
2
nur mit einem QuQt male/ fo barf nid)t gleid) ber Stempel
brauf :
Jolojlid; fdnlbcrt and; b i e $oe f i e nur Slorper an= 5

beittun^iueife burcf) anblun$en; folglid) fann and; bie

^P o e f i e in 9Jad;a^mnngen nur eine
ifyren fortfd;reitcnbcn
etn$u]c (Sigenfchaft ber Morper nu^en/ unb barau mel;r ir>a^

fol^en foil, an 9ieoeln bon ber Gmtfyett ber malcrifdf)en 53ei=

sorter, t>on ber S^arfamfeit in ben 8d;ilberun$en

Itd^er C^egenftanbe, u. f.
to. Dafe biefe $runbfae nid^t
einer s
auptci^enfcfmft ber $ocfie flicf^en, 5. G. au3 bcm Suc=
ceffben iF)rer Xone, toorau^ fie .sjcrr Seffing fycrgeleitet, ift

betuicfen. Xaf^ fie and?, unb nxnn fie alle in

0mer3 ^raji^
fo ftattfcinbcn, toie err Seffing glaubt, bocb and) nicbt au^ 15

bent Succeffben ber s^oefie iibcrbanpt, fonbcrn au3 feincm

nabcrn cpifc^cn $\mdt fliefccn, ift and; G c 5^^ r 9Barum -

foil nun biefer epifcfye Xon $omer^ ber o<w$w Xid>tfunft Xon,
unb (%unbfa unb C^efe^ fo gar ofyne (Sinfd)liennci gebcn,
al^ er bei errn Sefftng melbet? 20
fid)

3d) jittre bor bem 33lutbabe, ba^ bic Sa^e: ,,.^Sanblun(5en

finb bie eiflcntlicbcn (^egcnfta nbe ber ^ocfie; ^poefie fdnlbert

A^orpcr, abcr nur anbeuturu^rueifc burd; anblungen; jebe

3
Sacfye nur mit einem 3wge u. f . \v" unter altcn unb neuen
2
$fle torpor, bic in ^>omer @ebirf)te mitttnrfcu foflcit, inciben mit
fo n id ^iiflcn n^fd)il^rt, al mittutrfon follcn. 3(uf cincu fdjrduft

ftd) Corner felten ein ;

njenn c and) nur ciu ^tctn, criit, 33otien, u. f.

tt). irdre er nimmt ftd) immcr e\t, fo nicl Sigenfdjaften fetnc^ ^or ;
per anjufii^ren, a(^ ^ier epifd) enerfliftcren follcit. (?d)i(bcrt er eine

@ad)e nnr mit einem 3 u fl

e f ift biefer meiftenS attnemein, nnb fiir

biefen Crt nn&ebentenb e :

ftnb bie neuibl)n(ic^en 53einamen, bie er 311

jeber ad)e Ijat, bie itjm oft tm eberfommt.

3
f.
?aof., p. 101,
 (Erftcs IPcilbdjen XIII. 261

^oeten anricfyten miiffen. err Seffing fyatte nid)t befennen

biirfen, ba ifyn bie $rarj omer barauf gebracfyt; man fief;t

c einem jeben beinafye an, unb !aum taum bleibt ber ein*
$ige Corner al^bann Son tyrtau bi leim, unb
>icf)ter.

5 toon leim toieber nad) 9lnafreon juritcf; Don Dffian 511 9)?il=

ton, unb toon ftlopftocf gu 3>irgil

toirb aufgeraumt erfdhrecfs

lid;e Siicfe. ^)cr bogmatifcf^en, bcr malenben, bcr gbtyUetis

bitter nirf)t ju gebcnfcn.

err Scffing bat fid; gcgen einigc bcrfclbcn erflart, unb au
10 fcincn runbfa^en fic^ nod) gcgcn tncbrcrc crflcircn miifjen.
,,^ie au^fiif;rlid;en Wcmalbc !orpcrlic(icr GJcgcnftdnbe ftnb

of;ne ben obcn ertDa bnten ftunft griff omcr, bag Aoejiftie-
renbe bcrfclbcn in ein it)irflid>c^
SucccffibcS ju tocrUjanbcln"

(c ift obcn ertoafmt, baf^ Corner Don fold;cm Shmftgriffc

15 nid^ ^cifi, unb cin .Vtunftgriff, h)a fonntc bcr $u eincm fo

grof^cn 3^^^ a^ .^unftgriff n)obl tun ?) Jinb jeber^cit

toon ben fcinftcn 3<id)tcrn fitr cin froftigc 6v>ieltoerf crfannt
4
tnorben, 511 n)dcfcm toenig, obcr gar fcin Wcnic gebort." Son
bicfen fcinftcn Wicbtcrn \tcrbcn angefiibrt: .^oraj, ^Popc,
20 $leift, ^armontcl; mid> biinft aber, baf^ fie fiir $crrn effing

nid)t fo in^ Unbcftinnntc bin betoeifcn. .^Soraj am angcfiibrtcn

5
Drte fd;ilt nid>t bie fiir poetifcbc Stumper, bie einen .S)ain,

3Utar, Sad;, Strom u. f. to. malen, fonbern am un r e c^ t e n

Drte malen. ^pope crflarte ein b I o f^
ma I c nb e e*

25 bicf)t fiir ein (^Jaftgebot auf tauter Sriiben; bamit aber bat er

ja nicbt ,,jebe au^fitbrlicf^c ctnalbc forperlidier (^Jegen=

ftanbe/ ba^ nur obnc ben >omerifcben ilunft griff erfdnenc,

ftir ein froftige Spieltoerf obnc (?Jenie ertlart. ^)er crr

toon .^vleift, biintt micfy, toolltc in feinen gr ufyling cine 5lrt

30 bon fta&cl legen (ein ^plan ift fofern fcf)on brin, ba^ fein e-

bid)t nicf^t cine 93]enge toon Silbcrn, bie er au bem unenblicf)en

4
p. in. s
De arte poetica, v. 14.
262 Berber.

SRaume ber toerjiingten Sd)opfung blofj aufS eratetoofyl,

balb fyier, balb ba, geriffen, fonbcrn, nad; ber 2lngabe einer

fritifd;en Scfyrift, eiu Spa^iergang ift, ber bie $egenftanbe

in ber naturlid;cn Drbnung fcbilbert, in ber fie fid) fcinen
9{ugen bargeboten) er tooUte, fagc icb, eine J-abel fyineinlegen;

ja nid;t abcr jebe au^fubrlicbc 3cf)ilberung forperlicf>cr

ftanbe, at^ ein frofti^c^ Spielmcr!, binau^Derfen. Unb

montcl cnbltd) toil! ^t>ar
au^ ber ^buUc mefyr 5Roral, unb
tucniger p(^?^W)e ^Wbcr baben; ob aber baburd^ bie SbtyHe
eine mit ^i(bern
s
nur fparfam burd)flod;tene 3^fl c bon @ m P= I0

finbungcn, unb trenn bieS, ebcn baburd; and) ,,cinc fort=

fd;rcitcnbc Jolgc toon anWungen toerbe, \vo Mbrper nur mit

eincm 3U C gcfd>ilbcrt
U)crben follen/ toeifc icf>
nid^t, unb
nad; fterrn Scffing ift fie im anbern Jallc nid)t ^ocfic.

.^anbluniV eibenfd)aft, (Smpfinbnn^! aucf) id; liebe fie 15

in GJebid;ten iibcr aUc^; and) id; baffc nid)t3 fo fcbr, al^ tote

ftillftcbenbe Sd^ilberiuu^fucf^t, infonbcrf;cit, ^enn fie Seiten,

^Blatter, Wcbidbtc einnimmt; aber nicbt mit bent toblid;en

.^ajfe, urn jebeS einjelne auyfiibrlid>e Wemdlbc, toenn e^ and;

tocriftent iiefd>tlbert ttmrbc, jn bcrbanncn, nid;t mit bem tot= 20

lichen -\Saffe, urn jeben .Vlorper nur mit einem ^cin?orte an ber

anblung teilnebmen 511 laffen, unb bann and) nid)t au^ bem
namlid)cn Wrunbe, ^ueil bie ^>oefic
in fncccffiuen Gotten fdf)il=

bert, obcr toeil Corner bic^ unb jene^ macbt, unb nid)t macf)t -
urn bcSnrillen nid)t. 25

28enn id; ein^ toon Corner lernc, fo ift 3, baji ^Poefie ener=

(^tfd; mirfe; nie in ber 3lbfid)t ; urn bei bem le^ten guge ein

5Berf, ^8ilb, GJcmalbc (obtuobl fucceffito) ju liefern, fonbcrn,

bafi fd;on voabrenb ber (Sucrgic bie ganje ^raft cmpfunbcn
n^erben miiffe. 3d; lerne toon Corner, baj^ bie 3Bir!ung ber y
^poefie nie auf O^r, burc^ ^one, nicbt auf GJebacfctniS, U)ie

lange id) einen 3 U 9 aug ^ cr Succcffion beF>alte, fonbcrn auf

 Crftes n>albd?en
XIV. 263

meine ^fyantafie toirte; toon FnerauS alfo, fonft

berecfwet toerben miiffe. So ftelle id) fie oe$en bit 9Jtalerei,
unb beflage, baj$ err effing biefen 5Nittetyunft be 2Befen3
ber ^Poefie, ,,2Birtung auf unfre Seele, Gmergie," nid;t jum
5 Slugcnmerfc genommen.

XIV.

9Kalerei toirtt nid)t au3 bem S^aume allein, b. i.

$brper,
fonbcrn and; im ^)(aumc, burcb @tgenfd^aften be^felben, bie

fie 511 if;rcm 3tt>erfe

anricfUet. 5iicf)t blo^ alfo, bafc lein e-

genftanb ber ^JJalerei obne Sid)tbarfeit unb eftalt ftatt=

10 finbe; fonbcrn Sidf^tbarfeit unb Weftalt finb aud; bie (Sioietu

fcfmften ber .Ubr^cr, burcf) bie fie toirft. ^poefie aber, toenn

fie nid)t burcf> ben ^){aum ^uirft, b. i.

foerjftent, burd) 5 ar ow
unb ^i(;uren, fo folflt nocf>
nidU, bafi fie nicbt au^ bem
9taume h>irfen, b. i.
.Ubr^er toon feiten ber Sicbtbarfeit unb
15 Weftalt fdnlbern tonne. 5lu^ bem 9Jiittel ibrer 9Sirhmg folgt
bie nid>t;
benn fie luirtt burd) ben $eift, unb nicbt burd; ben

fucceffiv>en
^Ton ber ^i>orte.

^Ralerci toirft burcf) ^arben unb Jyiguren fur3 3(uc^e ; ^Soefie

burcf) ben Sinn ber 3$orte auf bie untcrn Seelentrafte, toor-

20 ^Ufllicb bie ^pbantafte. Da nun bie ^anblung ber ^pbantafie

inuncr ein 9lnfd)auen c^enannt tucrben mac^, fo fann aucf) bie

^poefie, fofern fie berfclben einen ^8ec\riff, ein 5Mlb anfd)auenb

macftt, fii^lid) cine 93ialerin fiir bie ^pbantafic ^enannt n?erben;

unb C^an^e e i n c Gkbicbt3 ba^ (^ati^e e i n e &unft=
jebe ift

25 h)er!^.

3^ur ba bie Dftalcrei ein 2S e r f berborbrinflt, ba n?d^renb

ber 3(rbeit nocb nid)t^, nacb ber Sollenbun^ alle ift, unb sVDar
in bem $an$en be Hnblicf^ alle, fo ift bie $oefte energifd),

ba3 ift, luabrenb ibrer 5(rbeit mufc bie Seele fd)on alle^
264 Berber.

finben; nid)t toenn bie nercn e $eenbio,t ift, erft 511 empfinben
anfanflcn, unb erft burd; 9?efapitulation ber Succeffionen
empfinbcn ujollen. abe id? alfo eine ganjc 8cf)ilberun$ bcr

Scfyonbeit binburd; nid;t<o empfunben, fo ttrirb mir ber lete

iHnblicf nid)t3 fletoafyren. 5
s
DJalerei mill ba3 2lua,e taufd^en, ^oefte aber bie ^pf;antafie
- mir micber nid)t tucrfmnfyfl, baft id) in ber Sefc^reibung
ba3 ^Dinc\ erfenne; fonbcrn bet jcbcr 5>orftcnung e3 ju bem
3^ecf e fefye, 511 bem e mir bcr 2Md;tcr norfiibrt. ^Die 2(rt
ber Xaufdnnui ift alfo bet jeber Webid^tart nerfd^ieben, bei 10

alien Wemalben nnr jmicfad): cntiucber tanfd^enbe Sd)bn=

f;eit, cber tanfcf>enbe 2Babr(;cit. 2(n^ biefem 3^ C( ^C mu 6
alfo ba^ erf ber ilunft unb bie Gncrgic be^ S)id)ter3 ge=
tuerbcn.

iliinftler alfo Vcirft bnrd) Weftalten fur ba3 Wan^e 15

einey 3lnblkf3, bi^ ^ur ( Taufdnnu^ be^ 3luc\e^; ber X^id^ter

burd) bie cuiftia,e .^raft ber 3Sorte VD a br e n b ber Succeffion,
bi^ jur uollfommenften ^Taufdntnfl auf bie Seele. 5i>cr
alfo

$arbe unb ^fiort, 3^^f^^ u b 5luc\enblirf, (^)eftalt unb

Mraft miteinanber toerc\Icid)cn fann, i^er^leidie. 20
s
)Jland)e3 ju biefer 5luf^abe bat ein fdmrffinni^er ^nc^=
lanber fcorc^eidnict, ber im Wefd>made be^ 8bafte3burt)
ein C^cfprad) iiber bie $unft, unb ein anbre^ iiber bie Xon^
s
funft, ))talerei unb id>tfunft c^e^eben. Scf>abe nut, baft
er im le^ten, ftatt bloft ben lint erf d>ieb ^uifd>en biefen 25
brei AKmften 511 enftwdcln, auf bie leere Grille (\erat, ben

) u fl 511 beftimmen, ben eine Dor ber anbern babe,

ttdllirt unglctc^artiflcn ^in^cn Iduft eine blofte SRangorbnung
auf cinen fo fdnilerbaften 5Bettftreit binau^, al^ l>or
etniflcn

gabrcn bie ^Jalerei, ^hifif, ^oefie unb Sdmufpielhmft, 30

1
^. .^arrii Wefprarfje iiber bie tfunft ;
uber bie ^ufif, Stfalerei
nub ^oefte ;
iiber bie (fidfe(ig!eik
 rftes IDalbcfyen XIV. 265

unter ber Slufflcfyt eineS 9Jtagifter ber 25eltrt)ei3fyeit, formlicfy

2
unb feierlid) fyaben eingefyen miiffen.
Saffet un3 fefyen, toa3 arri3 fiir Seiten be UnterfcfyiebeS

finbet. 3 uer f* ntacfyt er bie fefyr beutlid)e @intettung $toifd)en

5 Jtihtften, bie ein 2Ber! liefern, unb Mnften, bie burd? @ner=
gie n>ir!en.
Sene finb, beren S&irfung foejiftierenbe Xeile

^at, n>ie eine ^Bilbfdule, ein Semdlbe; biefe, bie fuccefftt)

njirfen, 5. .
ans, 9Kupf. !3)er Wittelpunft be SeffinQ*

fcf>en 2Berfe, in melc^en alle Stral)len fallen, ift alfo fdjon

10 toon Slriftotele^ angegeOcn. 2Benn bie 2Sirfunfl einer ^unft
Gnergie ift, fo fann bie ^ollfommenbeit folcfyer ^lunft nur
h)a^renb ber )auer mahrgenomnien tt>erben ;
ift fie ein

28 e r t, fo ift bie Sotttommenfyeit nid;t n)df;renb ber nergie,

fonbern erft nacfyfyer, fid;tbar.

15 ^JJialerei, 5Rufit nnb X> i cf> t f un ft finb a((e m m

i i
f cf),
s
nad^a^menb; berfcf)ieben aber burd; bie )Ji i 1 1 e I ber 9?ad)=

aiming bie 5R a e r e mimifiert bnrd; 5 g n r unb 5 fl r be

;
I i i
;

bie Xonhmft burd) 53en)egung unb ^ 6 n e 9)lalerei unb

Xonfunft burd^ natiirlicfje; bie^oefie burd) ein !itnft=

20 lid^e^ unb nMllfurHcfyeS ^Jlittet. !Diefen Unterfd)ieb ^at
ber Skrfaffer ber s$f;ilofop^fd)cn Sd^riftcn aufS 6runblid)fte

au^einanbergefe^t.
gebe lunft ^ai iBre egenftanbe. 2)ie ^alerei
T>inge
unb Segebenf^eiten, bie fidf) burd) Jigur unb
25 auSbrurfen (affen: 5lbr^)er, ^rd fte ber Seele, bie fid; im
per aufjern; anbtungen unb 33egebenf)eiten, beren

ftdnbigfeit auf einer furjen unb augenfcf)einlic(>en 5^ e toort

Skrd nberungen beru^t; anblungen, beren SSerdnberungen

atte bie ganje X>auer ber golge l;inburd? fidf) ftctg gteic^formig

2
SBettftreit ber SDJaterei, TOufif, ^oeftc unb <2c^aujpiclfunft: 5Reben

flefjatten unter ber 9Utffidjt SSoIfflang ?ubtt)ig rafen^a^nS, ber SSelt*

.
23aireutf) 1746.
266 Berber.

finb; anblungen, bie in einen 3 e ^P un ^ jufammenlaufen;

bielmefyr befannte al unbefannte anblungen 9)?an fiefyt,

baft, fcon biefer Seite betracfytet, effing Saofoon nid?t boiler

bet fei, ba er u berfyaupt mefyr fiir ben >id)ter,
al3 9Mer, ge-

fcfyrieben. 5
e g e n ft
a n b e b e r %on ! unb ^orfaUen^
un ft
:
)inge

fyeiten, bie borjuc^Iicf) burd; Sc^egunQ unb Sone au^gebriidt

rtjcrben fonnen; biefe finb aUerlei ^BetDegungen, 2:one, Stim-
men, Seibenfcbaften burd) Xbne u. f. iu.

egenftdnbe ber ^oefie finb bie Dbjefte beiber toorU 10

gen ^iinfte. 3 uer f t / ff crn fa burd? natiirlidje 5Rittel

nacbgeaf;mt toerben. $ier tt>ar leidit 511 eradjten, bafe bie

^Poefie ber 9Ralerei nad)bleiben miiffe; benn alle^ lief bafyin-

au^, baft orte feine $ya*&w, unb ber ^Dhinb !ein ^iinfel fei.

5(ucf) ba^ ift mir befrenibcnb, n)ie bier bie ^ocfie ber Xonfunft 15
an natiirlicften Xonen gleid;fommen fonne. ilurj, bie

S5erg(etcf)ung ift iibcl geraten. X>urd)

bcbeutenbe SSorte,
al^ burd) n> i II ! u r Ii d; e berabrebete Qtidjtn, unb bieS

follte eigentlid; ber tyunlt ber 2efftngfd)en ^ergleidnmg fein.

3n ben eigentlicf)en egenftanben ber 5)?alerei (b. i. bie 20

burd) Jfarben, Jviguren, unb Stellungen d)arafterifiert finb;

beren bollftdnbige Ginftd^t nicfit Don einer Jvolge ber 53egeben=

fyeiten abbdngt, n)enigften^ toon einer fur^en unb in bie 2(ugen

faQenben ^olge, n?o alle mannigfaltigen -ftebenumftanbe in

einen unteilbaren 3 ^P un ^ jufammenlaufen) in alien bie-
e 25

fen egenfttinben bleibt ber 2)icbter bem 5Raler nacb; benn

e r ft
I i
cfy jener afymt burcf) n)infiirlid)e 3 e ^ en / biefer burd?
bie 9^atur nad^; biefer jeigt aUe^ in bem namlicfyen 5Iugens
blide, n)ie in ber 9?atur; jener nur teiltreife, jergliebernb, unb
alfo Iangn)eilig ober bun!el. 30

(5^ gibt and) Gkgenftanbe, bie ber !Did;tfunft eigen finb:

anblungen, bie in bie Sange bauern, unb bie fein fiir bie
 rftes IPaibcfjen XV, 267

9J?alerei pragnanter Slugenblid in ein 3 bring! :

Sitten, Set*
benfcfyaften, @mpfinbungen, unb Gbarafter an fief), bte ficfy

am meiften burd; 9tebe seigen. ier bleibt bie 9)talerei toottig

nad;, leibet feine Skrgleicfyung.

5 arri3 gefyt nacfyfyer in bie ren$en ber $>oefie
unb on=

funft, too id; if;m nirf^t nadjfolflen mac^. .^ier miinfdie id; ber

2)id;tfunft nod; einen Seffing. (r Oetrad)tet genniier ben fitt=

licfyen, ben geiftigen Ginbrucf ber ^oejte; eine U3ieber unbe=

riU;rte Saite, bie id; and; nid;t 6ehif;rcn ma^. %d) lt>oUte

10 meine efer blofe auf einen Sd;riftftel(cr aufmcrlfam macben,

ber mit Seffing einerlei (^eflenftanb bearbeitct, in mand;em
tDeiter^efonunen, unb fc^arfjinntg Qenug tear, feinen egens
ftanb fur^ unb biinbifl 511 erfd;6pfen, \t>enn er ftatt bc^3 leeren

9f?an^ftreite^ auf nid;t3 al^ auf Unterfdneb, fyiernad; auf

15 renjen, bann auf $efee f;attc fef;en njollen.

XV.

n)i(( nicftt fagen, baft $err Seffin^ nid)t, bem .ft

feine^ 53ud;e^ nacf), $c$en (5a\;Iu, unb (^ec\c

5(ffen an Unterfc^eibung !^ecf)t bebalte; nur nid;t immer an

(SJriinbcu ber Unterfcfyeibung, unb am lueniflften im aupt=
20 grunbe. Gr bi tnft mid; immer nod; auf bem balben 3Bege, alio
tuenn bie ^Poefie burdb Succeffion auf ein 2Berf
arbeiten follte, unb nid;t fdbon eben in ber Succeffion
ifyr 2Berf liefere.

2)er )id;ter, 5. (S v un
Sd;6nbeit malen VDoUte, e fei
ber

25 nun $onftantinu3 ")Jianafje, ober 2lrtoft, ginfl ntd;t barauf

ein

au^, urn fwttennad; 511 frai)en: fab >elena, ii)ie faf; SUcina
tx>ie

1
au3? un mit feiner ^Befd;reibun(^ ein boHftanbigeS ^Bilb 511

^interlaffen, u. f.
it). (Sr ftif)rt unl burd) bie Xeile, urn jeben

f., p. 126.
268 Berber.

berfelben alg fd;on anfd;auenb $u madden, urn, toenn fair

atte Xeile fcergeffen fatten, fo fciel anfcfyeinenb 511 toiffen:

elena, Sllcina mar reijenb. at Slrioft auf errn Seffing

bamit feine $Birhtnfl a,emad;>t, fo ttnrb er metleicfyt auf bie=

jcnigcn feiner Sanbgleute @inbriicfe macfyen, bie bie Scfyonfyeit 5

in einer 2Ucma ioie in ciner gebaucncn SBemiS tei(n)eife anjiu

erfenncn cjc^obnt ftnb; obcr menu Slrioft fcIDft eine Sllcina

ftihc, miirbe er mellcid;t auf fold^ctu ^ISe^e . Unb iiberf;aupt

fann man bier au3 einer ^cr^lcirfntng Voenig folftern. omcr
2
malt feine clena nidht. SSarum? tucil fie \ln\ nid)t angef;t, 10

\w\l er lion 5(nfancjc bi^ 511 Gnbe feine^ G5ebid;t^ nid^t ju ber

Jracje $t\t Ijat: h)tc faf; fie au3? fonbern immer, n?a^ trucj

fid; F;ier unb bamit 511? .ftelcna fointnt, bie (^reife feben fie;

tt)ie anber^, al^ baft fie fiiHen unb fagen muftten, Voa^ fie
fiibltcn unb facjten; nidf)t aber Iciftt Corner fie bag fiibten unb 15

fa^en, urn ,,burd; 3Sirfun(\ anjujctgcn, baft .ftelena fd^on fei";

9trioft binfleflen, ber omcr ^talien^, ber aber ttom (^ried;ifcf)en

joiner allc* eber, aB bie beftanbi^e Jyortfcbretten ber $anb=

Iiinc^ bat, 9(rioft, ber fein c^anjc^ (^Jebid^t burcf) nicbt bag 9Bort
ju feiner Banter mad)t: ,,(5g marb, eg irarb, eg marb/ fom 20
bern and) r/
eg Voar/ unb ^tne n?ar eg?"
9lrioft bcitte ent^

ttxber fo nid^t fra^en fotlen, ober er muftte ung burc^ bie

^eile fiibrcn. ^idit, baft mir nacbfyer bie ^eile fammeln,
jufammcnfe^en; nidfrt, baft nad^ber bie 5]bantafie ftreben fofl,

fief) bag GJanjc e i n e g ^unfttoerfg 511 benfen ;

im Scbilbern 25

felbft, im ^urd^fitbren burd>

feine Xeile bat er feinen $\wd
crrcidBcn Gotten. Db er ibn erreicbt? tDatoon mag jeber
benfen toag er faitt; flcnug, er oolite i^n tocibrcnb ber
(5nerc^i e erreid^en.

ber ^icbter bie Sdhonbeit lieber in 2$irfun$, in 53e- 30

fl, b. i.
reijenb borftellt, fo tut er g nid^t,. bamit biefe fid;
2
pp. 125, 132.
 (Erftcs IDalbcfyen XV. 269

fcetoegenbe Scfyonfyeit bem fid; befaegcnbcn SSerfe enttyrecfye;

nid)t alg toenn jeber 3ug bcr d;ilberung, ber Jorm, eftalt,
unb nid)t 2Birfung, nid)t 33etoegung ift, begfaegen unpoctifd)
3
toiirbe; fonbern id) generalificre ben a lebiglid; fo: ,,jebe
5 6d;Uberung ber d)5nf;eit toirfe energifd)" b. i.
511 bem
beg icbterg, 511 bem fie ba ift, unb bann fadbrcnb jebeg
ben fie liefert. icrnad; md$e fid) Slrioft berantitcrten; aber
ba effingfd)e Giebot: ,,cf)onl;cit bc^ ilorper3 geigc fic^) bei
4
bem id)ter blofs burd; SiStrfung, blofj burd) ^Beinegung/
10 raumt u toiel auf.
3u biel felbft in Bonier; benn id) iucif^ iuofyl nid;t, ob bci

ber ganjen Juno, tuenn er fie nidt fbrpcrlid;, n?cnn cr fie nur
burd) ein 33ehuort fdnlbern tuclitc, ein tt)irffamerer, ein reijen=
berer 3"9 fci/ ^ ber, bie toetfjcUbogidhtc 3 uno ( man crlaube
15 mir ba imgchcurc Sort!),ob biefcr eine 3 U 9 ^ cr f
ben fie an bcr .sjanbhing tcilnc^me, bcr burd) if)rcn

anblung bcjeidMK, u. f. f.
o fcinc fd)5nfnicicf>te

unb fcine b(audugid)tc ^al(a^,

s
unb fcin brettfd^ulterigcr 5Ijaj.
unb fein gcfdMuinbfiifii^er 2(d)i(Ic / unb feine fd)5nbaarige
20 elena Vuo ift bier SBirfung, 53crtjcgung, 9Jctj, anblung?
3 uru f an ^ e
5
Smmer ein fcbcner ^id^tcr: ^lalt un bag
SEBotylgefaflen, bic 3"igung, bic Sicbc, bag Gntjiirfcn, trclcftc?
bie Sdionbcit Dcrurfad;t" (tccnn bieg namlid; bic Cntergie
cureg Gebid^g itjilU), fo habt ibr bie d)onbeit felbft gefrfiil*

25 bert (namlid) fofcrn ibr fie nad> bcr borfgcn ^parcntbcfe fd;il=

bcrn mii^t). 5^id)t abcr umgcfcftrt: ibr Didder, fdnlbcrt

feine forpcrlidic Sd^onbcit; fonnt ibr fie nicftt burdf^gdngig in

9tei3, in irfung fcbilbern; bcr nad) miiffe eud^ !ein ^orm

3ug entn)ifcben; ber OJeftalt nadh fcbilbcrt fie nicf)t. o um=

30 ge!ebrt babe icb auf ben 8a ttjenig 3i^ r fl u ^"

2Ber fann leugnen, ba^ in mancbcr Gkbicbtart bcr erotifc^en

8 4 ff.
5
Saof., p. 133. Saof., p. 132, i?aof., p. 133.
270 Berber.

!orperlid)e Sd;6nf;cit flefcfyilbert toerben muffe, unb

toer mujs nid)t atebann audj juflcbcn, ba{5 manege Xeile bicfcr
torpcrlid;en Sd;onf;eit in 3iei^ in 33etoe(umg nid)t gefcfyilbert
ujcrbeu fonnen? @inmal toorau3$efet, baft 5lrioft ein
Gkmalbc fciner Sttcina liefern follte unb toollte, ftrie fonnte 5
s
er \voljl tyre ^afc, al, 3^^, 5lrme in ^Birfung [d)U=
6
bern? err Scffing fragt: iuag einc 9^afe fei, an n)eld;er
bcr ^cib uicftt^ 511 bcffern finbet, unb id) fragc: ma eine 97afe

fci, bie fid) in ^Keij, in fc^oner 53ett)CQuiu3 jcigc? mu^te

SIrioft

alfo cntmcber fold^e eile au^Iaffen, unb ba er g nun einmal 10

auf Sdnlberunfl anflcfctjt, fo triirbe bie Slii^Iaffung cinem

^talicncr fo gcfc^ienen ^abcn, al3 jcne fcine Sobfatire, auf
em fd>onc^
aber ^rofenafiiie^ ^dbcf^en, bie atte Xeile

WcfidH^ jum immcl erf^ob, unb bei cf)ilberung bet

obnmdd^tia auff;orte. Dber er mufete folcf)e 3"C^/ bk pd; 15

nid>t anber^, al^ burd) bie ^orm anfcf)auenb madden Hef^en,

fd>on fo fdnlbern, unb fid) befto mefyr an anbern reijtooHcn

flctftirtcu 3 u en crf;olcn. %d) I;alte biefe 58ermifcf)ung aud^

$u fe(>r nad) bem C^efdimacfe ber 3^ a ^ cner /
flte ba^ fie fid)

burcft bie borftebenbe Seffincjfd^e .Vtritif biefe unb berglcicf^cn ao

Scf)ilberungen, toon bcnen iF>re ^)icf)tcr tool! finb, roiirben

rauben laffcn. ^od^ minber ^ilt bie Urfacfte/ toarum Slrioft

mil feiner Sdnlberunc^ unrecM babcn foil: ,,n)a^ fiir ein 33ilb

flcben biefe allgemeinen ^ormcln? 3n ^ em ^Zunbe eine^

3eicknmciftcr3, bcr feine 6dniler auf bie 6dbonbeiten be^ 25

madbcn
<

afabcmifd^cn Dtobctt3 aufmerffam rt^ill, mocbten fie

nod) ettoaS fagen; benn ein 33licf auf biefe^ ^obell, unb fie

fefyen Stirn, S Zafe, >anb u. f.

n). 5Iber bei bem id)ter fef)e

id) uicbt3." Gben a(^ n)enn ber 1)irf)ter bie ^i^uren, bie er
fdnlbert, aucb im ^upfer mii^te toorfted)en laffen! 2Ber f)at 30

nicfyt eine ^afe, anb, Stirn gefefyen, unb n)em !oftet

6 7
P 130.
.
p. 130.
 rftes lDal6cf)cn XV. 271

ftrengung, [id) cine Stirn in ben beften 6d)ranfen, ben fcf)dn=

ften Scfmitt einer 9?afe, bie female 33reite einer nieblid)en

anb $u benfen, jebeSmal, ba fie ber $)irf)ter nennt? 3d)
empfinbe fyierbei nicfyt fo toie err Seffing mit Skrbruffe bie
5 SBergeblidfyfeit meiner beften Slnftrencumg, fo ettoa3 einjeln

fefyen ju toollen; nacf)l)er aber jebe jufammen^ufe^en, mix

alle^ in einem, unb ein in allem u benfen, bie Sltcina mir
mit jebem biefer eile im flm^en, beutltcb, h)ie ein 3^<^^n=

meifter, 511 benfen o bie 2Inftrenflimg forbert ja nicfyt ber

10 2)id^ter bon mir! er fiifyrte mich tetlmeife, geigte mir in jebem
eile bie 6cbonbeit; ba energifierte feine JRufe, unb toarum
nic^t? ba fie fein afabemifdie^ llfoben toon Srfjon^ett, ba3
man auf einmal in alien feinen ^cilen fcben follte, 511 (iefern

imternafym.
15 Unb fott bie !Dicfitfunft feine fcbone eftalt fd^ilbern, n)eit
ibre Xeile foeriftent finb, fo follte Corner aud) feine f)d^licbe

eftalt, feinen berfite3 ^cfdnlbert fjaben, meil if>re

9J?if$teile

cbenfo foc^iftent finb, unb and) foerjftent gcbacbt tt>erben

mliffen, menu cm s
^BiIb ber .^a^Iidifeit n>crben
foil. Seffing
20 ^at Corner burdi fein C^etrcbe toon fritifcfyen 9?cc^eln felbft ber=
n)icfelt, unb nun mill cr mit ifym binau, n?o er faum burdb=

fommt. w Gbcn meil bie ,aftlicbfcit in ber Sd^ilberung be^

3)id)ter ju einer minber mibern)drti(^cn Grfcbeinung formers

licber llnbollfommenbeiten trirb, unb fllcidifam, bon ber

25 Seite ibrer ^Btrfuni^ ."pd^lid^fcit 511 fein auffyort, n?irb fie bem
8
$)id)ter brauc^bar." ^Jiicb bi tnft, ,err Seffinfl tue einen

Jeblftrcid^, um bie 3>erle^enbett 511 jerftiirfen. 5Sdre bie

Jracje: ttie fann ber griecbifcbe ^id^ter einen dlicben fcbil=

bern, ba iF>n bocb ber griedn fcbe .^iinftler nicbt fcbilbern mod)te?
30 fo maft bie 5lntn?ort flelten: bie ^igur tritt un nicbt mit ein=

mal bor 2Iuge; in ber Scf>ilberung beg 2)id)ter3 ift fie

minber
8
faof., p. 140.
272 Berber.

totbrig: fie fybrt toon ber Seite ber SHMrfunQ auf unfern 9ln=
blicf auf, relief) ju fein. 5lber toaS foil bag fyier? @3 toirb

cinmal eine fbrperlicfye eftalt gefcbilbert, fuceeffifc gefd;il=

bert, ba ifyre Xeile unb ^iftteile bocf) jufammen eriftieren, ba

fie bocf) in 35erbinbung gebad)t mcrbcn mitffen, rt)enn ber 53e= 5

griff ber .^afclicfyfeit auffonnnen foil meg alfo mit bem

^berfite^; nad; 2effing3 (yrimbfai^cu, nicf)t meil er fyaf?licf),

fonbcru a^cil er ein ilorper ift, u^eil er al^ forperlid)e Weftalt,

uub bod} fucccffib, flefdnlbert trcrben muft.

W 3lbcr ber idtcr fanu ibu nutjen! er mit i^n ju

9 "

10

fo fann er bod>
alfo gormcn, !brperlid>e Sdnlberun^en tiu^en?
unb n?enn er fie nu^en fann, finb fie ifnn ertaubt? SBoriiber

ftreiten tmr benn? ^ann er fyafclicfye Jormen nu^en, n?ic

it)cit ebcr fdione ! Unb finb ibm jenc erlaubt, n)ie toeit eF>er

biefe! So fann er bocf) alfo, n>enn cr Gncrcvje in fie legt, 15

and) forperlid^e GJcflcnfta nbc fdnlbern \va$ pollen roir

mebr? !Die Scbarfe be^ ^Boc^cng bat nad^elaffen; erfd>lafft

liec^t er ba! 3J?it einer folcben 3 u 9 a ^ e ^ at ^rr ^effing ben

grb^ten Xeil feine^ 33ud;e3 njibcrlegt.

XVI.

X)icbter nufct bie ,0flftlicf!cit, urn bie bermifd^tcn Gmp= 20

be^ Sad^erlid^en unb Sd>recflid;cn bcrtorjubrin=

1
gen."

3ucrft bemerfe icb, baft, fo ferfcbieben an fic^ biefe ^toei

GJattungcu bermifd^tet Gm^finbungen, 6d>recflicf^e^ unb

2ad>erlicbe3, fein mogen, fo balb fonnen fie ficb ineinanber 25

bcrtoanbcln. 2)a^ Sd)recflicf)C, al-S unfcbablicf) erfannt, n?irb

cbcn, \rn\l e3 un fdnccflic^ biinfte, Icicberlicb; ba3 ^acberlid^e,
al^ fd)ablicf) erfannt, cben faeil e^3 un n u r lac^eilicb biinfte,
l
?aof., p. 140, f.
p. 140.
 (Erftes H)albcf)en XVI. 273

fd)recHid). 35ietteid)t toerben beibe alfo bag ^dfjlicfye au3

einer Urfacfye, ifyrer fcertoanbten 9?atur nad), nuen? 2Bir
toollen forfcfyen.

9?id)t alleS dd)erlid)e barf fydyicfy fein. Unter ber

S
5 grofjen 3)?enge unfd)dblid)er ^ontrafte ^nifcfyen 33ottfommen=

fyeiten unb Unbo(ltommenf;eiten gtbt 3 auc^ einen, ber 5rt>ar

fycijUicf) fcf)dn f)eit, unb fid? auf manc^erlei SBeife divert,

j. 6. fydyid) fein, unb fid? frf)5n biinfen, f)dyid; fein unb fur
fdfyon erfannt inerben, fydfslicfy fein, unb burc^> 5lu^ierung
10 frfjbn fein mollen u. f. to. 2Ulein, bicfe eigne attung ldrf)er=

liefer ilontraftc mad^t nod) ntcfyt alte attungen, bie ganje

2(rt au. X)er fd^uarf) Starfe, ber fletn C^ro^e, ber

2Bic^tic3e in jeber 2(rt finb cben fold;e ldd;erlirf)en

a(3 ber f?df3lid) cfjone.

15 80 barf and) nid^t allc^ 3d)recflid)e ^dyirf) fein. 3Benn

etn 2Befen feiner I)6f;ern 5?atur, fciner grofcern itbermacf)t
2
toegen un^ Sc^rerfen gebietet, fo barf bie Sd;recflid;e
toebcr in bem (^egenftanbe mit Jormen, nocf) in unfrer Seele
mit (Smpfinbungen be^ .S3dj5licf)en bergefellfd^aftet fein. (Sin

20 Ungeimtter j. (. ober toenn ic^ ^ in em s

^Bilb bertoanble, cin

bonnertoerfenber 3 u P^ er /
^ ann fiird)terlid), fdbrccftid^ fein,
aber obne 35er^errung be g (Sefid^t^, ofyne ^dfsticbe gormen.
(Sin britdenber Some j. @. fann felbft, toenn id) micf) in icf)er=

fyeit fiU;te, mir ein fdbrecfltcber, em fcbauberbotler,

25 aber be^megen ein (idfslidjer 3lnblicf fein.

@3 folgt alfo, ba, urn bie bermifd)ten (Smpfinbungen

Sdc^erlidjen ober 8d)recflid)en f)ert>or5ubringe

nicf)t jebeSmal, nicbt fc^tec^tf>in

att ^ngrebieng gebraucfyt
toerben biirfe. toirb bafyer bem 2Befen einer ^unft anfyeirru

3ogeftellt iuerben fonnen, ob fie ba3, toa^ fie nid^it braucfyen

2
3)ie meiften ^omerifrfjen otter ftnb fd)recf(tc^ ;
aber beSttegen auc^
274 Berber.

barf, braudjen fonne, toaS fie nid)t fd)led)terbina,3

braudjen barf, fyier unb bort braud;en too He. 3d)
fafyre fort:
Untcr ben unfd)dblid)en $ontraften, bic ba Sticfyerlicfye

mad)en, gibt 3 namentlid) and; ben $ontraft be3 fydjjlid) 5

Sdfyonen; jum Sdcfyerlicfyen alfo fann df}licf)feit toirflid; ein

n>ef entities 3 n O re ^ eng fein, urn e3 l;erfcorsubringen.

$>n fcfyrecflicben Gk$enftanben gef;ort bie Jorm ber df3lid)feit

ei^eutlic^ $>ai
nidbt mit ju ber ^bee be^ Sc^dblicf)en, be3 gurc^t-

erregenben felbft; cf)auber unb Untoille am a6lid;cn ftnb 10

^toei @mpfinbunoen, bie in ifyrer 9^atur berfd)ieben finb; folg=

lid) fann jum 6dbrecflicf)en ba^ ^aftficfye nie eigcnttid^ al3

trefcntlic^e^ 3 n O rc ^ cng ^irfen, nie e^ alfo fyerborbriru

gen. 3n ^arallelen Icifet fid) bafyer faum i^r beiberfeitiger

ebraud) bebanbcln. 15

5Bo ba^ d|5lid)e jum Sdcberlicbcn jutrifft, ba treffe e^

n?efentlic^ ju; e^ $ebbre mit jnm 5lontraft,e^ !ann

bleiben. 2So e5 toegbleiben !ann, ift ^ and; ein

bafc e^ toegbleiben mufs. So erfldrt err Seffing mit

e3 fiir eine alberne ^ond^fra^e, bafe ber toeife unb recf)t= 20

fcfyaffene tfop in ber f?dfclidben GJcftalt Xberfite^ burcb bie=

felbe im .^ontraft feiner fcbonen Seele Idcberlidf) voerben folle.

Xrdfe abcr ba^ ^d^ticbe jum 6d>recflicbcn fo fonnte e^ b(o^ /

al^ 57ebenibee jutreffen; e^ gebbrte nicf)t in bie Gmpfinbuncj

be^ Scbauber^. (3 mufc alfo n\djt anber^ al3 toie ein ^Reben- 25

ingrebienS ^ugemifd^t toerben, bamit e^ bie auptempfin=

bung ja nicbt fcbtodd^e, bamit ber Sd^auber nicbt Untoille
toerbe, toenn er nid^t toerben foil.

2Bo ein egenftanb burdb ba^ 3 n 9 re ^^ en ^ ^e^ ^fe^^ en

I a d) e r U cb toerben foil, ba fann er, folange er in ben G5renjen 30
ber 2Bal)rfc^einlicf)feit bleibt unb ben ^ontraft abtoiegt, nie

^u fyafclid) fein. Slber bag d^lirf)e jum S(f>recflicf)en fann

 rftes IDalbcfyen XVI. 275

aflerbingg, ^u fefyr toerftdrft, unb alg auptin$rebieng be*

fyanbelt, bag Sd)redlid)e toirflid; In nbern. @inen egen-
ftanb gan$ fydfelid) fufylen, fo baft bie gbee beg Ummlleng, beg
@felg jebe anbere berbunfelt, fyeiftt geftnjj nid)t, ifyn gan$
5 furcfyterlid) empfinben. ag efiibl be^ Scfyrecfltcfyen ift

Sc^auber ber 5urrf)t, bag 33Iut tritt jum ^ r 3^ n 5urikf, 33Iaffe

bebecft bag (yeficfit, ftalte lauft ben Merger f;erab; balb abcr

nimmt fid^ bie Diatur jur Selbftberteibigung gufammen, bag

33lut tritt berftdrft in feinen Dori^en C^ancj, bie 2Bangen roten
10 fid), bag 5 euer breitet ficb micber aug, bie gurcbt ift borbei,
ber Srf)recfen ift in 3 orn bcrmanbclt. 60 crjeugte, gebar
unb totete fic^ bie (Smpfinbitng beg Scfn-ecflicbcn. 2Iber bie

Gmpfinbung beg a^licr;en )i)ie tteit anbcrg: ber 5)cifUon, bie

n)ibern)drtige Grfckinung, bie n?ir F)df5lirf) nennen, njirft aucf)

15 in meinem ^erbengebdube ^ifston, 2Bibertudrticifcit, eg brin^t

meine Saiten ber Gmpfinbuno; tmbrig aneinanber; eg fvallt
in meiner 9?atiir. X ie Gmpfinbunc; beg dyid;en burcMauft
alfo meinen ^orper ganj anbcrg, alg bag (yefii^l beg EcbrecN

lichen, fie ge^oren nicf^t in cing.

20 Unb ancf; jnfammencjefcblafleN bcrmifcbcn fie fid) !aum.

3
$)er gran fame 3iicbarb ber Critic errec^t mir Sebrecfen;
ber an Seele unb Slorper f>
a ft
I i
cfy
e 9iicbarb 21 b f du it. 2)ie

dyicr;feit feiner Seele, ben 2tbfrf^eu meiner mpfinbunfl

ge^en if>n,
fann trobl bie ^dfelicbfeit fcineg ^orperg berftdrfen;
25 mit meinem Scbrecfen aber, mit feinem Gbara!ter beg Jurcbter^

licfyen, F)at fie nirf)tg ^u tun. 2Benn id> bie abfc^eulicfe

4
Seele (Sbmunbg augeinem n^obloiebilbeten 5lbrper fv>red^en

^6re ; fo fann id) ben fcbonen orper noc^ be!lagen, ber einer
fo fcr)n?arjen Seele jur SBobnung bienen mufc; ic^>
!ann iF)n

30 lieben, toenn icb feinen Gintoobner f)affe: ber 5lbfdieu an

ber Seele fairb alfo bur<f> ben ^orper ntd^t berftdrft, ober
5 4
aof., p. 143. 2aof., p, 143-
276

id) Ml nocfy mcf;r fagen gefcfrttwcfyt. 5lber ber Scfyrerfen,

tt>eld;en
bie fd;n)ar5en furd;terlid;en Sinfcfyldge (SbmunbS
erregen, ift ganj etn)a3 anber3, er toirft, un$ead?tet feine
s
fcfybnen M;brper3, ebenfo in bollem JJfafte. dibmunb, ber

33bfett)id;)t, ift mir abfcfyeulicb; ($t>munb, ber fd?dblid)e 23bfe=

rt>idH, fd;rcdlicf).

3Benu id) e^ alfo .^errn Seffiiu^ ^luicbe, ^bafe fc()dblid;e

5
Iid;feit a(lc5cit fd^rcrflicf) fei/ fo tuirb v>err
Scfftng c mir
geben, baf^ fie c^ uid>t
tuegen ibrer .^njjlid^feit, fonberu
mcgcn ibrcr Sd;dblicf)feit fci; bafi alfo ber 2)id)ter burcf) ba 10

dJ5lid)c nic bie Gmpfinbuiu^ bc3 6ducrflid;en Berbers

b r i n9 e n, baft cr fie, eiflcntlid; gefproc^en, me Derftdrfen
fbnnc; turj, baft d>recflid)e3 unb dftlid;cg ^tei gan^ ber*
fd;iebene 2lrtcu ber egenftdnbe; Jurrfrt unb 3tbfd;eu ^rei
ganj berfdnebenc 2(rtcu ber Smpfinbung fcien. err Seffing 15

^at inellcid^t facjen Pollen: ,,3lbfd)cu (^egen bie bdftlid^e Secle

be^ anbern mirb burcfy 5(bfd;eu an feinem F)dftlid)en Mbrper
berftdrft; ber l)id)tcr fonne fid; alfo ber gormen be^ dft=

licben bebienen, nm 2lbfd)eu ^n berftdrfen." 5U*t>ann

f;at

er red^t; aber and) feine SBerfcfytoifterung ber mpfinbungen 20

angeflcbcn: benn 2(bfc^cu bleibt 3(bfd;cu; ba .dftlid)e, ba^

Slbfdbeulidhc fei in Scete ober ^lorper.

^cb babe bie Gmpfinbnng am ftdftlicben ber ^ormen 2(b=

6
fd^en genannt; err Seffin^ c\laubt, fie (5fel nennen 511

fonncn, nnb flel)t barin bon .^errn 5Renbel^fo^n ab, ber Gfcl 25

nur in ben niebri^en Sinnen Wefdimad, erud) unb ^efitbl,

nid)t aber in (^Je^enftdnben be^ (^efid^t^, unb !aum be e-
7
bor finben toill. 2)er Sprad)f\ebraud), ber in ad>en, n?o

e^ auf nid)t a(3 0eftibl anfommt, immer c^ef)5rt toerben fann,

fcfieint auf ber Seite be3 lectern ^Sf)Uofop^en. 30

5 6
?aof., p. 142. ?aol v p. 148.
7
Sttt. 33r., X. 5, e. 101 [r. 82].
 <rfics ZDalbdjen XVII. 277

$ommt aber ber @fel borjiiglid; bem efdjmade, unb anbern

6innen nur fofern u, ate fie tnit if)tn berbunben finb, ober

fief)
an feine telle fetjen fonnen, fo
ilt erftlicf auf bie Jrage: SIBarum ift in ben fcfyonen $iin=
8
5 ften unb 2Siffenfd;aften ber dfel nid)t fd;on? bie Urfadje fo

aflgetnein nid)t, ftieil ber Gfel blofs ben bunfeln innen ju=
fommt; benn bem bunfelften Sinne unter alien, bem C^efitble,
fommt er nidjt 511.
9^od) minber ift ber 28ibcrtoiUe, ben .^dfilid^feit Voirft, fo
9
10 ganoid) Don ber 9?atur be Gfel^, al^ .err effing meint;
benn .df5lid)feit duftert fid; blofe bem 2(uge; @fel eigentlic^
nur bem (yefdjmacfe.
Sim minbeften alfo fann fid; ^ur 97ad;af;mung ba3 fel=
10
F>afte
bodfommen fo, nne ba^ .^df^lid^e Derf;alten. Saffet
15 un3 jebe ber breierlei S3iacfml;muno;en be^ dd;erlid)en, d^=
lichen, (Sfelfyaften burd;fragen.

XVII.

fann in ber 1)id)tfunft gebraud)t Vrerben, um

ju edveden, unb, trie gefa^t, fyat bie

funft al^banti in ^eranftaltinu^ ber Jyormen feine anbre

20 fcfyrdnfung al ^Sabrfiteinlidifeit unb (yietdn}ennd;t be

traft^, ndmlid) ba^ fcbetnbar Sc^one. 3lber ba .S3df5lid)e ein

3ngrebten3 be dd)erlicf>en
bei bem ^Raler? Kann ber ^Raler

fein df^id)e in 5lontraft bc feintoollenben Scbonen fe^en,

ba^ ba Sacfyerlicbe berDorblidt, fo tvo^l. ^)a bie aber

25 felten ift, ba felbft bei ber geiftreidbften $ogartF)fd)en

pofttion bie ^lalerei immer augenfcbeinlid^er ^dftlic^e

al^ ben lad^erlic^en ^ontraft burcf) f;df5licf)e gormen fcf)ilbert (

8 9
2itt. 53r v X. 5, eb. baf. ?aof., p. 148.
lo
?aof., p. 149.
278 Berber.

fo bleibt fie gleid;fam 311 forperlid;, urn bem ^Dicbter beg Sddjer*

lichen folgen %u fonnen. 3)er id;ter trifft ben eift beg d*

d;erlicfyen burd; bag .ftdpcfye; ber ftunftler bleibt am &orper

beg dJ5lid;cn !leben unb bie .auptfad;e ift unficfytbar.

Better ftimmt meine Geele, unb mem 9Jhmb lad;tn>illig; biefer

fielt mid; I;
a fj
I i
d), unb id; foil lad;en!
jum 6d;redlid;cn ? 92id;tg! in ^oefie unb
2Bil( aber ber T)id;ter 3(bfd;eu erregen:
eine abfcfyeulicfye, bd^artige, flriinniiflc Seele an fic^ fd;on Voirb
fid; burd; f;dyid;c ^er^errungen duftern. Boll ber 5lbfd;eu

berftdrft iuerben, fo gebe er ganj einen E;df}lid)en 5lbr^>er;

if;r

benn tuie anberS fann iuof;l ba^ 3Bof;nf;au^ fein, bag fie fidj>

gebaut, in bem fie fo lange fleluirft? 6oll ber 5Ibfd;eu fid;

in TOleib bred;en, \v\ll ber >id;ter

in ntfernunfl eine Seele
,
bte beffcr fein fbnnte, fo milbre cr ibren 3Ibfdbcu n)enig=

burcf) Strahlcn ibrcr guten 2(nlage, burd; einen nid)t

r. Der 5)?aler bat fyier 6cf)ranfen feiner

^unft; benn tt>ie

felten mill biefe H)obl 2(bfd>eu, f>oc^ften
2lb=

fc^eu errecjen! unb Utenn fid>

mit bem d^ic^en fein Scbreden,
fonbevn nid;t3 alg 3lbfcftcu erreid)en ldJ5t, h)ie frei geF)t ber

^iinftlcr aug !

!Dag Gfelbafte enblidf) fyier bin id^ mit errn Seffing gar

nicbt einig. >a3

S&iefel, bag Sofrateg unterbrad;, ift an fid;

fein efelbafter Gkgenftanb, unb bie efelbaften Qu$t, bie 2Iri*

ftopf;aneg fonft einmifd^t, finb ein GJefd^enf an ben griecbi=

fd>cn ^obel, bag fair bemfelben aud) laffen fonnen. 3Ule

^r^d^lungen, fobalb fie ben @fel jur

bottentottifcf>en aupt=
tuirhmg baben, fo biinfen fie mir 5Iuggeburten beg britifcben
itber^i^eg unb bofen umourg. 3 n cfiobg 3(bbilbung
ber ^raurigfeit bin icf) mit Songin toon einerlei Gm^finbung;
eg fei, aug meld^er Urfacbe eg fei id; mag bie fliefcenbe giafe

nic^t feben; icb mag nid>t

feF)en, n)ag Voirflid) @fel ericedt.
 <rftes IDal&cfyen XVII. 279

(Stel, al3 folder, lafjt fid) fcfylecfytfyin mit teiner anbern ge*

faUigen (Smpfinbung toerfcf>mel$en ; unb toenn bag rafjlicfye

nid;t$ ate ein cfelfyafteS Sd;redlicfye ift, fo ift in biefem rafc

lichen, toa3 fief) fcom @fel barein mifcfyt, attemal unangenefym,
5 toibrig.
ftur muj} man avid) freilid) nicfytS fiir @fel errcgenb Balten,
toa^ nur einen ^ebenbegriff be fel^, burdf) toeite 3 ur ^d=
erinnerung f>aben
mod^te; nicfyt3 fiir @fe( erregenb, ma^, ofyne
bem efc^macfe unb G)erucf)e jujugeboren, 6(0^ rt)ibrig ge=
10 nannt Voerben fonnte: ntd;t alle^ enblid) in einer liinftlicf)en

^ac^afjmung fiir efdfyaft, rt>a^ favim in ber 9Zatur felbft, bie

feiner unangenefymen Gmpfinbung folc^ eine cnge Spfyare
gegeben, al^ bem mabren (Sfel.
J)oc^ ic^ bergeffe au^ meinem $ritifd)en 3Bdlbd>en beina^e
15 ganoid) ben S^iidrtjeg. 9Bie f>abe
id) in bemfelben nmf)er=
geirrt! SSie berfd;iebne 3Iu^fid)ten boten fic^ mir bar! 9Bie

manc^en ricfjtigen unb irrigen ebanfen mag id^ auf meinem

traumerifd^en ^fabe gebad)t fyaben! ^ fei! Seffing^ Sao=
foon ^at mir ^Jlaterie jum 9?ad)benfen berfcf^afft ; omer, unb
20 bie menfd^icfye Seele n?aren bie Ouellen, au benen id) bacbte.

,,5Benn mein i^dfonnement nicbt fo biinbig ift, a(^ ba^ Seffing-

fd)e, fo luerben Dictleid)t meine fritifcfyen rorterungen mef)r

1
nad^ ber QueUe fcf^meden/
Ubrigen^ fei jebe 2Bort, unb jebe 25enbung berbannt, bie
25 to ib e r .errn Seffing gefd^rieben fdn ene. 3^ ^ a ^ e ii b e r
feine ^aterien gebacbt, unb mo ic^ infonberF)eit nad^ Seitung
ber 2l(ten bafcon abge^en mufste, fpra($ ic^ offenfyer^ig, unb
n)ot(te in 5 orm ^ me ^ Senbfd^reibenS fpred;en, n)enn e^ bie
2lbtoed)felung unb ber ^n^alt ber 9ftaterien jugelaffen ^dtte.
30 2Benn meine B^^if^^ un ^ 2Siberf^riid;e bie Sefer be 2ao!oon
baf)in bermogen, ibn nod^mal^, i^n fo forgfaltig al^ ic^ ju
1
i eff. ^orr. ju Vaol. 8. 26.
280 Berber.

lefcn, unb ifm au3 meinen 3^^f^n, ober meine 3ftwf

i(;m, git berbeffern, fo fyabe idf) ber Sad;e be3 2ao!oon tveit

mef;r Qeborteilt, al3 burcf) ein fa(tc Sob, fytnter h)elcf)cm jeber

Sefcr fo, tote fein Ur^eber unb ^Befi^er, gafmt. ^eine Scbrift
fclbft, toie tourbig mir ^aofoon ^efcbienett, urn bariiber $u 5
bcnfcn, fei ein Opfer mctncr Hd^tung an ben Skrfaffer

fclben. Sobtoorte bavju&riuflen f;abe id; nid;t

 iefftngs (Entuwrfe 3iim iaofoort

No. 1.

I.

$ie Jlfynlicfyfeit unb ilbereinftimmung ber ^oefie unb 9J?a=

lerei ift oft genug beriifyrt unb au*gefufyrt toorben; abe* toie
mid; biinft, nie mit berjenigen enauigleit, bie alien ubeln

(Sinfluffen auf bie eine ober auf bie anbere fytitte borbauen
5 fbnnen.*

$)iefe iibeln Ginfluffe ^aben ficfy in ber ^oefie burd; bie

s
ScfyilberiingSfucfyt, unb in ber Dialerei burd) bie Slllegori*
fterei gedujiert; inbem man jene 511 einem rebenben e=

malbe madden tuollen, ofyne eigentlicf) 511 iuiffen, ia fie malen

10
fonne, unb folle; unb biefe 511
einem ftummen G)ebid;te, ol;ne
baben, in lueldn m 3)?a^e fie beutlicfye
1
uberlet3t 511 Segriffe
erregen !onne, olme fid; toon ifyrer eigentlicben 53eftimmung ju
entfernen unb ju eincr UnHfiirlicben Scbriftart ju tuerben.
2(uJ5er biefen ^ erleitungen
ber ^)icf)ter unb ^unftler felbft,
15 baben ^arallelen ber ^oefie unb 9ftalerei auc^ ben
bie fcid)ten

^ritite ofter^ ju ungegriinbeten Urteilen berfiil)rt, ioenn er

in ben 28er!en be^5 T>icfyter3 unb s3J?aler^ iiber einerlei 3Boru>urf,

bie barin bemerften 3lbtueidiungcn toon einanber $u Je^lern

madden tootten, bie er bent einen ober bent anbern, nad;bein

20 er enttoebcr mebr G5efcbmac! an ber 3)id)tfunft ober 3)ialerei

^at, jur Saft gelegt.

Unb biefen ungegriinbeten Urteilen toenigftenS abjul^elfen,
1
a 1 1 q f m e t n f ; benn beutlic^ finb allc 33egriffc ber 9Merel
(HWcnbclSfo^n.)
a. page 24, line 28 ff.

281
282 Ccfftng.

biirfte e3 fid; iuofyl ber 5Tiu^e fcerlofynen, bie SRebattte aucfy

cinmal umjufefyren, unb bie 5erfrfnebenfyeit 511 ertoagen, bie
ficfy 5lwfd)en ber 2)id;t!unft unb -Dlalerei finbet, urn 511 fel;en,
ob au3 biefer SSerfd^iebenfyeit nid;t Gkfetje folgen, bie ber eineu
unb ber anberu eigentiimlid; finb, unb bie eine ofterS notigen,
eincn ganj anbern 3&eg 511 betveten, al3 ifyre <2d;HKfter betritt,

toenn fie iutrflic^ ben 2itcl etyer 64^ucfter bel;aupten, unb

ntd;t in eine eiferfiicbtuje nad>affcnbe 5iebenbul;Ierin auSarten

ipitt.

Db ber 33irtuofe felbft aiuS biefcn Unterfudfnmgcn einicjen

9iuen jiet;en !ann, bie i(;n bay nur beutltcf) benfen lel;rcn,

toorauf il;n fcin blo^e^ Giefiibl bci bev Slrbcit unbeiDuf^t fiil;ren
1
mu^: biefe iuid id) nid;t entfd^eiben. 9lUr finb barin einig,

bafe bie ^ritt! fur fid; eine 2BiffenfdBaft ift, bie affe ftultur

berbicnt; gefeM, ba|3 fie bem enie and; 511 gar n\d)t$ ^elfen
fottte.

II.

^oefie unb 9Jialerei,* beibe finb nacf>a{;menbe $imfte, beiber

Gnbjtvec! ift, l>on ibren SSoruntrfen bie leb^afteften finnlic^ften

3^orftet(ungen in uny 511

eriuedcn. ie f;aben folglic^ otte bie

diegeln gemein, bie au^ bem 33ecjriffe ber 9iaf)al;mung,

biefem nbjtoede entfpringcn.

ber $iinfte fonncn, o()nc bem Jveucr be3 enie*5 (Stntrafl

511tun, Don ber beutltcftften Grfenntni^ abqctcilt tncrben; bcnn fie jetgcu
bem s^irtuofen nur toobon er JH nb[tral)ieren Ijnt. Gd finb nlfo btof? ne(\atioe
iRegeln, btc flar n)ol)I cin ilBerf ber ftunft fein foimen. (3Kcnbdfo^n.)
3d) mbc^te bie ftritif iuie btc ffl)d)otonte in rationalcm et em-
s
^?ed)t.
piricam abtcKcn; unb ^erabe bet biefer Waterie bie rensen jnxier ^itnftc
abjutciten, mirb bie Grfabrung, bie 9iiicfficf)t auf bad, toad alle ^liinftler
getan f)aben, unumgflngltdj notic; fein. 3n
s
)lorbamcnfa fatten bie
^ranjofen unb Gnglanber unter ber ^anb tf)rc rcnjen ermeitert; nun
ertnnern (ie fid), toad fiir Unorbnungen jcfetbaraud entftanben finb,
toeil bie 9)?inifter ju Utred)t fetnc rcd)ten I* a n b f a r t e n fatten, aid fie
abteilten.

a. 101, i ff.
 (Enttpurfe 311111 Caofoon. 283

Sltfein fie bebienen fidj ganj berfcfyiebner SRittel ju ifyrer

mung; unb au ber 2Serfd)iebenfyeit biefer -Dfittel tmiffen

bic befonbern Slegeln fur erne jebe fyergeleitet toerben.

3Me -Jftalerei brauc^t giguren unb garben in bem

3ft a urn e.

)ie
2)id)t!unft avtifulierte b ne in bcr 3^*-
Sener 3 e id^n finb naturlicfy. 2)iefer ifyve finb

III.

ftacfyafymenbc 3 c ^ cn nebcn ei nan bcr fonnen aud; nur

10
egenftanbe au^bviirfcn, bte ncbcn einanber, ober beren ^eile
neben einanber Solcfye Gicgcuftdnbc (;ei(jen Rbv*
ejiftieren.

y e r.
golglid; finb flbr^er, mit ibren fidUbaren Gitjenfc^aftcn,
bie eigentlid;en egenftanbe ber 5)ialerei.*
^iad;abmenbe Sa^tm auf einanber fonnen and) nur Gks
15 genfta nbe auebriiden, bie auf einanber, ober beren etle auf
3
einanber folcjen. ol^e egenftanbe l;ei^en iiberbau^t
4
anblungen. Jolcjli^ finb anblungen ber eigentlicfie

egenftanb ber ^oe f

i c.

1
Xlcfe Cppofition jciqt fid) bcutlicfyer in ?lnfc()unc< ber 9D?uftf unb
20 SOialcrct. 3 enc bcbictit fid) (\leirf)fall^ natllrttd^er ^etdjcn, af)mt abcr
nur burd) bie $etoegung nad). X;te s^oe[te Ijat eintge (Sigenf^aftcn mit
ber unb einifle mit bcr Sj0?alcrei gemetn. 3l)re ,3etc^en (tub Don
9)?ujtf,
linl(furlid)cr ^ebeutung, ba()cr briicfen [ie audj jumeilen nebeneinauber
e^iftierenbe !Din^e autf, ofjne bedioegen etnen Gtngrtff in ba3 Webiet ber
25 SDialeret ju tun, jcbo(^ ^ieroon in ber 5 ^9 e e n indjrcrcS. (99?enbe($fo(jn.)

fie britcfen and) nebcneinanber erifticrenbe auct, nicnn >inge

s
Don nnttfurlidjer ^ebeutung ftub.
fie ( J)ienbcUfoh,n.)
4
SBcroegungen t)diicn fie etgentlic^, bcnn e3 gibt panbtungen, bie au^ .

30 nebeneinanber eriftierenben Xeilen beftefjen, unb biefe finb malerifc^.

?(ber bie $8ctt)egung bcftel)t btof^ nud Jeilcn, bie auf einnnber folgen. 2Bir
I)aben alfo ^emegungen unb ipanblungen. ^Die 9J?uftf briicft ^anbtung
burd) bie 58etDegung unb bie 9J?alerei 55en3egung burd) bie .pnnbfung au^.
s
3>ene Dermittelft natUrltd^er Jbnc, biefe Dermittelft ber Jtaume. !Die

Cf. 101, 13 ff.

284 Cefftng.

alle $orper erjftieren nid>t attein in bem 9Jaume,

fonbern aucr) in ber 3d*.* Sie bauern fort, unb fonnen in

jebcm 5lugenblicfe U;rer Waiter anberS erfd;einen unb in anbrer

^erbinbung ftcfyen. Qebe bicfer augenblidlid;en @rfd;eU
nungcn unb 23erbmbungen ift bie SSirfung einer toorfyerge=
foenben, unb lann bic Urfacfye einer folgenben, unb fonad) gleid;=

fam ba$ Centrum ein er an b lun g f ein. golglid; lann

bie 9JI a I e r c i au cf> anb I ung e n nadnifymen, aber nur a n=

beutung3tt>eife burcb ^or^er.

9(uf ber anbern eite fonnen anblungen nid>t
fiir fid;

fclbft befte(;en r fonbern initffen geiuiffen SSefen an^angen.

Jnfofern nun biefe 98efen ^ or per finb, fd)ilbert bie ^oefie
a u d) r p e r, aber nur anbeutungStoeifeburcfy
5U> anb=
1
lung en.

IV.

5)lalerei fann in ibrcn foeriftierenben ^lompofitionen

nur ein en ein^igen 2lugenblic! ber t
anblung nutKn,

Ijat 33cmcciun^cn imb ^cmblunflen tocrmtttclft ber n>t((fttr(id)en

Tic s}?oei tc {)at aber and) unbetuegltcfyt ^anblungen, biefe finb
bollfonnneu materifrf). ^. iB. l)oinerifd)e Icid)nt 8, ba bie -Spirten^
ba<^

Fnnben Dor ber .spcrbe ftetjcn, uub bent (irimmtQcn Vbmen Drenncnbc ^nrfetn
Tcr fterbenbe i lboni^, bic (Sntfiiljrung ber Guropa finb
d)i(berunc\en, ba fte()enbe unb bcttjeglidje v panblungen mit
etnanber abmcd)fc(n. (SttenbelSfoljn.)
1 v
^oefte fann (^ar uio()I ^brpcr fd)i(bern, aber fie Ijat fotcjenbe
Tie
^rcir^en nirfjt ^u itberfdircitcn. SBcun tDtr ctn im 9iaume befinblid)e^
Wan^e utu^ bcnt(id) DorftcUen rtol(en, fo betrad)ten mir (1) bie Xeitc rinjdn,

(2) il)re "Ccrbtnbnna, (3) ba (S5an^c. llnferc Sinne uerrid)tcn bicfed mit
einer fo crftann(trf)en Wefd)ti>inbtnfctt, baf? mir a((e biefe Cperationen ;;u
flleid)er 3t 511 tierrid)ten qtauben. 3^enn un^ ba!)er ode ein^etnen Xeile
cinetf im ^aume fidj befinbenben (Mca.cnftanbe3 bnrdi nnfffurlid)e
annebeutet roerbcn, fo ttnrb im^ bie britte Operation, bad
fatten ntter Xeile, atl^u befdimcrlid). 35>ir
miiffen unfcre
fraft atl^nfelir anftrcnflen, mcnn fie fo ^crtrennte tiirfe in ein raumer=
s
fiif(enbe an$e jufamtnenfaffcn foll.t ( )J?enbe^fol)n.)

*cf. 101,20. id. 108,

 (Enttpurfc 311111 Caofoon. 285

unb mu$ bafyer ben p reign ante ft en ivafylen, au toelcfyem

ba 33orf;ergefyenbe unb Jolgenbe am begreiflidjften Juirb.*
(Sbenfo fann aud; bie ^oefie in ifyren fortfcfyreitenben

9facfyafmumgennur etne einjige (Sigenf d;aft ber^orper

5 nutjen, unb mujj bafyer biejenige nnifylen, tuclcfye ba finnlicfyfte
23tlb be $b rper toon ber Seite crluedft, t>on
lueld;er fie ifyn
1
brauc^t.
^icrau flie^t bie S^egel Don ber (Sin^eit ber malerifcfyen

S3ein)drter, unb ber (Btyarfamfeit in ben @d;ilberungen !or^er=

10
licfyer egenftdnbe-t 3 U biefer beftefyt bie gro^e 9)2anier be
omer; unb ber entgegengefet5te Je^ler ift bie djtoacfyfyeit

melerneuern, befonber^ ber Sfyomfonf d;en ^id;ter,t bie in

eincm 6tiide mit bem sDia!er iucttctfcrn JuoKen, in iueld;em fie
nottuenbig Don i(;in itbertuunben lucrbcn miiffen.
15 omcr l;at fitr ein !>ing
nur einen 33- @in c^iff ift

ibm balb ba3 f d^uarje Sd^iff, balb ba^ ^o^Ie <5d;iff,

balb
ba^3 fd^nelle <5dn
ff, ^bc^ftemS too^Ibcruberte fd^uarje
ba<3

<5c(iff
. SSeiter lajjt er fid; in bie @d;ilberung be @djiffe
ntd>t ein. 2(ber ix>ol;l
b a3 3 d) i
ff c n, b a 3 2( b f a I)
r e n, b a

20 5(nlanben bc mad;t erjueinem au^fu^rlid^en

<Sd)iffe^ e=

mdlbe; 511
eincm emalbe, ou iueldjem ber 9J?aler fitnf, fcd;
bcfonbcre GJcmdlbe madjcn mii^te, tucnn er e ganj auf feine
Seiniuanb bringen tvo(Ite.

^tuingen ben omer ja befonbere Umftanbe, unfere 33Iicfe

25 auf einen etnjelnen forperlid^en egenftanb Idnger 511 fyeften:

1
1)cr unb SBctocflung $u Dcrbtnbcn,
JDtcfttcr fudjt aUc^ctt ^anbliuifi
cr (ic^ felten bet eincm ?(u^enbUrfc ber $c(t lange dcrmcttt.
bn(>cr
a
tt)m cine grofeere 9)?annt(3(fatttflfcit ju Xicnftcn ift, [o (c^ranft er (irfi nirf)t
gcrn auf etne fletnere ein. !Dal)or Dermetbct cr (tcf)enbe ^anblungen,
30 iucnn cr (te in bemcqUdbe bcrtuanbetn fann. 1)ie fotgenben rt)o^t au^ge-
fuc^ten 33et(piele paffen auf btcfe ^eljre DoUfommen @te bertetfcn aber
fetnc ganjli^e 2lu3fcf)Uefeung aller fte()cnben ^anbtungen.
fofni.)

* Cf. 102, 4 ff. t Cf. 102, 12. J Supra, p. xlv. Cf. 103, 7 ff.
286

fo toirb bemungead^tct !ein GJemcilbe barau3, bem bcr $Raler

mtt bem ^tnfcl folgen fonnte; fonbern cr toeijj burd; unjdfylige
ilunftijriffe bicfen cinjelnen Gkgenftanb in cine olge ^on ^ u=
genblicfen 511 fetjcn, in bercn jebem cr anbcr3 erfcfyeint, unb in
bcrcn letjtcm ifm ber 3ftaler crtoartcn mufj, um un cnt= ,i

ft anb e n 511 fcetijcn,

toa3 nnr bet bem 2)ic(Uer c n t
ft
e I)
e n f ef;en.

.3. G. 31U1I joiner un^ ben JQagcn ber 3 uno f c f? en ^ a fl cu /

fo mnfi i(;n cbe lu>r

unferen SUtgen titc! fitr Stitd jufams

mcnfc^en. (Iliad. , 720.) Slsid cr un jeigcn, tuie 2(ga=

meinnon bcfleibet gelucfen, fo muf> fid; bcr ^onig t>or
unfern 10

3(iu3cn Sti tcf fitr Sti tcf feine ubdt^e illeibung anlecjen (Iliad.
B, 41-4(>).
(5ctn ^CC^ter ift x/nWois ^Xoto-t irtirapiwov ;

abcr Juir Gotten uon biefem twduigen (Scepter cine umftdnb=

Iirfcrc Icbbaftere 3^* ce ^ben: tua^ iut alfo omcr? 5)?alt
s
er un^, anjjer ben cjolbenen ^dgeln, nun and; baS 0(5, ben 15

$cfdmit}ten ilno))f? 3 a / iucnn ^^ c Sefc^rcibung in cine e=

ralbi! fofltc, bamtt einmal in ben folgcnbcn 3^i^n ein anbrer

genan barnad) gemad^t iuerben Ibnnte. Unb bod; bin ic^ QC=
ioifi, ba^ mandcr toon unfern neucrn 2)idUcrn cine folc^e
20
2Bappen!5ntg3befcI?retbung barau^ untrbc gemac^t ^abcn, in
bcr trcit^erjigftcn ^Jicinuncj, ba^ cr tuirflid; fclber gemalt fyabc,
tueil ber Dialer i^m nad;malen fann. 9Sa3 befumntert ftc^

aber Corner, tuie tDcit cr ben 9JMcr bintcr fid; Id^t? tatt

ctner IHbbtlbung gibt cr un$ bie (yefd;tc^te be^ Scepter^; crft

ift
eo untcr bcr 2(rbeit be SSulfan; nun (jlanjt c3 in ben 25
dnbcn bc3 ^u^tter; nun bcmerlt c bie -JlKivbe DJierfur^S;
nun ift c^5 ber 5lommanboftab be !riegerifd;en ^elopS; nun
ber trtcnftab bc^ frieblicfyen 2(treu (Iliad. B, 101). Unb
fo !enne icf) enblid; ba3 (Scepter beffer, al^ mir e3 ber ^alcr
bor Hugen legen, ober ber ^)red)ler in bie dnbe geben fann.* 3

icrfyer geFioren berfc^iebene 33etracf)tungen itbcr ben f;ome=

a. 103. i6ff.
 (Entrrurfc $um aofoon. 287

rifd&en 6d;ilb be* 2ldjille.* SSeit gefcMt, baft fid>

omer
bei 33efd;reibung bcr barauf fcorgefteflten ,anbluna,en, an ben
einjigen 2(ua,enblid, in tr>eld;em fie bcr cjottlicbe $i mftler ge=

nommen, gcbalten; er l;at fcielmefyr biefen 2lua,enblicf unter

5 affcn ant uxniajten berufyrt, uub fid; iiber Dorfyercjefyenbe obcr

folgenbe augt3ebrcitet, bie bcr Kitnftlcr blof^ mu^te crratcn

laffen. Gr untertoarf fid; nid;t ben engeu (2d;ranfen etner

materieHen Kunft; cv bcmiid^tigte bcr
fid; cbanfen bee- ,^iinft=

ler^, o(;ne fic^ baran ju fef;rcn, iuie iueit i^m bie 33ebitrfniffe
10
feincr $unft folcbc auSjubriicfen crlauben iuoUcn; erbriicfte fie

aibS, ime fie >ulfan ausbritrfcn ju fonnen geunmfcfyt t;dtte.

@eid;te 5lunftrid;tcrf babcn ibn beeiDcgcn gctabelt; unb

U>a bcdeitete fie 511 bicfent ^abcl anber, a\3 if)re unrid^tigen
Segriffc Don bcr poctifd;cn "Vialeret?

V.

15 5tor^crlid)c Scbbnbcit t cntfpringt au ber itbereinftim=

menben ^irfitiiQ mannigfalttgcr ^Tctle, bie fid; auf cinmal uber=

fe(;en laffen. 6ie crforbcrt alfo, baft bicfe STeile nebenemanber

liegcn mitffcn, unb ba )inge, beren ^eile nebenemanber liccjen,
s
ber eigentlicfye egenftanb ber 3Jialerct ftnb, fo fann fie, unb
20 nur fie attcin, fbrperlicfie cfyonfyett nad;af)men.
X*cr Ticbter, bcr bie Gleinente ber d;bn{;eit nur nadiein=
anbcr jeigcn fonnte, enthci It fid; bal;cr bcr c^ilberun^ !brper=
1
lic^cr (5d;bnl;citcn o^insHd;. (5r fitfylt e, ba^ biefe Glemente
1
SScnn mir btc sll?afcrct Doing au3 ber ^oefic Dcrbannen, fo dcrbam=
25 men mir mancfyc trefflirfjc Stelle aug atten X>id6tern. Qad ?teb ?lnp
frcond an fetnen 9.)?Qlcr ift etnc pittore^fe ^3efd)rctbung ber <Sc^dn^cit

fogar Ijat 9D?nlcretcn im eigentltcfjen 3*erftanbe.

"ipinbar
0etn S3ogel ^u=
piter^, ber anf bcm Scepter bed SCSeltbetjerrfdjerS fd&Wft, ift cine au^fii^
Corner frficint berglcidicn Sdnlberungen nicbt geliebt ju
s
Iirf)c l)?alcrei.

30 Ijabcn, ift roafjr. 2Ulctn [role

bn>3 cr bie ^ciBlic^feit be^ X^erftteS
f>nt

Cf. 117, 27 ff. tCf. 120, 2?. JCf. 121, 21 S.

288 Ccfftng.

nacfyeinanber gcorbnet, unmbgltcfy bie 2Bir!una. fyaben fbnnen,

bie fie nebcneinanbcr georbnet f;abcn; unb baft bcr !cn$cntrie=
rcnbc 23licf, ben id; nad; ifyrer (Enumeration auf fie augleid;

juriidfenben nntt, inir bod; fein iibereinftimmcnbeS 33ilb QC=

lucifyrt, unb e3 itber bie mcnfcfylid;e (Sinbilbung gefyt,
fid; bov= 5
S
juftcllen, u>a3
bicfcr 33iunb, unb bicfe 9?afe, unb bicfc ^(ugen
jufammcn fiir cinen Gffeft l;aben, iucnn man fid; nid;t au^ ber
D2atur ober $unft einer al;nlid;en ^ompofition folder eile

erinncrn fann.
^)ie ^rari^ be3 omer ftimmt permit bbtlig iiberein. (Sr ic
S
fagt: 3tireu tear fdjon, 2ld;ille^ tuar noc^ fd;oncr, ,e=
lena bcfaft eine gbttlid;e @d;bn(;cit; aber nirgenb Idftt er

ficfy in eine umftanblic^ere d)ilberung biefer <Sd;bn^eiten ein.

Unb bocfy ift ba^ ganje ebic^t auf bie Sdjbnfyeit ber elena

gebaut. 3ie febr tuitrbe ein neuerer id)ter bariiber Iuju= 15

1
riert ^abcn!
33leibt aber barum omcr in biefem <Stiide
f;intcr bcm
Dialer ? Heineetueg^. Gr toeift einen b o p p e 1 1 e n 2i>eg i(;n

aud) bier toieber einjubolen.

20
inmal, burc^ bie 23eriuanblung ber @d)bn^eit in 5Rei^.*
Dleij ift bie (5c^)bnbeit in ^Betuecjung, unb eben barum bem
Dialer bequcm, al^ bem $)id;ter.
ir>eniger
er 5)ia(er fann
bie 33eHKi3una, nur erraten laffen; in ber at finb feine gi=

guren o^ne 33c^egung. Jolglid; imrb ber ^Heij bei \ijrn jur

tnatcn fttnncn, o^uc nebcnctnanbcr fcicnbc Xctle (cljcn laffcn, bie md)t 25
,^u
Ubcrctnftimmcn. ^onute biefcS in flnfe^ung ber ipafettctjfett gcfdjeljcu,
marum ntc^t nu(^ in 9lnfef)img ber Srfjiinljettyj (^enbe^fo^n.)
[^lug flanj anbern rtinbcn fiinnte
fic^ begretfen
laffen, rtjarum Corner
berglei^en auSfufjrltdje Sc^ttberunflen t)ier ntc^t madden mnfete, ob ftc
gleicf)auc^ bei ifym unb anbern T)td)tcrn ju ftnben finb. T)a6 cbidjt 30
mar auf bie Sdjonfjeit bcr elena g e b a u t, beroea,en foflte man ben
0) r u n b nicfjt fe^cn.] 3d) bin f)ier mtt oietem @in^elnen nirf)t .^ufrieben,
ahcr roeil icf) midj nirf)t beutltc^ au^brucfen fann, fo fcf)reibe tc^ nur n>a

niebcr. (^icolai.)

a. 133, 23 a.
 <nttr>urfc 511111 Caofoon. 289

rimaffe. Unb ba ift bie toafyre Urfad;e, toarum bie

2Uten fur ifyre fcfyonften tatuen ben Stanb ber Dhifye ttmfylten.

Sfyve 2)id;ter, aber nid;t ifyre SBilbfyaucr, laffen bie 23enu

1
IddKln. (Sine marmornc 3$enu, bie ba Idcftelt, ldd;elt immer;*
5 nnb U)a ift anftofcigcr, al3 ba ranfitorifd;e ber 9tatur in
cin gortbauembeS ber ilunft 511 toertuanbetn?

3tt)eiten^, er fd;ilbert bie Sd;on(;eit burc^ 9Bir= if>re

s
lung. Dtan erinnere fid; ber toortrefflicfren 6tede beim Corner,
too .sjelena in bie 33erfammlung ber 2Uten tritt. 2Ba^ em^=
10
fanben bie e^rtoiirbigen reife ! Unb lt>a fann eine leb=

F;aftere 3^^ toon <Sd;on^eit geiucifyren, al^3 ba lalte 2(Iter fie

be3 ^riege^ too^l iuert erfennen laffen, ber fo biel 33lut unb fo
bid !Xrdnen foftet.f

VI.

in einjiger, unfd;ic!Iid)er Xeil fann bie iibereinftimmenbe

15 2Birfung bieler jur d;onl;eit, ftbren. t ^)od; iuirb ber G5egen=

ftanb barum nod; nid;t bdfjlid;. 2(ud; bie ajlic^feit erforbert

me^rere unfd;idlid;e Steile, bie id; ebenfallg auf eimnal inu^

iiberfef)en fonnen, toenn toir ba^ egenteil babei toon bem
empfinben fotten, toa^ un$ bie djbn^eit em|)finben Idf^t.

20 golglid? fonnte bie dfjid;!eit toofyl, in 3lnfef>ung i^re

2Befen, unter bie G5egenftanbe ber 5)?alerei gefyb ren; ba aber

i^re 35>ir!ung
eine unangenefyme Gm^finbung ift, unb ba3 55er=
1
3f)rc Tic^tcr laffen bie 33enu3, fotoiel id) mid) erinnere, ntcfjt lac^etn,
fonbcrn ba ft d) e I n It e b e n, bad ^eifet,
frcunbltc^ fein,
unb btefeS
25 tun aurf) bie sJJJater unb Stlb^auer. SScnn fie aber bie 33cnu3 malten,
tote fie au3 bem f)aben fie fie nirfjt bie 2tugen fc^am^aft nte-
9)?eer fommt,
berfrf)Iac<en !JBar
biefed aurf)
taffen? benn
rtmaffe? (Sotoo^l 2)tc^ter alg
2)?aler fdmnen ftc^ Dtelme^r biefe 9?egel Dorgefrfjrteben gu ^aben: eine
alletn unb in 9?u^e etnen fortbauernben 2(nftanb, in 33er-
^erfon mu^ S
30 binbung ober ^anbtung aber, eine tranfitorifcfye 2lttitiibe ^aben. 5)te
$enu3 in 9?uf)e Itebt bad ?ac^eln; toenn fie aber tf)ren 2lmor Hebfoft,
ober bie 33ilbfaulc beg ^tjgmalton belebt, fo lac^elt fie tt)irfltd).

a. 38, 3. f Cf . 133, 3-14. I Cf. 140, 7 ff.

290 Ccfftng.

gniigen ber erfte fttotd after fcbbnen ^unfte fein foil,* fo mujs
1
bafcon au3a,efd;loffen bleibcn.
fie a,dn$lid;

ingc0cn toiirbe bie ajjltd;feit, in Slnfcfyung ifyre 2Befen3,

fein eia,entlid;er ecjenftanb ber ^ocfie fein, tucnn bie tmange=
nefyme Gmpfinbuna,, iueld;e fie crregt, ifyr Gub3\uec! fein fonntc 5

ober foffte. ^)a aber burd; bic anfeinanber fol^cnbc (Snume=

ration ber Glemente ber d^ltdifcit, i^re 31Urfuna, ebenfoiuo^l

^ebinbert h)irb, al$ bie Sirhmfl ber 6d;on(;eit burcf> bie cifyn=

lid>c enumeration i^rcr G lcmente Uercitclt tinrb; ba alfo bie

d f$licr;!eit in ber Sd^ilberuncj beo ^icfiter^ oa^Udi!eit (
,
511 fein 10

aufbort: fo bitrfte (eid;t eben baburd) bie d^lic^!eit bem

$)id?ter bennoc(i nit^lic^ iuerben lonnen.
Unb h?irb ed loirflicb 2!>enn er fie ndmlid; ton ber eite

ibrer golgen geicjt.

Unfcbablicbc d^Ud feit ift Idd;erlid;. (5r!Id= 15

rung be3 2lriftotcle^.f

K .ajlid>f cit it credEUI ollid cr=

23eibe "Diittcl,
ba^ ii^Itc^e fonad) a,leicbfam 511 aboucieren,
feblen bem 9Jialcr. X(;er}itc ift auf ber Seintoanb nur 20

^d^licb; bci bem Corner ift cr Idd^crlid;. GatyluS (?at folcj=

lief) rec^tt, ifyn au ber 5^3 C fciner bomcrifd>en G5emdlbc

1
5IbcrmaI^ ntc^t altgcmctn. Sic faun burrf) ben $ontraft bic
fjeit te Saturn, 3ilcncn, ^fauncn, bie ben
cr^iJ^cn.
unb ber Slriabne jic()cn. ^luto ber bic ^roferpina entfit^rt. cr (^runb, 25 X
ben (cie anfil^rcn, bemctft nidjtS. 5?ergniigen ift ber fjocftfte ^\md
X>ad

ber fdjbncn liiinfte, aber nidjt bie rctnen annenc()inen Gmpfinbungcn.

s
^te oermifc^tcn ftnb baoon nid)t au^gcfd)Io[fcu. ( JDZcnbett<[o{)n.)
2
d^recflt^e 6d)tfnf)cit ift erf)aben. 2)Jebufa ift erfjabener ot SUcfto,
j[a biefc berbientben 97Qmen be (Sr^abenen metfcicfjt fo tnentg atg ber Job 30
unb bie ilnbe be Wl dton. ^irf)t a(te Scfirccfti^e errcgt bie Gmpfin*
bung ber Grfyabenljeit. !Der tanj, ber au3 ben 5Iugen ber fitter tcuc^
tet, ift nid)t fo fd^rccflic^, aber toeit erljabcncr at5 bie brennenbe ^acfct ber

^urien.
* a. 55, 13. f Cf .
W, S. J Cf US, 27.
.
g Cf HO,
. 28.
 <ntu>urfe 3um aofoon. 291

fyerauS 311 laffen. 511 o^ aber I;at unrcd;t, U)cnn er ifyn aucfy
1
au bcm omer toegtoimfcfyt.

2lucfy ba3 af$lid;e al$ Scfyredlid; lann ber 5Ra(er nid;t

braucfyen, tuenn er un nid;t jtoci unangenefyme Gmtofinbungen
5 fur eine errecjen toil!; inbem beibe$ un<3 in feiner 5\omfcofition
Did 311 Iebf;aft rufyrt, al$ bajj cS cr^abcn fein fonntc.

VII.

teid^toobl, iinvb man eintuenbeu, babcn e^ !etne Don ben

(

geringften !Did;terii (jetDagt, lovperlid;e 3duml;citcn nad^ i(;rcn

Xetlen 511 fdnlbern.* G)(eid;iuol;l finbcn fid; 9JiaIcr, bie tDibrige
10 Unb
^a^lid;e Gkgenfttinbe untcr i^vcn ^>infel genommen.t
beibe ^aben 33eifatt unb Skanmbentng evtr>orben.
3^) gebe e^ 511. SScnn aber bergteicbcn 2Scr!e gefattcn, fo

gefattt blofj ba Gkntc, btc C)efd)icflid;!eit bc 2)ic^ter unb

9J?aler5 in if;nen; bie (jlucflicbe 9Uad;al)mung gefcidt, aber
15 nid;t ba5 SRad^Qea^mtc.i
Unb biefey ift bie alf^emeine ^Scranbenincj, iuclcbc bie fd;b=

nen 5limfte unb ^iffenfdwftcn in^gcfamt, init bem Jyortgange

ber 3 C ^/ erlitten: 9iad; ibrein Urfprunge luavcn fie beftimmt,
ben (2d)onbeiten bev fov^evltcben unb gctftigcn Ofatur eine ncue
20 3c^5))fung ju gcben, burd; btc fie un bcftanbig jur anb
bleibcn, urn un3 nad) 33clicben an U;nen 511 crcjo^en; ibr

grbfjter 9htbm luar, bicfe 34)bnbettcn crrcid;t 511 I)aben.

1
Un[rf)abtid)e ^)fif}Itrf)fctt ift audj fiir ben DJJalcr cine Oucfte beg
?Q(^crItd)cn. Srinncrn Sic XanjcS.
firf) 3Ule fia^
bcei ^ogart^cn
25 lirfjcn^iguren in bcmfclbcn finb Ittd^crltdb. 2)r. Slop, anrf)o, 3)on
Ouifotc u. f. iD. S^crfttcd miirbe auc^ in ber 9)Werei larfjcrlic^ fcin.
)a er aber mtt bem Grnfttjaftcn ber iibrtflcn ^crfoncn bcftcinbtg
fpntra*
fticren rtjiirbe, inbem ber s
JJJater bie bctDcgltd^e ^anblung bc^fctbcn in eine
Dcrmanbeln Fann ifjn ber DJater in feinem ernft^aften s
(tefyenbe mitf^tc; fo
30 Suiet anbringen, o()ne eincn SSibcrfprurf) ber (Smpfinbimgen gu crregen,
unb bie (fin^eit ber SCirfung 511 untcrbrcrfjcn. bem tranfitorifc^en $n
emalbe ber 3)id)tfunft tut cr fcine fo fd)Umme SSirfung.
fofn.)
*Cf. 125, 24 S. tCf. S~% 7, 146, i. JCf. 32, 2. \ Cf . U6, n.
292 Ccfftng.

53alb aber toarb ber 33irtuofe tniibe, nur immer einerlei 511

errcid;en unb gleidifam nur burcfy

;
bie Sd;on(;eit feine 3Sor=

nntrfeS ju gefallen. (r glaubte, c3 iniific ifym ritfymlid;er

fein, blo(j burcfy bie @rreid;ung 511 gefallen, ofyne baft bie

cbonfyeit bee ^sornntrfS babei in -Mecfymmg fiiine. a(;er bie

uui^Qof en ^a^a^mungen ber crften ber beften GJegenftdnbe ;

fcfjbn ober fyajslicfy, ebel ober niebri(3 ;

atteS ift glcid; t>iel,
ienn
ber 3wfcbauer nur illubiert iuirb.*

VIII.

ber
GJebict bc9)lalcr.t I0

,3u}ci nottuenbig cntfcrntc 3^it^un!te in cin unb cben ba=

felbe Gkmdlbe bringen, fo tcie ber ^armifano ben S^aub ber
fabinifc^cn Sungfrauen unb bie 5lu^f5^nung berfelben 5tui[d;cn
i^ren 2(nt)crmanbtcn unb neucn 5Jiiinnern, ^eifct ein Crin griff
be^ 93laler^ in ba3 G5ebiet be^ ^Did)ter, ben ber gute 15

G5efd>mac! nie billigen tmrb.

9Jtc(;rere ^eile ober SDingc, bie id^ notit>enbig in ber 9?atur

auf einntal itberfe^cn mujj, iuenn fie ein gett)iffe fd;one3

Cian^e (;erl>orbringen follen, bem Sefcr nad) unb nacf)
bctfet ein Gingriff be ^)ic^ter^ in ba^ G5ebiet
ler, mobet ber 2)ic^ter mel 3^oi^tion ol;nc alien
l>erfcfyn)cnbet.

Doc^ fo \mt jiuei biUige, freunbfcf>aftlid)e 3^ad)bar

nid;t Derftatten, bafj fic^ einer in be3 anberen innerftem S

ungejiemenbe greifyeiten f>eraune^me iDO^l aber auf ben au=; 25

f?erften renjen eine tDed)felfeitige 9^ad)ficbt F)errfd>en laffcn,

tuelc^e bie fleinen ingriffe, bie ber eine in be3 anberen e=

rec^tfame in ber efcfylmnbigteit fic^ burc^ feine Umftanbe ju

a. 36, 9. fCf. 113, 15 ff.
 <nttr>u
rfe sum Caofoon. 293

tun genotigt fiefyr, fneblid; Don beiben eilen fompenfiert :

fo

aud; bie 93ialerei unb 2)icfytfunft.

gtoei, brei eile, ober fidjtbare igenfcfyaften etne3 3)inge,
Skhubrter, 3(bberbia, ^sarticipta, fo gefdn dt 5itfammen=
burcfy

5 preffen, baft man fie faft ebenfo auf einmal 311 fyoren glaubt,
al3 man fie in ber 9?atur auf einmal fiefyt: ift ein berglei=
d;cn lleiner toergonnter Gtngriff be ^T)id)ter in bie 9JiaIe=
ret, beffcn oftrer G5ebraud(i ihn eben baju mad;t, lua^ man

gemeiniajicfy einen malerifd;cn ^)id;ter nennt, unb in

x
10
K)eld;em ^cvftanbc Xfyomfon me^r 93c aler ift, al^ omer.
^Dafi tr ift bent S0?aler fcergonnt, in grofjen ^iftovifc^en e=

ma lben fcinen etnsic^en ^(ugenblic! auc^ um etiuaS ^u eriueitern;

1
etne J re ^ e ^ beren fic^ bie gvoj?tcn 9Jletfter bebient l^aben.

3a, ic^ ajaube nid;t, bafi fief) ein einig,e3 an giguren fef)r

15 reicbev 3tiic! finbet, in tueld;em jebe J-igur boKlomrnen bie

unb Gtettung l;at, bie fie in bem Slugenblicfe ber

fyaben follte ;
ber eine fyat eine etiua^S fhi^ere,
ber anbere eine etluaS fpa tcre. Unb biefe^ la^t man fo imttig

gelten, baft t>ielmcbr eben babuvcf) ofter3 ein emalbe fo Diet

2
20 rebenber, fo Inel bid^terifd)er fyeifjt.

2Bie abcr ber iueifere 9)talcr bergleid^en ingriffe in bie

1
3)tc 9D?nIcrct unbT^irfjtfuuft bcfinbcn fid^ ntcf)t DbUioi in eben ben
llmftfinbcn. 5^ei bent Staler ift bie flerinctfte 5?eranberunci beS 2luc^en=
bticfd cine Ubertretung ber Wrcn$en, bie man fief) nicfjt o()tie
s
Jtot erlanben
s
25 barf, ^incicgcit {)t ber !Tirf)ter aiuf) einic?e^ JJerf)t anf ba^ Dfebenein*
anbcrcrifticrcnbe, mcnn nur bie .3etd)cn, beren cr fid^ bebient, nicf)t tton
prbfjerm Unifaiuic finb, al3 bie Segriffc, bie \\irn fidjtbaren C^anjen ne=
tjoren, in njclcfycm Jya((e bie Imagination ^n [e()r arbeiten mufj, au^ ben
eUcn ein Wanjcd jufammen^nfetjen. 1)ie Wuftf ift f)ierin ber 9)?alerei,
30 ioie oben crinncrt morben, fdjnurftracfS entgegengefet3t. 5(((ein fie er=
lanbt nicfjt ben gcrinpftcn Gtngriff in bn* ebiet be^ 9?oume, man mii^te
benn bie harmonic einen fofcfien Cingriff nennen. (Wenbel^fo^n.)
?(nd) bie . oarmonie ^icf)e irf) nid)t f)ierf)er! (9?ico(ai.)
2
^etjr richtia. unb ein fefjr frncfjtbarer Safe in ber sla(erei, metcf)er
35 (im 25orbeige()en) burc^ ba5 Satteiirjdje t)ftem nicf)t fann erftart
ben.
294 Ccfftng.

benad;bartcn 2{ugcnblid e, uxnn fie etioa3 mcrflid; entfernt

finb, burcfy einen 5hmftgriff Dor allem 2fnftof}igen 511

retten

toeijj, lr>eld;er
barm beftefyt, baft er biejenigen gigurcn, 5. C.
bie eine fpatere macbcn, al3 ber 2UtgenbIic! bcr
>eU)cgung

au|>tl)anbhing crforbcrt, Don bcr auptbanb(ung uxgtoenbct, 5

cber fie fo ftellt, baft fie bie je^igc $aupt$anblung nid;t fefycn

fbnnen, folglid; fie in ber ^Kiihrinuj Idftt, tue(d)e bcr Dorber=

flc(;cnbe 2lugenbli<f, ben fie mit angcfel^cn, auf fie gctan: fo

mujj and; bcr toeifere 5)id;ter cincn ti(;nlid;cn ilunftgriff bci

fcinen (S ingriffen in bie benacfybartcn focEifticrcnbcn Grfd;ct= 10

nungen anluenbcn. llnb lueld)cr ift btcfe^S?

dialer bci fcincm Jtunftgriffe nimmt gleid;fam mebrere
, mebrcre 3Iad;eu vtn Unr fcbcn fcine g-iguren jluar
;

ade auf eincr 3lad>e,

abcr fie ftcfycn nidU alle auf eincr
;
tnit einem 3Bortc fcin ilunftgriff licgt in ber ^er= 15

ift alfo bie ^crfpeftiDe bc^ ^)id;ter^? 6ie bc=

fte(;t barin, bafj er bie ^dtfolfle, in iuclcber feme Diacbabnum^

fortfd)reitet, bann unb iuann untcrbridU, unb in anbere 3eit=
20
folgcn iibcrge^t, in iuelcfKn fid; bie Gkgenftdnbe, bie er fd;il=
bern imff, e(;ebem befunben, biy cr ben gaben feiner eigenen

^eitfolge ioieber ergreift.

Unb in biefem .^unftgriffe ift omcr 5Reifter. 5(tte feine

Gin fd; a I tun gen finb ^crfpeftiDtfdi, unb befonbcr finb fcinc

leid;niffe alle ^crfpeftiinfd) au^gefii^rt, H)dcbc3 ibnen ebcn 25

1
Staler fann ben ^unftflriff, baft bcrfrfjicbenc Jyt^urcn-
>er

gimgen madjen, bie fid) auf ben bortQcn unb folgcnbcn Vlunenblicf bejtoljen,
1

and) o^ne iBciliilfe bcr I cijpeftiue braucfjen. (S ^ fbnnen auf ber anbern

^erfonen, bie in ^Jcrfpcftioc ftcl)cn, ^ctDcnunflcn nta^en, bie in eben

<Seite

ben 2luc\enblicf gefyoren. ?iuc^ ^erfoncn bie auf eben bemfelbcn 0>5runbe 30
ftefjen fbnnen immer btc ^)aupt^nnbtnng fe()en unb bie anberen nidit

infofern fie aber auf einem Wnmbe ftefyen, (tcl)en (ie nic^t in ^erfpeftioe

3. @. auf einem an tiff n 33aSre(ief. ?l(fo fe()It mir an ber 3lnn>fn*

bung immer ctma^.

s
( j|icolai.)
 <nhtnirfe sum aofoon. 295

ba Seben gibt, ba fo fefyr riifyrt, unb ben ^unftricfytern fo

1
fcfytoer 511 erfldren ift.

IX.

a jebe nacfyabmenbe $unft Dornefymltd) burd; bie eigene

XreffUcfyfeit be3 nad;geabmten GJegenftanbeS gefatfen unb

s ritfyren foil ;
ba Slbvper ber etgentlidje SSorUwrf ber 3Jla(eret
ftnb unb ber malerifcfye -JBert ber Slorper in ifyrer cfyonfyeit
2
beftefyt :
fo ift e3 offenbar, baft bie Sftalerei i^re ^or^er nicfyt

fd;on genug iua ^len fann.* 2)afyer ba ibealif ^e d^dne.

Unb ba ba3 ibealtfrf)e (Scf)bne fic^ mit leincm gen)altfamen
i
(Stanbe bc^3 2(ffc!tl ttertrdgt :
fo muft ber 3Jlalcr btefen (Stanb
Dermetben. ^Dafjer bie 9iul;e, bi e ftille rofte, in @tel=
lung unb Slu^brucf.t Ubertragung 2)ic ro^e unuerftdnbige

btefe^ malerifdfcn runbfa^eS in bie td)t!unft, bermute ic^,

^at bie falfc^e 9iegel ben bollfommnen moralifc^ent>on

l
15 !Diefe flanje $8etrad)titnfl iiber bie ^crfpcftidc milt mir nicfyt fo red^t
in ben <2tnn. X)te ^evfpeftioc ift eine s}Jad)af)mung ber S^atur in 3ln-
s
S)ie ){atur briirft bie 1)iftan5en auS bnrd^ bie re=
felning ber 3)tftan^en.
(atiDe(l) ^rb&e, (2) unb ^auterfeit ber ^arben. Der abater
$>eutfl<fjfett

malt feine egenftftnbe ttcincr, unbeutUdjer unb mit gefc^raac^ten ^arben,

20 unb lutr fitaubcn fie fcien cntfcrntcr. tS iibUdi bebient er fid) biefer (Snt*

fernunflen, um
feine ftcdenbcn 33i(ber ctroad bemec\(id)er ju madden. Tiiefe S
ift ein S)hil3en, ben ber ^irtnofc Don ber ^erfpeftioe jie[)t, fie madjt aber
feine^meqcJ ba-i 3^cfcn ber iVrfpeftioe nu^. ?(u(^ in ber Did)tfunft
flibt e einen ^nbeflriff finnlic^cr ^orftelhniflen, bie toermoge ifyrer itua=
25 tion ben ftarfften Ginbrucf mac^en follen, biefe macfyen, lucnn mic^ fo ic^
auSbritcfen fann, ben .pauptgrinib nn^. ?lnbere 53egriffe finb mit biefem
teits mittelbar, teilg unmittelbar berbunben, unb miiffen bnljer

9.)?af5gebung ifyrcr Gntfernungen and) befto fc^madjer ipirfen.

s
entfprutte alfo ber }?erfpeftide ber SDJaler. aber biefe Cb
s
30 i idpt nac^ D?aftgcbnng ber (Sntfernung, fo niiijlidj feinbem pic^tcr mag,
at^ bcm 9JJa(er fcinc ^crfpeftiue, njage id) nidjt gu entfd)eiben.
betefoljn.)
3d) aud) nidit, aber iti) neige ftarf jum 9legatit>en. Cfticotai.
2
liefer diritt ift mir ju ber ftormetifiifjn. 5)ic <Sd)onf)eit

35 bielleidit nic^t ben gotten malerifd)en 3Bert ber $firpcr au, benn, rt)ic

fdjeint, ge^5rt bie SRtt^rung mit baju. (2WenbeIfo^n.)

*Cf. 31, i<)S. jSiipra, p. cxxxvi,

29(5 Ccfftng.

Gfyarafteren, too nicfyt beranlafjt, bocfy beftarlt. 3^ ar

gefyt aucfy ber $)id)ter einem ibealifcfyen <Sd;bnen nacfy; aber

fein ibealifd>e3 Sd>bne

erforbert teine 3tufye; fonbern gerabe
ba3 egenteil toon 9tufye. 2)enn er malt anbluna,en unb
nid)t $btyer ;
unb anblungen finb urn fo Did Dotlfommner, 5

je mefyrerc je uerfc^icbuere, unb ttnber einanber fclbft arbei=

tenbe ^rtebfebem barin it>ir!fam finb.

3)cr bottfommcnc moralifc^e Gbarafter fann bafyer bbd()ften^
nur cine ju>eitc
Wotte in biefen .s^anblungcn fpielen; fo bafi
U>cnn ibn ber TicMer ungludflid^crtucife aud) jur erftcn bcftimmt 10

bat, ber fd>limmere Gbaralter, tueld^er mel;r Slnteil an ber

.ftanblung niinmt, aU bem boHfommnen feine Seelenru^e.unb
feften (^runbfa^e ju nebmen erlauben, ibn attcjeit au^Sfted;en
luirb. aher ber isoduurf, ben man bem 93i 1 1 o n $cmad;t i

1
Kit, ba^ ber ^teufel fcin elb fei. Unb ba^5 lommt nicfyt 15

bahcr, U>cil cr ben Xeufcl 511 grujj, 511 macfrtit}, 511 Deriuegen
gefd>ilbcrt;
ber JyeMer liegt ticfcr. G^S fommt baher, iueil

ber ^[ImiidUige bie Slnftrengung nicf>t

brands, bic ber ^eufel
511 (S rreicfning feiner 3lbftd>t
aniuenben tnu^, unb cr mitten
unter ben getualtigften 53eiuegungen unb 5(nftalten feine^ 20

Jveinbe^ ruhig bleibt, u>eld;c

^)hthe 5iuar feiner

aber Icineeiue^S ^oetifc^ ift.

^ie ^soefie jeigt nn bie ftbrpcr nur toon ciner cite,

nur in ciner 3te(lung, nur nacfr eincr igenfcfHaft, unb liifjt

iibrigc bcrfelben unbeftimmt.*

^[Ralerei lann biefe^S ntdbt. 33ei i^r jieht ein ^eil ben

anbercn, cine Gigenfc^aft bie anbere nadr, fie mujj

beftimmen.
1 M
3o mtc im w ganut lUfo her ^clb ift.
s
( D?eubetefof)n.)

* Cf. 102 8.
,
 (nttr>iirfe sum Caofoon. 297

tann bet bem )icfyter ein 3 U 9 fcfy finnlicfy, fefyr

malerifd) fein; in ber 9Merei felbft aber e $u fein auffyoren,*

toeil er burcfy bie itbrigen baju lommenben SBeftimmungen ge=
fcfytoacfyt, ober toofyl gar in SBibertyrudj gefettf nrirb.
5 3. (L Set bem Sifter ift erlule3

rabidi cum colla minantia monstri

Angeret, et tumidos animam angustaret in artus,

ein bortrefflicfyeS 33tlb. 3$ fefye bie gan$e Starfe be3 el=
ben; tc^)
ben rafenben SotDen in fetner Sed ngftigung,
fefye

10 U)ie ber berfcMoffene 5(tem ihn aitffd;it)etlt. 2(6er nun laffe

man ben Dialer ober Stlbfyauer biefe au^fit^ren. er Sb toe
^at etnen Siac^en, er fyat flatten, bie er tt)o
einfcfylagen lann,
bie er nac^ bem -JBiberftanbe, ben er feinem Sieger entgegen=
fe^t, too einfcfjlagen mufj; unb erfuleo ift unubertDinbltdt),

15 aber nicfyt unDeriuunblic^. 80 fefye id) i^n nunme^r ^ugleid;

leiben, nur fiegen fel)en foil. 1 (ie^e ben

\vo id) ibn ge=

fcfmittenen Stein beim S^ence, Xab. XVII. 3.)

^)ie ^Hegel bebarf alfo einer gro^en infcbranfung, bajj
nur ba bei bem $)tcbter malerifcf) fet, h)a auc^ hmf=
20 lief) auf ber Seinnmnb ober in DJlarmor einen guten
ffelt ^aben lonne.t * i[t iua^r, ber 3 U 9 te* 3Mcf>ter3

muji fid; jeidbnen, mu^ ftcfy fid^tbar barftetten laffen fonnen;

aber ber $)tcbter braud;t SBirfung nia^t gut gu fein, bie
fiir bie

er in ber materieKen 2lu3bilbung be^ ^iinftler^ tut, ber not=

l
25 3$ getraue mir md)t l)tcr einen HuSfprucf) ju maflen, aber rntdj bun ft,
id) unirbe bem ^iinftler anf iDtffen, bafe er mir nirf)t ben (iegenben, fpn=
bern ben fampfenben ^crfuted seiflt.t G mare Umt tietteic^t nidit
fc^mer Qctoorbcn, einen fpateren 3lugenb(i(f su n>af)len, in metc^em ber
nnnme^r erftidenbe Sfime ftc^ friimmt unb toinbet, unb bie .f tauen fonDut=
30 fibifcf) an fid) jiei)t; altcin U)ir foftten ben ^onjen SSMberftanb tun fcfjn,
unb and biefcm SSiberftanbe auf bie tarfe be ^erfule f^fiefeen.
3)ie Slnmerfunfl ift, meined (Srac^ten^, gar wo^l gegrunbet, aber bag
^rempel ntcfit glurflid) gen)a^lt. (SD

*Cf. ~>9,
10. t Cf. 71, Anm..5. t Cf. sM^ra, pp. Ixxv ff.
298 Ccfftng.

toenbig anbere 3^ bamit fcerbinben mu^te, bon toelcfyen ba3

2luge nidjt abftrafn eren tann, t>on
nxlcfyen aber toofyl bie (Sins

bilbungstfraft bei bcm $)icfyter abftrafyieren fonnte.

XI.

Unb ebcn bafyer, n>etl bcr S)id;tcr fcine SBefen nur mit
einem 3u9e fcfyilbert, fann er SSefen fdn lbern, bie nicfyt be= .

ftimint ftnb, blofje 2Befen bcr Sinbilbung.* >urcfy biefen ein=

^igen 3U 9 fonnen fie uibS finnlid^ iuerben; aber ber Staler

brauc^t mcl;r 3"0

e f^ e un 5 finnlid; 511 madden.
golglid; ift e^ aud^ !ctn Gintuurf iviber ba^ 5RaIertfd^e cine

^Didjter^, bafj feine Siscfen lauter itnfbrperlic^e geiftiije SKcfen ^

finb; unb Hilton ift fetnem getfttgen SKefcu ungead^tet einer
ber grojjten ^Dialer nad; bem Corner. 1
$)aj$ aber ber 5Raler bei bem omer ungleid; mel;r 511 tun

finbet, aU bei bem Hilton, riif?rt nid^t au^ bem minber

malerifc^en GJcntc be Gnglanber^, fonbern am3 ben engen *<

cfyranfen bcr matcrieffen ilunft I;er.

^)ie ^Bcreclnuing be^3 Gal;luS ber GJemalbc in ben e))ifd[)en

intern, ift
bcr DJiajjftab bcr ^raud;bar!cit cine3 jcben
1
@ut! ?lbcr bcr bcfto boUfommcncr, Je bcfttmmtcr fctnc
tcf)tcr ift
S3tlbcr finb, |c Icicf)tcr c3 bcr Imagination loirb, bie aiiSgdaffcncn ^Ufle 2c

fynjujubenfen, unb ftc^ toon ben crbirf)tctcn 3Kcfcn nette unb

Qii^fil^rltcfje
33cgr ffc jit macficn.t vfiomcr unb 3Mrflil ^abcn fic^ nur nienige fotcfje
SBilbcr crtaubt, bie fid) bcr ^Mafluiation nic^t andfutjrlie^ barftelten.
Slbcr nl(e crbicbtetcn SBcfen bc3 9)Wton finb toon biefcr Sefcfjaffcn^eit.
3Me ctt)att, bie njir anmcnbcn, fie un3 in ifjrer 33oIIftanbigfeit toorju- 25
flcttcn, fdicint unferc GtnbilbnnflSfraft ju ennubcn. 3^r erftcr 2lnblicf
frappiert unnemcin, unb
crrcgt cine 2lrt toon Grftannen, bie bcm Grfyabcnen
eigen ift. 3lbcr SBirfnng ift fo Qnf)attenb nicf)t; benn fobnlb h^ir
tljrc
un^ erfyolcn, unb mit unfcrcr Ginbitbung^fraft gefdjaftigt ju fein anfangcn,
niir bn^ Untoermogcn fie auSjubifben nur gar 511 beutlic^, unb 3
fp fiifylen
fie fangcn an, unangcnefym ju merbcn. Hilton luirb ba3 erfte 9}?al me^r
S
frappicren, joiner nbcr bcfto b ftcr gctcfcn tocrben. ( lficnbel3fo^n.)

*Cl. 98.4,22- fCf. 77/, 3 .

 itttpurfe sum Caofoon. 299

fiir ben 9ftaler, aber Icin Sftafcftab be3Sorjug ber)icfyter

felbft.*

2Bcnigftcn nicfyt ifyreS SSor^uge^ in bcm malerifd;en

eile. <3onbern loenn ja biefe grofjcre ;ftut)lid)!eit fiir ben
5 9Haler ein SSor^ug fein foil, fo cntfyringt biefer SSor^ug blojj
au3 bem SReicfytume unb ber 90ianma,faltigfeit ber anblung,
bie ber Jnfyalt be 0ebi$te3 ift; Juel^cn ^Bor^ug ber 2)id;ter
aber fe^r oft mit bem elenbeftcn G)efcHnd;tfd;rciber geinein
1
I;aben fann.

eibcn3gefd;icfyte G^rifti ift in bem 9teucn ^efta=

^i e
10
3-
mente fel;rarmfelig unb elenb befd;riebcn.f 2)cmungead;tet
^at fie Stoff genug ju ben l>ortrefflid;ften CJemcilben gef;abt.
^)a mad;t, fie ift fefyr mannigfaltig. 3^ rc fribentcn abcr
tuaren barum nid;t-S lueniger al^ ^aler. 6te erjd^Ien bie

15 fimpeln ^afta, unb biefe ga!ta tueijj ber dialer ju nutjen,

o^ne bajj fie ifyreS Xeite^ ben gcringften JJunfcn toon malerU
fc^em enie babei ge^eigt f>abcn. enn biefe gafta finb ent=
ireber h?a^r, ober Don ifynen crfunbcn. Sinb fie toafyr, fo

^aben gar fein ^serbienft barum finb fie abcr crfunbcn, fo

fie ;

20
ift gafta 311 erftnben, cin ganj anbcrcS talent, aly Jyafta
malcn.t
3lber Corner, iuirb man fagcn, l;at fctne Jafta nid;t attcin

crfunbcn, er (;at fie and; felbft gefd;ilbcrt, unb in fciner fort=

fc^reitenben @d;ilberung ioerben immer cin obcr mcl;rere 3

2s
fein, toeld;e fiir bie materictte 9Ka(crei au^brMIid; gemad)t
fein fcfyetnen.

1
J)cr (Sal? laftt fid) frcttirf) ntrf)t umfctjrcn. (Sine Jcbc
bie bem 9Mcr reirfjen Stoff barbietet, mrf)t bciocflen poettfc^ fd)5n.
ift
9lber fomel ift ric^tig. 3cbc S3cgcbeu^ctt, btc fntf^tbareit (toff fiir ben
30 ^infcl enttjalt, mirb auc^ fiir ben 5)icf)ter fein unglilcflt(^c <iijet fein,

h)irb bem
3)ic^ter toeit bequemer fein, at^ eine 93cgebenf)eit, toon rt3ctd;cr
ber 2Tiater gar feinen ebraud) mac^en fann.

*Cf. 97, ii ff. t Cf. 95,9 ff. t Cf. 84, 12 S.

300 cfftng.

JBenn el fo ift, befto beffer. 2lber el ift nur gufattigertoeife

fo ;
unb biejenigen Don feincn dnlberungen, in toeldjen fid;

bergleicfyen fur bie materieUe 2Ralerei braucfybare 3 u 9 e 9 ar

niefyt befinben, finb barum nicbt fd)led;ter, fonbern nid)t felten
in ifyrcr 2lvt and; iuol;! nod) DoIIfommener.

3- 6. ba^ inert e 33ud; ber gliag liefert bem raf 6a^In

nur cin ein$ige3 emalbe.* Unb nod; baju, lt)a^ fiir etne^i
^ie SBerfammlung bcr ratfd;lagenben unb ^ed;enben otter,
bte ber ^)id)tcr in ben crften fttiltn biefe^ 33udbe befd)reibt:
Crin golbener ^alaft, U)i(lfiirlid;e GJru^^en fcfybner unb maje=
ftiitifcber otter, Don ebe bebicnt unb fic^ $um Xrunfe er=

muntcrnb: lauter egenftanbe, bie auf ber Seinir>anb eine fefyr

bortrefflic^c T^irlung fjabcn lonnen; ob id; gleid^ gern toiffen

mod;te, iuie ber 93?aler bie otter, nne fie einanber jutrinfen,
unb ^roja bod^ nidt au3 ben 5lugen berlieren, aubritc!en
luotlte. enn Idf^t er fie bloft trinfen, fo beratfd;lagen fie

fid) nid)t; Idf^t er fie fid; blof$ beratfd;lagen, fo trinfen fie

nidU: bei bent Corner aber tun fie betbe3. SBiK er and; einen

Xeil tvinfen, einen Xeil fid; beratfcblagen laffen, fo ift el

toieber nic^t, iwaS omcr fagt, nad; bcm fie a(Ie jugleicf) rat=

fdilagen unb trinfcn fotten, ^>icart,

ber biefe3 emalbe

gejei^net, noa^ el;e e3 6ai;lu Dorgefd^lagen, jeigt bie otter

affe in ber tiefften unb lebfyaftcften 33eratfcf)Iagung ;

unb ebe

Iniet bloji auf ber Scite unb gief^t ben 3^e!tar au3 einer Urnc
in ein Xrinfgefclnrr. Slber gerabe fo t>ie(
fycitte ^picart tun
miiffen, tvenn e3 blo^ barauf angefef)en geit>efen tocire, bie

ebe ju d;ara!terifieren.
atte biefe beifeite gefe^t unb angenommen, ber
fonne ben ganjen Sinn bel ^id;ter aulbritcfen, unb
ein 5Reifterftitc! feiner $unft au^3 biefem (Sujet mad;en: ift el

barum aucfy ein poetifcfyel emalbe? %\t el einel, fo ift el

*Cf. S5.3S.
 <ntttmrfe 5um aofoon. 301

getoifj eineS fcon ben !afylften, unb em roeit fd;led)terer ^ic^ter

fyatte e ebenfo gut macfyen lonnen.
9Jian fyalte bagegen bie Stelle (Iliad. A, 105 126), too
^>anbaru3,* auf ^(nreijen ber 9)iinert>a ben SSaffenftittftanb
bricfyt, unb feincu auf ben 5Renelau3 lo*bruc!t. <5d?toer=
^>feil

lid; twrb man bet etnem 2)icfyter in ber SSelt ein toortrefflidjere-c
Gkmtilbe finben. ^Bon bem rgveifen be3
bem gluge be^ ^feiley ift jeber 2litgenblicf ge=

malt, unb aHe biefe 2(ugenblic!e finb fo na^e unb bod; fo

10
angenommen, ba^, tocnn man nid;t nnlftte, ioie
unterfd^ieben
mit bem 33ogen umjugefyeu i^are, man c au biefem emalbe
attein lerncn lonnte.

Unb biefe3 emcilbe loa-o foil man Inerju fagen? ift in

bem namlid;en Sud^c, tuelcfycS Ga\;IuS an atten emalben fo

15 unfruc^tbar finbet. llbevfel;en fyat er e^3 fcljiuerlic^, aber ofyne

3tt>eifel
ben Scbiirfniffcn ber fycutigen ^unft nid;t angemeffen

genug gefunben. G5ott iei^, toa^ fiir 6d;ir>ierig!eiten in ber

Drbonnanj, in ber SSerteilung 2id>t^ unb (Sd^atten^ ilm beii)o=

gen l^aben, ba^ malerifd;fte Stiic! bc^ 25id)ter fitr unmal=

1
20 bar ju fatten.
3ft bem fo: fo, biinft mid^, ift unfcre ^eutige ^Raleret

gerabe auf bem ^unfte, auf toclddem unfcre l;eutige 9Jiufi! ift,
unb e3 gef^t bem 5)talerifd;cn be^ )icbter3, iie feinem 3Sol;l=

flange. Gr fei nur red^t malcrifd^, fo tuirb man feine emalbe

25 gennf} ungemalt laffen; er fei nur recfyt lt?ol)lllingenb, unb
man totrb i^n getm ^ nid;t fompomercn. 35a SJleifterftitc! be

Gin pocttfdie ^emcilbc, bcffcn Sd)bn()dt blo in ctner gdge Don

1

Skranbcrunflcn bcftc^t, fann nur getanjt, nidjt gemalt aicrben. 3)ic

altc i^alcrci fann fjicrin fcincn 33or5 ug bor ber ncucrcn gefjabt ^abcn.

30 3)enn fobalb in btcfer ftolge Don SBerftnberungcn fan ttjic^ttgcr 5lugenblicf

^u finben, ber ba 2$orf>ergel)cnbc unb ^ofgenbe erraten Iftt, fo ift
ba3
s
an unb fur fid) fclbft unmalbar. ( JWenbcl3fof)n.)

*Cf. 99, i6fif.

302 Coffins-

bid;terifdjen -JBofyinangeS, ber Cameter, bie Ityrifcfyen

benmajje be3 oraj, finb fciel ju mufifalifd;, urn bem

nifteu braucfybar ju fein; cr iuitt nicfytS, al3 ofyne 2lnftofj

fliejjcnbe Solgen lieblid;er SBorte, tticl a unb e, luaS briiber

ift, ift fcom libel. So aucfy ber Staler ; er$cil;le toaS bu toitfft,

erjiible twe bu iuillft, gib ifym abcr nur elegenbcit ju reicf^cu

SBerjterunQcn, 311 gelefyrten Serteilungen bc^ c^atten^, ju
ftoniraften, 511 ^crliirjungen ; gib il;m G5elegen(;eit nur fcinc
Alunft red;t 511 jeigen, unb jc mefyr bu beine ^unft, aU poc=
1
tifdicr ^aler, fparft, befto mefyr tuirft bu fein 3Jlann fein.

XII.

3n bicfem efrf;madfe, narf; biefen 2(bfid;tcn F?a

offenbav feine GJemcilbc bed omer getvd^It. 2Sa omcr

felbft malt ift faft immer iibergangcn; unb er tutifylt blo^ bic

^Utgenblicfe, in bie ber Staler bie meiften fid)tbaren egen=

ftdnbe jufammenbringen, iiber bie er bie meifte med;anifd;e 15
1
Xicfcn ^unft 311 entfdieibcn, tnollcn iuir un bic $unft in i^rcr 3?cr=
biubung oorftedcn. 5}ic 9J?u(tf fanu gcrabcju mit ber ^ocfic bcrbunben
iDcrbcu, ja tfjrcr erftcn 33c(timmiing nad) foU (ic ctgcnttid) nur ber ^oeftc
jur UnterftU^ung btcnen. S^afycr muji bic ilitnft ber 9)?uftf ntcmal^ [o
iibcrtncbcn iocrbcn,
cljr ber s^oefic gum ^arfjtcit geretrf)c, nnb U)ir 20
j
bn^ (te
tabctn bic neucre 3)hiftf nut 9?ccf)t, i^rc ^liinftelcicn fid) mit feiner
bof>

rtjofylflingenben ^ocfte t)crtragen. !^ie 9)?aferci abcr fann mit ber ^oefic
ntdjt unmittelbar Derbunben mcrbcn, h)ol)l nbcr Dcrmtttclft ber Janjfunft,
bciut bicfc Dcrbinbet bic <Sd)onI)eit ber (formen iinb ber 2lnorbmmg mit
ber ^d)bn()eit ber 93en)cgimgcu nnb v^anblungen. 3ebe ^oefie fnnn ge* 25
tnn^t rocrbcn. ^tnbet fi^ nun in biefer ?yo(gc bon ^cnjegungen cine
^Inorbnung nnb StcUnng, bic ctnsctn gcnomntcn, fdjiin unb bebcutcnb ift,
fo fann fie gcmatt locrbcn. ?U(c SPctocgunncn bc^ $anbaru8 fbnnen nad)
ber Hngabe bed 3)ic^tcr getanU tucrben; ba abcr fein cinjiger 21ugcnblicf
in ber gan^cn ^volge cm;e(n betradjtct, n)id)tig unb bebcutcnb gcnug ift, 3
fo cnt^att ber ganjc Xanj feinc materifd)e Situation. fitter* 2>cr

fd^mauS miift aiid) getanjt merbcn fbnnen, unb er entfya It uerfdjiebene

Hugenblidfe, bie aud) cinjetn bctrad)tct, fd)8n finb, abcr feinen, ber ba
JD?annigfattigc bc3 3 cc^ cn ^ un ^ 33cratfd^Iagcnd dcrbinbct; benn biefc
s

miiffen in dcrfd^iebcncn ?lugenblicfcn auf cinanbcr fotgen, ba^ fyeifjt, ge* 35

mcrbcn. (2)?cnbel3fo!m.)
 (nttt>urfc 311111 Caofoou. 303

$unft Derbreiten f ann ;

ob fie f d;on bei bem 2)i$ter gerabc bie
leerften, bie unmalcrifcfyftcn finb, in toeltfjen cr blofc efd;id)t=

fcfyreiber ift, unb bergleicfyen, Une gefagt, and; bet bem elen=

beften efd)ic^tfd;reiber in -JRenge 511 finben.

5 Unb toie Diel GJetoalt tut er ofterS bem >id)tcr an, bem
dialer biefe STugenblicfe auS$ufparen ! Gnblicb, toenn er fie

ifym nun au^cjefpart bat, fo trifft e fic^ md?t felten, baf^ bie,
lueldBe ben omer nicf)t gelefen ^abcn, auS bem Giemalbe ettua^
fd;lie^en, ba ber 93ieimmg be^ 2)id[)ter5 fd;nurftra<f3 gutuibcr
10
ift.

3- @. SBcnn ein uorjuglid^er -*oelb im Gietummcl ber @d)lad;t

in efa()r geriit, au^ ber ilm feine anbcre aU cjottlid;e 3)?ad;t
retten !ann, fo lajjt ber ^id;tcr ibn Don ber fd;ii^enben &otts
Fjeit in einen biden Dfebcl, ober in 5iad;t ber^uttcn, unb ba=
15 i)onfuf;ren.* @oS3enu5 ben ^ariS, Iliad. r, 381; fo Sul*
Ian ben Sbdu^, Iliad. E, 23; fo Styollo ben $eltor, Y,

444. 3U flHen biefen Stetlen ift biefeo (Sinl;ullen in

Diebel unb 3iacbt nid;t3 al^ eine ^cetifc(>e
^eben^art fitr un=
fid;tbar mad) en. 2l(Iein biefen poetifcften Slu^brud reali*
20
fieren, unb auf bem emcilbe cine tinrflicbc 9Sol!c anbrin^en,

Winter toelcber nunmc(;v ber elb, iuic fu nter einer fpvintfd^en

2Banb, Dor feinem geinbe Dcrborgcn ftef;t, ift unber bie 5Rei=
nung be i$ter, unb f;eif5t au ben renjen ber 3J?alerei
Fjerau^fcbretten, inbem biefe 5$>olfe eine it>abrc

25 cin ft;mbolifd)e^ 3 c ^ eu M"t

lin ^ ^ cu befreiten

unfid;tbar mad;t, fonbern ben .3ufcbaucrn juruft, if;r miijjt

1
i^n end; al unficbtbar Dorfteltcn. ^urj, biefe 3SoIfe ift

1
SBenn ttom fbrpcrttc^en often bie 9icbc ift, fann bie S&olfe, IDO id^

ntd)t irre, gar etn naturttc^e^ .^etdjen [ein.

tt>ot)(
Ser 3)ic^ter Deriuanbclt
30 ba^ metapftttftfc^e Unfic^tbarmac^cn in cine pfynfifite ^anblung, 3a. ^
fcfyeint, at^ toeun bie Untergatter niemate bie 9Wa(^t geftabt fatten,
fflr*

perlidje X)inge, o^ne p^ftf^e 9WittcI, unft^tbar ju mat^cn. id) felbft

* Cf.
97, 26 fT.
304 Ccffing.

fyier nid;t3 beffer al bie befcbriebnen 3etteld;en, bie auf alten

gotifdjen emdlben ben Jiguren au3 bem 3J2unbe gefyen.

GMeidjtoofyl biirften fid; bie 3)2aler biefe 2Bolfe fefyr ungern

nefymen laffen. Sie gibt 511 fo fdjb nen 23eredwungen be3
id)t3 elegenfyeit, 511 fo fefyr gelefyrten 53eleud)tuna.en ber um 5

fie geftetften OJruppen, fie faun mit ben anc^ebracbten gro^en

^laffen toon fatten fo trefflid; fontraftieren.
G^ ift Corner Id^t ben 2lcbille^, inbem i^m 3(pott
toafyr,
ben e!tor entriirft, nod; breimal nadj bem bicfen 5iebel mit

ber Sanje ftofeen (Iliad. Y, 446); attein aud) ba 10

^ei^t in ber
be^ 2)icbter^ tuciter nicbtv, al baj^ ^Icbifie^ fo toittenb

, ba^ er nod) breimal a,eftoften, ebe er e^ gemerft, ba

er feinen Jeinb nicfyt mebr inn* fid> ^abc.
9tid>t3
ift malerifcber al^3 biefe (Stefle bci bem ^)i(^ter; aber

fie toirb finbifcf) unb ^iberfprec^enb in ber 2lu3fiifyruna, be^ 5

bei bem 3orne be$ 2ld)iae^ (Tabl. V. Iliad. 1) rat

eine bergleid^en 25>ol!e

an, um bie 5Rinert>a, toelcfye

attein toon bem 2Iditte gefefyen tt>urbe,

tor ber iibrigen 3Ser=

fammlung unfic^tbar ju macfien. 5lber l;ei^t biefe^ malen? 20

Unb ift e3 erlaubt unter bie natiirlicfien 3 e ^ en ^ er ^unft ein

fo n)i(Ifitrlid;e^ ju mifd^cn, ba$ bem, n?eld^er ba^ ebeimni

nicfyt balton tueiji, unb c gleicbfaflte fiir ein natitrlid)e$ 3^icben

bait, ba ganje emdlbe ju eincm 9tdtfcl madden mu^?

fonnten fie par btcfem ftrf)tbar, jcncm unficf)tbar mac^en. 25
topfjl
.spomcr bic SDJinerDa, tocnn fie nur bem ^Hcbilled alletn er-
Infet
fd^etncn )ui((, fid) in feme iBolfe ein^Udcn. SBa re biefc 2Bolfe ein blofe
fi)inbolifcf)ed ^eic^cn, fo fya ttc ed Apomer auc^ bei biefer (Mdcgcnfyeit Qe=
braudbt. aft ber bie etnqc^iUlte ^erfon bem u f^ nuer 5fi9 cn 3
Dialer
mu^, tut jur Sad^e md)t. X)er 3ufd)<wer bcfinbet fic^ etuf^er ber (Scene, 30
unb man fann if)in par root)! jeigen, mad bie fpielenben ^erfonen ni(^t
fel)cn fatten; fomic etroa bic ^crfoncn auf ber 33ttf)ne attein fein ffinnen,
ob Don einem gan^cn 33o(fe don ^ufc^auern beobad)tct luerben.
fie gleicb
9?ur muft ber tfilnfKer bie $?otfe fo anbringen, baft e8 bcgrciftirf) hiirb,
h)ie bie eina,ef)ittttcn .fi brper anf ber cene unfic^tbar, Com 3 u f^ aucr 35
s
aber bennod:) bcmcrft merbcn. ( D?cnbcl^fof)n.)
 (Enttxwrfe 5um Caofoon. 305

2lber toenn man nun bie Unficfytbarleit in ber 3Jialerei nicfyt

anber anbeuten lann, al burdj eine 28olle? So foil man,
man nicfyt fefyen foil, aud) nid;t malen. Unb toenn, toie
felbft anfitfyrt, ein neuer fran^ofifcfyer $iinftler in ber
5 ein$elnen SBilbfaule be 2td)ifle, ben ,3orn b& elben al3
toon einer bttin gema^igt, ol^ne SBeifyilfe ber 5^9 ur biefer

ottin, auSbriicfen lonnte; toarum rat er nicfyt lieber bem

5Raler aud) au feiner ^om^o[ttion bie bttin gan n)e05ii=

laffen? SSarum nia^t? 2Beil bie ^orn^ofition al^bann fo reid;

10 nidjt fein tuiirbe. 2)er ^Dialer mu^ me^r ^unft $eigen !bnnen ;

tuenn aud) fcfyon ba^ ganje ujet bariiber fcerftiunmelt Juiirbe.

2)er (SinfaH iiber^au^t, au3 ben SSerfen be^ omer eine

jufammenfyangenbe golge toon G5emcilben mad;en ju Gotten,

n?ar ber feltfamfte bon ber SSelt. Gat)lu itberlegte nidbt,

15 ba^ ber 2)icfyter eine boppelte attung toon SSefen unb anb=

lungcn bearbeitet :
ficfytbare unb unfid)tbare.* 2)iefen Unter=

fd;ieb !ann bie 3)Jalerei nid;t angcbcn ;

bei il>r
ift affeS ficljtbar

unb auf einerlei 2(rt fia^tbar. (5^ mu^ aber nottoenbig bie

au^erfte 3Sertrirrung enttyringen, n?enn biefer Unterfdiieb auf=

20 gefyoben iuirb, burc^ beffen 2luffyebung jugleid) atte bie c^aral-
teriftifcfyen 3 u3e tocrloren ge^en, burcl) toelcfye fic^ jene l>o^ere

attung iiber bie niebrige er^ebt.

2Benn enblicfy bie otter felbft mit emanber ^anbgemein

Ujerben (Iliad. $, v. 385 u. f.) fo gefyt bet bem )icfyter biefer

25 ganje ^am^f unficf)tbar t>or,

unb biefe Unficfytbarfeit erlaubt
ber Ginbilbungefraft bie cene ju ertceitern, unb lafst i^r

freie Spiel, fid) bie ^perfonen ber otter unb ifyre anblung
fo gro^, unb iiber ba gemeine 5Renfd;lic^e fo toeit er^aben ju
benfen, al3 fie nur immer it)iff. 3Jialerei aber mu^ eine
$>ie

30 fidrtbare Scene anne^men, beren berfc^iebne nottvenbige Xeile

ber ^Jla^ftab, fur bie barauf fyanbelnben ^erfonen toerben; ein

* Cf . ff.
89, 5
306 Ccfftng.

9ftaftftab, ben ba3 2luge gleicfy barneben fyat, unb beffen Un*
proportion gegen bie fybfyeren SSefen, bicfe fybfyeren 2Befen, bie
bei bem $)id)ter groft toaren, auf ber fflcufyt be3 $imftler

ungefyeuer macfyt.

3- G. TOnerfca fcfyleubert einen grofcen gegen ben <5tein 5

War^.* Urn fid) bie $rbf$e biefeS teine^ recfyt ^u bcnfen, cv=
tunere man fief), bajj Corner bie trojanifd;en elt>en
nod; ein=
mal fo ftar! mad;t, al$ bie ftarfften banner feiner Qtit (Iliad.
E, 303), unb baft 9ieftor mef;r aU einmal 5U berfte^en gibt,
elben toor feiner Qt\t nod; ftdrler al 10
baft bie geit>efen, fie.

Unb ein -iDJann, nid>t ein ^Jiann, banner au3 biefer Qe it,
tuaren t$, bie btefen (Stein ju eincm Gkenjfteine aufgerid()tet
batten. ^Kun frage icb, tuenn ^DMnerDa biefen tein fd)leu=

bcrt, toon ttjeldjcr tatur foil bie bttin fein? <2oH

tfyre

3tatur bev rofte bicfe^ SteinS ^ro^ortioniert fein, fo faUt 15

ba3 3Bunberbare tueg. Gin sDiann, ber breimal grbfter ift, al3

ic^,muft naturIid;crtDeife auc^ cinen breimal grofteren tein

fdUeubcrn fonnen, aU ia^. (Soil aber bie <Statur ber ottin

ber GJrofte bc^ <Steine nid)t angemeffen fein, fo entftefyt eine

anfcfjaulic^e Untuafyrfcfyeinlicfyfeit in bem G5emalbc, beren 20

2lnftbftii3!eit burd; ben f^mbolifd^en cfyluft, baft eine bttin

iibermenfd;lid)e ta rfe l>aben mitffe, nidf>t

gel;obcn tuirb. 2Bo
id^ eine grbftere 2Bir!ung fc^e, tvitl id) aud) grbftere JBerfjeuge

bie materiette ^unft F^icruon malen !ann, tuirb 25

DieKeid;t ein fcfybneS ema lbe luerbcn fbnnen, abcr bocfy nie

ben eift be^^aben; unb

)id;ter3 man ift fefyr gut^erjig,

benumgead;tet bergleid^en Giemalbe fiir ^omerifc^e emalbe

gelten ju laffen.
a. 90, 12 s.
 aofoon. 307

XIII.

alien 9ftaler, finbe id;, braud;ten unb ftubierten ben

omer gan3 anberS, al3 Gat;lu3 e3 unfern 9JJalern jutun
anrat.*
<3ie
braud;ten ifm; nid;t baft fie bie anblungcn au3 ifnn

5 gemalt fatten, bie eine reid;e Slompofttion, Dorjiiglicfye

trafte, lim[tlid;e 33elcud;tungcn barbieten; fie nu^teu
feinen gingerjeig auf befonbeve !ovperlid;e (Scfyonfyeiten; biefe
malten fie; unb in biefen Giegenftanbcn, fii^Iten fie toofyl,
ioar e^3
if;nen attein fcergonnt, mit bent 2)id^ter tuetteifern $u
10 iuollen.

So
malte j. @. 2lpel leS, nad; bem ^Uniu, libr. 35, sect.
36. Dianam sacr if leant ium virginum choro mixtam,
quibiis vicisse Homeri versus (Odyss. 102.) videtur, id ,

ipsum describentis. (2(nftatt sacrificantium mujj man

15 f;ier lefen saltantium, ober venantium ober sylvis vagantium ;

benn Corner lii^t bie efyiclinnen ber iana nic(>t opfern,

fonbern 33erge unb SSa Ibcr mit tt;r burd^ftreifcn, jagen, f^ielen
unb fyityfen.)
(So malte 3cuji bie elena, unb tvar
genug, bie be=
fii^n
20
rit^mten $t\l$n be3 o m c r (Iliad, r, 156.) barunter gu fc|en.f
(Valerius Maximus, lib. III. cap. 7.) 2af}t i^n aber audfi
ba ^od5)fte %btal bcr JueibltdKn <Sd;on^cit gemalt ^aben: fo

ift e$ bodj) gelui(5, bajj fein G5emcilbe bie allgemeine 2Sir!ung

nid;t !ann gel;abt ^aben, bie man bcr kfd;reibung be 2)id;ter3

25 jugefte^en mu^.
2llg ^i!omad;u3 (Aelian. lib. 14. 47.) boiler Grftaunen

bor biefem 33ilbe be3 3 eil E^3 ftan ^/ ftan

^ nel^ en ^m e^ n an *

berer, ber ganj fait blieb, unb gar nid;t begreifen fonnte, h?a^
benn 9?i!omad;>u3 eigcntlid; fo 2Sunberbare barin entbecfte.

*Cf. 138, i?S. fCf. 135, 17.

308 Ccfftruj.

2Benn bu meine 2lugen fycitteft! fagte biefer. 2lber

fti!0mac$u3 toar felbft cin -Staler; unb ift benn bie (5cfybn=

fyeit nur fiiv bie ^unftDeriuanbten ? )ocfy e3 lag nicfyt an ber

S
$unft; benn bie $unft !ann nid;t mefyr tun, al bie 3?atur

felbft, unb ba fdjonfte efic^t in ber 9tatur felbft, U)irb nid;t 5

aller 5)Jenfd;en 33eifaK in einerlei rabe Fjaben. omer^

.^elena ift unb bleibt bie cinjige, an ber niemanb etma au^=

jufe^cn finbet, bie alle 5)knfd;en glcid; ftar! ent^iich.

Unb tine bie alten ^iinftler ben omer ftubiert, la fjt
fid) unter anbern au^ bem Gjempcl be^ ^S^ibiaS lernen.* 10

(5ie ndbrten fid; mit bem Gkifte be5 ^I)id)ter^, fie fiittten i^re

(Sinbilbungdfraft mit feinen erfyabenften 3 u 9 en / ^a^ S^ucr

fctncd @nt$ujta$mu3 entflammtc ben ibrigen, fie fa^en unb
em^fanben tine er, unb fo iuurben if)re 2Ber!e Slbbriide ber

^omerifcbcn, nicf^t in bem iserfytiltniffe eine ^ortrat^ ju feinem 15

Originate, fonbern in bem 2>erfyaltniffe

eine^ @o^ne^ ju feinem
SBater; a bnlic^ aber bcrfcf)ieben. ^)ie &$nli$!eii liegt ofterg

nur in einem ctnjtgcn 3uOe 5

^^ e itbrigen alle fyaben unter fid^

nic^t^ GHeicfyeS, aU baj^ fie mit bem a fmlidben 3 u O e n ^ em / ^

einen fotoobl, al^ in bem anbern, fyarmoniercn. ^^ibia^ 20

geftanb, ba er burd) bie 3 e ^ cn (Iliad. A, 528. Valerius

Maximus, lib. III. cap. 7) :

H Kat Kvavtrjcriv CTT 6<f>pv<TL

vcvcre
1

Afj.j3poauu. 8 a/oa ^atr

Kparos aTr aOavdroio fj.cyav 8 eAeXi^ev *O\vp,7rov 25

bei 53ilbung feineS oh;mpifd)en S^Viter bevjeiftert tvorben, unb

ba^ nur burc^ i^re ilfe er feinem Silbe ein Gkfidjt gegeben
propemodum ex ipso coelo petitum. Gai;lu^ fagt toon biefcn
3eiUn: cette grande idde est impossible a rendre en pein-
ture ;
mais un artiste ne peut 1 avoir trop pre sente a 30
* Cf ff.
159, S
.
 (nttpiirfe sum Caofoon. 309

1
esprit ;
c est un moyen de croitre son ouvrage etc. @r
fd;rdnft ben STCufcen, ben fie bem $unftler geleiftet, unb nocfy
leiften fonnen, auf bie tympatfyetifcfye rfyofwng unfrer (Sim
bilbung^fraft etn. SnbeS, glaubc ia^, ift ^ier noa; ettoa^

^ejiedere^ ^u fagen. 9tdmlid):

lo^)ftoc!g3ei(en (@rfter efang, 141), too cr ott fagen

3ri) breite ineiu .fympt bitrrf) bie >immc(,

3Rcincn ^vm burd) bie UucnbHri)feit ait, unb fag :

^d) tin eluig !

10 6ac3 unb jdpuovc biv, So()ir. 3d) luill bie Sitube Dcrgcben \"

finb unftretttg ebenfo er^aben, aU jene $t\ltn beomer,

unb bem ^b c^ften SSefen gen)t^ anftanbiger. (^leid;iuot;l

glaube id; fcfyiuerUcfy, ba^ fie auf cinen ^itnftler einen grof^en
Ginbritcf macfyen luerben, toenigften^ feinen, bet U;n bei feiner

15 Slrbcit leitcn unb unterftui3en fonntc. Unb toarum nid;t?

@tc finb au^3 leinem malerifd;en G5efid)t^^)un!te genommen; e^

ift nicfyt ber geringfte 3 U 3 barin, ben ber sD?aler ebenfoioo^l

braucfyen fonntc, a(^ ibn ber )td;ter gebraud;t bat. er=

1
gleid>en 33 ^er ift in omerd emalbe ;
unb of;ne 3^fcl
20 lernte ^>(;ibia 5uerft aifo if)m, baf; bie 3(ugenbrauen berjcnige
Xeil be GJeftd;tc finb, in h)eld;em fid; ber ftarffte 2(iibrucf

ber ^Rajeftat divert. Gtnteilung, toetdie bie nacbberigcn

rer Don bem menfd;Iicf)en 0efid;te gegeben ^aben.
1
!Dcr Unterfdjicb ift l)ier offenbar bicfcr. Corner f)at etn netted
25 etn auSfttbrttdjeS cmalbc in cbanfcn fle^abt, at cr bicfc 3eUen gc=
birfjtct. iffitc cr abcr (ofync ben (Sinbrucf \n frfjmiidjen) nicfjt af(c eiir^cfnen

3ii^e bcfrfjreiben fonntc, fo )oa()(tc cr biqeniflen, bie

nnf fctncn c^cnftanb
batf erbabenfte Virf)t tucrfcn. X)cr 9JZa(er fann, burrf) bicfc fc^i)pferifd)cn
^iiflc bcflctftcrt, fief) bad namtirf)C
nctte unb tJoUftiinbtge cmaibe Dor=
30 ftcltcn, bad bem T)id)tcr bor 2Uigen gcfdjmcbt, unb ed nad) bem S5cbttrf=
ntffc fctncr Jlunft audfii^rcn. ^(opftocf ()at bet feiner 33cfd)reibung
gar fein netted GJemalbe dor 5(ngcn gebabt. ^Dic Jctte bed Stlbcd, bie
cr nid)t befc^rcibt, finb fo vague, fo bimfct, baf? fie gar nic^t f)injugebad)t
merben fflnnen. Unb fo Dcr()ii(t cd fid) faft mit alien 9)Wtonifd)en unb
* Cf .
supra, p. xcvii.
310 Ccfftng.

$lopftocfifrf)en2Mereicn. SBad fie in

nicfjt fd)ilbern, mufe faft aflejeit
bcr (ginbilbunggfraft bed Defers fo imbefttmmt blciben, aid eg ber Sifter
in feincr $cfrf)retbung gelaffen, bal)cr finb [ie nicnt malcrifdj. SScnn abcr
ber 2cfcr in ben tanb gefe^t morben, bad Okmalbe in ber (Sinbilbungd*
fraft ju dottcnbcn, fo Iftjjt ed fid) and) malcn. s
Tie ftigur bed Jllopftocf bejteljt fief) auf bic tefle im 5. 33udj 9J?ofc:
3d) I) e D e m
c i n c a 11 b in ben$ i
$ mm
el u n b f a g e, i cf) I e b e
e m i g I i d) ober f o m a I)
r id) ehrigud) Icbe, menu icf) mcin cfymert
nn tje 20. S)a Xuf^eben ber anb ift ein 3ctd)cn bed (gibed. ^lopftocfd
^ufntj tuill mir ntcfyt fonbcrltd) gefauen. (Sr fcfjctnt bie 3be ctmad gi- 10
gantedf jit mac^en. breite ^^ mein ^aupt
burc^ bie
pimmel.
v 5Btr mUffeit bteffd ^Bilb ja ntdjt ndt)er bctrac^ten, fonft
uerliert cd fcinen !crt. Ciin ->aupt, bad burd) bie ^immel audgebrcitet
merben fnnn, ift fein ,aupt, unb IDOJU Juirb ed nudgcbreitet? &ad f)Qt

bicfed 3 e ^ en S u bcbcuten? aber tuer u>irb

fo ^rfllicbern? C^ut!
i^ 15
jergltebere nic^td, unb fage, bie StcUe ift crl)abcn. 5?crgleic^en <Sie mir
nur nirf)t biefe m i I b e unb unbefttmmte 3bee, mit ber mof)[gebnc^ten,
unb ber gcfnnben SScrnunft flemftftcn 3bee bed joiner.
fagcn, jenc
<Ste

ilorftcllung ift bcr lUHaicftttt (lotted angeincffencr. (5d fann fetn. ^iet=
leidjt bedmegcn, nwl ailed il5rpcr(i(te
fogleid^ burd)
fie einen SKiberfprnd) 20
auft)ebt, unb gteid)fam Derfdjminben lafU. ^aupt, bad bnrc^ bie <5in

^)immct; ein nrm, bcr burc^ bie llncnblid)feit ge^t. (Sinnlid^er fonnte
ber 5)id)tcr bad ungercimte ^Ding, cine nnenblicfjc
^igur, nicf)t befc^retben,
aid tueun er bie 9J?crfmalc felbft fii^ cinanbcr tiMberfprcdjen la SBollen
pt.
nn r abcr bicfe 53egriffe malcrtfc^ ncnncn? Vad)cn Sic nid)t, id) finbe ^icr 25
nic^td, aid etnc 5lntitl)cfc, fo mie menu Doling com SDicnfdjcn fagt, (5 i n
SK u r m, e i n o 1 1 u. f. to., ober Hue ^ope ben tier bcfcf)rcibt, ber

fyier mit taitb unb Sdjuwtj bebecft, inutjfam ^urt^cn jicljt, unb bort
mit SHumen bcfranU, Golfer oor fid) fniccn laj^t. 9Wed biefcd finb 2ln-
titljcfcn, unb 9lntit()efcn fiJnuen nte^t malcrifc^ fein. 30
3d) berufe mid) abcrmald auf bic Xanjfunft. Tic 33cf(^rcibnng bed
joiner Fann gctan^t merben. Tie 9J?ienc, bic ber majeftattfd)e altator
annimmt, inbem cr ber fd)onen Jljctid bad gbttlic^e ^cidjcn gibt,
malerifc^ fein, unb fann burd) bad 3 beat crfyofyt, bad erfyabcnftc
merben, bad bic $unft ()crborgcbrad)t. ?lbcr bie SBcfdjrctbung bed
ftocf miife Dom Teflamator notmcnbig gclcfcn mcrbcn, mie cine
bad fyeifet, fie lafjt fic ^ fo menig tan^cn, aid malen.
1

1 affen (Sic mic^ l)icr cine SRcfleriou fjerfe^en, bie Dicffcidit nirgenb
anberd
^lalj finbcn mirb. Tie orientalifcfje ^ocfie untcrfd)ctbet fid)
DO rn el) ml id), mo irfj nic^t irrc, burt^ folgcnbe .^enn^cid^en: (1) fie ift un*
rcgelmafug im gan^cn, unb (2) fiifyn abcr unmalcrifd) in ber 9ludbilbung.
(SiiK af)nltd)c 33efd)affen^cit ^at ed mit ben 2i*erfen aller grofeen O^eifter,
bie in ungcbilbctcn unb mufcnlofen ^ettcn gclcbt. ftcllc :nir Dor, 3^
bie Sftegelmtifeigfcit unb Sd)b n^eit bed anjen 3bcen finb, auf mcldje
man in bcr ^ocfic niitt geratcn fann, mcnn mir fie nid)t Don bcr 9JJalcrci 45
unb SQilbfyauerfunft cntlcljncn, unb auf bic Tidjtfunft anmcnbcn;*
bcnn ba
bie 35cgriffe in bcr Tid^tfunft auf cinanbcr folgen; fo fcljcn mir fo lcid)t
*Cf. ii-t t 3 ff.
 (ntu?iirfe 5iim ao!oon. 311

bie 9?otnjenbigFeit nidjt ein, biefe mannigfaltigen Xetle

jufommen aid
cin fdjimed anjc ju betradjten, unb in ifjrer SSerbinbung ju iiberfeljen.
^pingegen bet ber Sftaleret iinb 33tlbf)auerFunft, btc bie
ift 53egriffe jufam*
men aid ein anjed barftellen, bad anje and) immer bad erfte, toorauf
5 nn r fef)en. 2Hll)ier fyaben alfo bic DJegeln Don ber djBnfyctt bed anjen
gar leidjt erfunben unb fjernad) per principium rcductionis auf $oefieunb
^erebfamFeit angettanbt njerben Fflnnen. (S folgt fyierauS, ba^ S3b (fcr
unb ,3 C ^ CU / & un ^ in tDddien btc 9J?alcrct unb SStlb^aucrfunft nic^t in
Slufnafymc t(t, auc() in ber ^oefie unb ^erebfamfett Don ber (Scpnljeit be<^

10 ^)tc cbraer Fonnten,

anjen fef)r fditoadjc Segriffc ^aben miiffen.
ocrmttge i()rcr Religion, mebcr S^nlerei nod) t(b^auerfun[t ^abcn. 2lud)
l)aben t^re ^3oeten unb ftebnet feinc ric^ttgen 33egriffe don ^(an, 2ln-
orbnung, iBcrteitung bed Vid)t$ unb <djatten, u. f. ID., aber bie rie*
d>en
.

15 (Sine afynttdje SBefdjaffenfyctt ^at ed mit bent SDcalerifdjen in ber ?tu=

[ii^rung. 2Ber an feine S?erbinbung ber ftitnfte ben Ft, unb bic
^oefte
gan; aUcin Dor 2htgen f)at, luirb in einer Sc^ilberung ^tiqt Dereinigen,
bic fid) cinanber fctjr fremb ftnb.* C5r mirb ben y\eil trunifen Don 53Iutc
fcin laffen, er mirb ba^3 mert ottcS anrebcn, fel)re in btc Sdjeibe
<2d)

20 juriirf! raftc aflba! (Sr rtirb babnrd) Fii^n, abcr unmaferifd) merben.
einc Scelc ^at bie ftertigFett ntd)t, tt)re (Srbi(^tungen fid) in nettcn unb
au3fiU)rItd)en 33i(bern Dor^ufteffeit, benn btefe gertigFett erlnngt man nitr
burc^ bic 33cfanntfd)aft mit ben 907ei(terftit(fen ber 5Mlbf)aucrFunft unb
SJZalerei, mo jebe Grbicfttung Don alien <2eiten beftimmt fein mufj. plitf)
25 blinFt, bic ncucrn 5)td)ter ^aben ba^ Jliifyne unb Unbefttmmte in ifjren
(Srbidjtiingcn Don ben Crientaliern entleljnt. Unfere Stfinjer, ^ilb()aucr
unb id)ter befyanbeln Dcr[d)iebenc <3uiet5. (S^ i(t Fein 333ctteifer untcr
i^ncn, bie nanttid)c v oanblung burd) Dcrfdjicbenc 9)iittct nadfjjua&tnen.
!Da^er bic .^lilnftc cinanber Fein ^id)t mitteilen.
ftc^" (SnbHc^ Derlteren
30 (id) unfere 1)id)ter gan} unb gar in ba3 Unfidjtbare, in bad 9?eid) ber
<5peFuIation, )t)ol)in tfjncn Fctnc
anbcrc $unft fofgcn Fann, mo nur (Sdjat*
tenbitber Dor nnfcrn ?lugen fd)cr$cn unb DcrfdnDinben, beDor loir tt)re
toatjrc @e(ta(t erFennett, IDO ttn r und alfo begnilgcn miiffen, nur etnige

^Ugc jit bcriitjren, unb altcd itlmgc loie in cinem ?Itf)er jerftie^en, unb
s
35 unFcnntbar merbcn ju laffen. SBoflen mir cine fold^c ^oefic malerifc^
ncnncn?

Gincm ieben rebtidien )inge Fommt einc brcifac^c ^orm 311. (Sine in
bcm C^eifte bed tfitnftlerS, ber cd ^erDorbringcn imtt, bic jiDeite in ber
9iatur ber Dingc, aftmo ftc mit ber Watcric Dcrbnnben ift, unb bic letjte
40 in bem eiftc bed 33etrac^tenben.
)ie e r ft c ft o r ift alfaeit bie m
ober bad fubjeFtiDe
DodFomntenftc, unb fie mac^t bad 3bcal bed iliinftlerd,
3bcat and.
$)ad objcFttDe ^beat ift bad Maximum ber <5djc5nl)eit. Die 9iatur
fyat ed im ganjen ^cltaO erretdjt
unb cben bedtDcgen in aflen i^ren Xeitcn

*Cf. supra, p. xcvii.

312 Ccfftng.

nidjt crrcirfjcn Ftfnnen. 5lud) tear tie d) 8 n I)

e i t ntrf)t ifyre

abfid)t, unb fie fyat fefyr oft bcr $>oUfommcnf)eit, obcr bem uten unb
Witfclid)cn nwd)en mtiffen.
Ted ftiinftlcrd s
<!lbfid)t gefyt btoft auf bic d>onl)eit, unb jnjar nicfyt
tueitcr aid auf bic Taljer tmifo cr bcm
d)b nl)eit cincd ifolierten Jeild. 5
i^beal nal)cr fommcn aid felbft bie }?atur. (Sr mufe 5. (. bie $igur ciner
s

jiigenblidjen ^erfon fp barfteUen, toie fie Don ber Watur l)eroorgebrac^t

morbcn mcire, nienn bie Sdjonljeit biefcr einjetnen s^erfon ifyre ^nuptab=
firijt qewefen iucire.

v\e iinammengefe^tet cine Sc^ont)eit ift, bcfto meniger fann jebe^ bon 10

ijjrcii
Xcitcn bad 3oent erreid^cn, i()nen jufoinmen loitrbe, lucim fie
bav<

ifolicrt tiniren. Gine ein^ipe Vinic erreid)te baS 3bcal, n)enn fie bic
s
AMnbun(\ ber UBeUenlinie Ijat; in jufammengefe^tcn ^iguren (jingegen
nuif; bie JlnorbnunQ be^ an}en cine foldje ^cKenlinte au^mad)cn / aber
jcbe ein^clue Vinie cnttucber mef)r, ober lucniner getDunben fein. Tad ij;

^bea( fommt, tuie bie 2c^finl)eit iiberf)aitDt, oorjiigUd) nur ben ^ormen
(

forperlidier Tinge ^u, transsccndentaliter hingegen Ijaben aud) ^ebanfcn,

jvarbcn, lone, Ccmcflunfl

unb jeber 9(u*brucf innertic^er (5mpfinbungen
iljre 3d)6nl)eit, unb folglid) i^

II.

($S fonimt in ben fdjoncn $ilnftcn nid)t tuenig bnrnuf an, ob bie I c t c 20
ft o r in folri)e ^ilber finb, bie Ieid)t in bad ^nriicf fommen. Webad)tni<<

Tie $fyanta6inata fd)cinen in fotgenber Trbnung an Teutndjfeit ab^u=

nel)inen. (1) Uniriffe ber ^ignren unb ftb rper, obcr iiberljaupt f5rper(ic^c
ftonnen. (2) C^ebanfen. (15) iBeniegung. (4) $arbe. (5) (SdiaH. (6)
CSnergie unfcrer inncren .firafte (Sc^mer^ i&olluft, 53egterbc, Veiben- 25
fdjaft u.j. tu.). (7j finnlidjcd (>kfu()f.
(8) Wcru*. (D) eftftiimrf.
Tie d) 5 n
< e t fommt, bcr erftcn unb urfpriinglidjen ^Bebeiitung
t) i

nad), nnr ben forpcrUd)en ^-ormen gu. Ta bie ^cmegung ber ^ijrpcr
burd) Vinien gefd)iel)t, fo mar c natiirlirf), and) ber 33ctoegimg nl)eit <2d)b

^u^ufitreibcn. SDtait lafjt inbeffcn and) ben Wcbanfen, ben Carbon unb 3
enblid) and) bcin 2d)allc, menu cr eincn
angibt, Sd)onl)eit ^ufom- Xon
men. v^ingegen ift bic Sdiiinljeit bed Xoned frf)on etmad Ungemoijnliited.
^on ber Crnergie unfcrer inncren ilrfiftc fagen unr nur, bafj fie inoralifd)
fd)on ober ^afjlid) finb: 7. 8. 9. aber fonnen angenebm unb tuibrig [7
fanft unb raul), s. 9. aber angcncf)in unb nn brig] ,
aber nicftt fc&Bn unb 35
l)afj(id) fein. SDJit bem 9Jci^c ift man fo Derfd)n)cnbcrifif) nief)t gciocfcn.

9\ei^enb ift nur bie 2

d) h n h, c i t bcr # o r i n 55 c e g u n g, benn m m
bicfc crregt in und bad ^erfangen fie nncber()o(t $u fe^en, r e 1 3 1 und
^ir ?(nfmerffamfeit. (5d gibt audi einen f i n n t \ d) e n 9J e i }, ber
nid)t aud ber ^djonfycit entfpringt, unb biefcr fontmt fogar bem ft^c^ 4
fdmtacf jit.

III.

Tie Sd)on()eit, in fotoeit fie trandfcenbentat ift, fyat angcmeinc ^Hegetn,

in lueldjcn $ orm / (^cbanfcn, ^ctDcgung, Xone unb $ ar u en libereinfom*
 (nttx?urfe sum Caofoon. 313

men. )tcfc finb 2ttannigfaltigfeit, Gnnfyeit, 2Bol)lgereimtf)eit, Orbnung,

9ccuf)eit, ?ebf)aftigfeit u. f. to. attgemeinen 9iegeln laffen fief) aitf
>icfe

alle fd)imen $unfte unb SBiffenfcfwften antuenben, unb fimnen au3 einer
in bie anbere iibertragen toerben.
5 ^ingegen finb fie imterfcf)iebcn (1) oermittelft ber bejeicfjneten adjen,
(2) bermittelft ber ^eidjien. pie bejeidmeten ad)en finb enttoeber $or=
men, bte leidjt in3 (9ebdd)tni3 juriicffommen, a(3 ebanfe, $igur unb
iiBetuegiing, ober nidit leid)t, atd ^arbe unb ^^alt; fie finb enttoeber gu=
gleid)feicnb ober aufeinanberfolgenb. 3)ie .Scic^cn uattirlidj, ober finb
10 ober aufeinanberfolgenb, taufc^enb (inbem fie
toilifilrli^, jugleic^feienb,
un3 benrf)ein at^eine SKirftirfjfett DorfteUen)* ober nidjt taufc^enb^rilcfen
aud) ^anblungen, 9)7ienen unb (^ebfirben, ober nur (Smpfinbungen au^,
unb biefe (Smpfinbungen finb entmeber ^Jeigungen unb ?eibenfd^aften,
ober finnlic^e 3?orfteUungen; enblic^ finb bie .3 e
blof} cn ^ uc^ ^ m^
15 ober toeniger leb^aft.
3)ie )irf)tfunft bebient fic^ aufeinanberfolgenber ,3ci(^cn, ba fie aber
nnttftirlid) unb init
C^ebanfen finb, fo fommcn i^re ^ormen
oerbunben
Ieid)t in ba3 ebac^tnid gurilcf, unb
toerbinbet alle guten
fie
(Sigenfd^aften
bed <d)Bnen. Sie fann fiirperlid^e ^ormen unb ^etoegung au^briicfen,
20 ift ber 3K ll
fioN ffll)ifl^ briicft ^anblungen, Wienen, ^cbarben unb alte
3Irten don linnpfinbungen auS. ^)ie i eb^aftigfeit ber (Sinbriicfe ertjalt
fie burc^ IKufif
s
unb Xanjfunft.
X>ie SD?aterei fyat ffirpertidje ^ormen unb einen getoiffen Stnfc^ein ber
SBeraegung
ju ifyrem egenftanbe. 3eicf>en finb jugleidjfeienb, ^u
25 uaturlic^, tdufdjenb, briicfen audj ^anblungen, ^Jiienen unb (^ebttrben,
unb Dermittctft biefer I eibenfc^Qften au.
)ie ^Baufunft t)ot uur fiJrperUdjc
^ormen jum egenftanbe. 2)ic
^eic^en finb natiirltd), jugteid^feienb, ntc^t tiiufc^enb, brttrfen nur finn*
lic^e 33egriffe, ofnie Jieigung unb
s
mpfinbung au.
3 2ftufif. 2)er egenftanb ift boriibergefjenb unb Iat feine beutticften

^P^antadmata jurucf. X>ie ^

3 e en fi no natttrUd), aufeinanber folgenb,
feiner Xaufc^ung fatjig, fiinnen aber bie 3Ifufion ber 2)icf)tfiinft unb Xan^
funft, burd) bie denneljrte Vebbaftigfeit ber (Smpfinbung unterftu^en;
briicfen toeber ^anbhmgen,
= nod) iJNienen unb ebarben, fonbern blofe
35 Smpfinbungen, unb jmar fott)of)l finnlid)e 53egriffe, al Jieigungen unb
s

2eibenfd)aften nu^, befiljen ben f)fld)ften C^rab ber I eb^aftigfeit.

X)ie an$funft ^at bie ^ormen in $etoegung jum egenftanbe. 3^re
>5eicf)en finb uaturlid), jugteic^feienb unb aufeinonberfotgenb, n)ie i^r
ebarben
egenftanb, fonnen taufdjen, briicfen v^anbfungen, SO^ienen,
40 unb bermittelft biefer 9leigungen unb Setbenfd&aften au. a i^re
^pr-
men aber ooriiberge^enb unb i()re 3eid) en natttrlt^ finb, fo tat fie feine
fo beutticfjen ^^antadmata juriicf,
al SWaterd unb Diditfunft, fte^t auc^
an ?ebt)aftigfeit ber Gmpfinbung ber 9)?ufif nac^, unb bebient fid) i()rer

^ilfe.
45 ie fommt mit ber 9ftufif iiberein,nur ba& i^r egen*
^arbenfunft
ftanb fortbauernb ift, unb fie feine (Smpfinbungen, fonbern nur finnlidje
* a. ss, 4.
314 Ccfftng.

SBegriffe errcgen. Ob fte glctdj fclbft niif)t taufcfyen, fo untcrftatjcn [ic bie
3Ilufion bcr SMeret.
>ie
$Mlbl>aiierfunft fyat mit ber JJialerci diclcS gcmctn, niir muft fie
s

ofyne ,>tlfe
btr ftarben taufcfycu, unb bcu gcringftcn Bd)cin Don ibemegung
ocrmcibcn. (

No. 2.

(Brfter 2Uf
ann^ 2cjt/- p.

3lnmer!ung iiber be3 3opf>o!ley

1. 2)tefeS ( S3efdn-et eine btftort)d;e

ift

ba^ clamor Philocteteus 511

cincm f))rid)tortliden
5(u^brucfc c^eiuorben. v. Kust. T. II, p. 706. K
2. Sopboflc-S liifjt ibn aud) in fciner Xvagbbic fo fd;reien.

3(nmcrfunc; iibcr bie Miirje bc^ brttten 5Ilt^.

3. Sd)vcien t umr bet bcu 9lltcn bcr 3(u^brud bcr Icibcnbcn
9?atur, unb Icin 3e i<^
en c ^ ncr toeiblicbcn llnlciblid)!cit.

33eim Corner fd?rcicn bie Qrbftten ^elben, ^enu^3 unb 15

felbft ^ar^
s
fcbrcien.
Gin GMeicbe S t>om 2?ctnen. 5Rcinc ^sermutung, toarum

^Sriamu^ ben einigcn bei bem 33ci3rdbniffe 511

iocinen

Derbtctct.

4. >iefe Untcrbriiduncj ber 9tatur ift cin ^cnnjeic^cn ber 20

Sarbaren, cin 3 c i^cn bc >elbenmut3 ber norbifdjcn

| (Scmcl au-5 bem

ircjil bie ^atur unb ben omer bor fic^,

h)enn er feinen &ao!oon jcne^ erfd;rec!licbe G5efdrei er= 25

fyeben la^t.

Silbbauer inbe3 liifit i(;n fein^ erf)eben; ba ift

*
5wpra, p. cxxxiii. f Cf 27,. 1 1 ff. J Cf. 28, 13 ff. Cf. S9, 29.
|Cf. ^9, 4. HO. 27, 31.
 Cnttpurfe sum Caofoon. 315

Unb nun entftefyt bie grage, ield;er fyat bie fd;bnere 5^atur

23etbe; unb man fyat nicfyt au3 ber 33eobad;tung be S3ilb=

fyauerS ben 2)icfyter, ober au ber 33cobad)tung be

ben $3ilbfyauer $u Uerbammen.
^ ift tDa^r, beibe unb beiber Sliinfte f^aben biel

and; Diel Una()nlid;feit; unb iucil man biefeS nidH gc=

ertodgt f)at, tueil man jcne attgemein mad;en tuollcn,

ftnb bielungefunbc ^rttilen entftanben. 3eber l)at feine be-

10 fonbern ^b^ern Mcgeln, bie cr nte aiu3 ben Slugen fei^en mujj,
unb bie ifym in bem 33efonbcrn ganj uevfdnebne bereiten. 3\>ege

1 . 2)ie Grreidwng be^ @td)tbar=3d;bnen unb (Sr^abenen.

-
rlduterung burd; bte Cvfcrung ber !5^l>igcnia
bey

15 2imant^e^.*
2. ^)ie S3eobad)tung einey ^sunftc^, iiber tvelc^en bie Gin=

bilbung nod) I;inau3gefyen fann.

rlautcrung biefe^ ^Uinfte3 au^ ben GJcmdlbcn be^
XimomadwS.t
20 SBermutung, in iueld>em
^3un!te 2ao!oon genommen irorben.

2)a Virgil biefen ^>uu!t nid^t beobad;ten bitrfen, ba ev auf

feine rreidwng be^ fid;tbaren <3d;bnen mit fefyen bitrfen, fo
burfte er unb mufcte er jene clamores horrendos mit au=
briicfen.

3h?etter Slbfc^nitt.
25 33on ben ^eiftern biefeS 9BerI4
2)ie $t\t, in toelcfyer fie gelebt, ift unbefannt.

9TCeine ^Bermutung, bafe fie

ben Virgil nad;geabmt

fbnnen, unb alfo unter ben erften 5laifern gearbeitet.

* Cf. f Cf 38, 18. Cf 50 t 10 ff.
54, 18. .
t .
316 Ccfftng.

1. $liniud fefct fte mtt fold;en neuern Mnftlern in einc

Piaffe.
2. Sie ftellen ben Saofoon fcor anberd aid ifyn bie gried)i=

fcfyen id;ter fcfyilbern; anberd aid r/!0pfyron, anberd

aid Quintud Galaber.
3. (Sie folgen einem ilmftanbe, toelcfyer eine eigne (Srfinbung
bed Virgil 511 fein fc^eint.

3c^ abftrafyiere toon ber ^iftortfd;en 2Ba^rf;eit biefer 3Ser

mutung, bie 3B. in f. . b. ^unft bermutlicfy aufflaren U)irb.

3^ iutd fie blojj aib3 einer ^ovauefe^ung beleucfyten, unb urn 10

ben $)icfyter unb 33ilbbauer in einerlei egenftanbe Dergleid;en

514 lonnen.
1. 2Borin ber 33ilb^auer bem Virgil gefolgt.
2. 2Borin er toon ifym abgegangen.
3. Gvlciuterung and neuern $upfern, bie bei bem Virgil 15

genau geblieben.
4. (Skbanten, tute iiber^au^t bergleidben ^u^fer ein^uricbten.

fritter 3lbfc^nitt.
I. err 2Bincf. felbft l>at
ed in f. . b. ^unft eingefe^en,*
bafc ber Stlb^auer in biefer 9iul)e toegen ber bei^ube^
20
^altenben Scfybnfyeit berbunbcn ge^efen, unb ba^ biefe
fein efefc fiir ben SMditer; p. 1H7 X befonberd 169.

S3ei elegenf)eit feine ^Bermutung toom ^biloltet, p. 170.

Weine s$erbefferung bed ^liniud.
II. tertn finb tuir etntg, aber befto toeniger tvegen ber

^eit ber ^iinftler bed 2ao!oon. 25

rbrterung metner ^Jieinung. ^)ie feine griinbet fid)

s
tueiter auf nicbtd aid auf bie ^ovtrefflicbfeit bed Bcrfd.
$ermutung aud bent
* Supra, p. cxliii.
 (Entrriirfe 311111 Caofooru 317

Sierter unb giinfter 2lbfd&nitt.

2Beitere rorterung, baft bem $i$ter toeit mefyr erlaubt fet
al bem -JRaler:

4. in Slnfefyung ber aftlicfy!eit unb be3 ad)erlirf)en.

Gr.empel be X^crfiteS.*
5. in 2(nfet;uno be Gfcl^.f ejem^el be^ ^^ibltet, nebft
ber (Scene ber ungrtgen beim ^Beaumont.
ber aricn be3

6cd5>fter 2(bfc^nttt.

fc^cint 28. inbe boc^ nicfyt bem ^)ic^=

ter tribcrfa^ren $u laffen. 2Benn er 3. (5. 170 fagt :
fie
10 h)erben ifyn mef^r nacf) ben (?kunbfatjen ber 2Bei^eit, al nac^
bem 33ilbe ber SDic^ter Dorgeftellt fyaben.

Sluelegung: e^ mu bier u>enigften

nur bie bilbfjauerifc^e

9Beif)eit ^u terftef>en fein.

p. 25. 28 fcfyeint er auf ber Seite be Gai;Iu^ ^u fein, baft

15 ber -JBert ber 2)icfyter nad^ ber 3 a ^ ^ rer cmalbe ^u
beftimmen.

2Biber(egung biefer 5)Jeinung :

2)aft 2)inge in ber ^tyantafie einen toortrefflic^en ffeft

madden, bie auf ber eintt>anb ober im <Stein einen lt)ibrigen

20
tyaben. t

3n tuelc^em 3Serftanbe omer ber groftte 3Kaler fei; unb

baft Hilton nad) if>m ber groftte.

Cf. lU) t 13 ff. t Cf. 1UT, i ff. \ Cf. HO, 18 ff. Cf. 97, 19 S.
 318 Ccfftng.

No. 3.

Grftcr 2lbfd;nttt.

I.

Saofoon: 28iber I easing ber 2Bin(felmanntfrfen 9(nmerfuna..

3$abre Urfadjc, au$ bcm (Sefefce bcr <5d)bnljeit.
bic <2cbbnl;cit
baS l;bd;fte Gkfct} ber altcn ttunft gciucfeu.*

II.

otoeite Urfadie; au^ bet 33erh)anblung bee ^ranfttorifihcn,

in ba$ 33eftdnbii3C. 2)er du^crfte iJlucjcnblicf ift bcv unfrud^U 5

bavftc.f
III.

2)ie 3tatue iuirb mit bem Wcmdlbc bc^ ^tdtcr*j tucitcv Dcr=

glid;cn. il>ovin unb tuarum bcibc Don cinanbcv

IV.
s
^eibcr libereinftimmung. 5Baf)rfdcinIidK iscrnuititn^ au3
bicfer ilbereinftimmung, baft ber erne ben anberen bor SCugcu 10

gebabt. ^ie crjd^Icn biefe 53cgebcn^eit gan^ an=

G5riecben
ber^>
;
iworauS iua^rf d;einlid) iuirb, baft ber Kimftler ben iUrgil

V.

Gin pence biirfte f d;n)erlicfy meiner 9)kinnng fein. ||

fcItfameS S\;ftcm, bet toelc^cm allc SSerbienft be ^ic^tcr^ 15

uerlorcn geht. 33eii)eife, U)ie trenig er t>on bem befonberen

GJebiete ber ^Ralerei unb ^ic^tfunft uerftanben, 1. an ber IDU=
tenben ^enu, 2. an ben affegorifdjcn 2Befen.
* Cf Cf . 36, 9 Cf Cf S J, 3 Cf 65, 8
.
26, 1 7 ff. t ff. * .
50, 9 ff. . ff. J . ff.
 (Enlipiirfe $um aofoon. 319

VI.

Grin GatyluS fyat ben >icfytern mefyr erecfytigleit toiberfafyren

laffen.* Gr betennt e3, ba bie Hiinftler ben $)icfytern fciel

511
banfen fyaben, unb nod) mefyr ju banfen fyaben fonnen.
(Seine GJemalbe be3 omer. GinU>urf lt>iber bie jufammen=
5 ^angenbc Jolge berfelben, au^ ben unfic^tbaven cenen beg

VII.

tt)elrf)er bie 9^angorbnung nnterh)orfen, bie

s
unter ben 3)tcf)tern nac^ ber })lenge ifyrer emcilbe

madden tuiU.f Gr fyat nid;t untcrfd)ieben, U)a^ bei bem irf)ter

10 einG5emdlbe, unb nm fiir ben 5J?aIer braucfybar ift. Gr

nimmt nur tmmcv bicfe^ ;
unb jcne^3 bleibt immer tt)eg, tDornac^
bie 9tangorbnung borf) nur ein^ig gefc^e^en mii^te. 33eteife
au bem toierten 23ude ber

VIII.

Urfad^e, toarum ba Giemdlbe be^ ^)ic^ter nur felten ein

15 emdlbe be3 5Raler^ tperben fann.J

fd;reitenbe ^anblungen, unb biefer fiir \\d) befte^enbe SSefen.
Gjempel, tie omer biefe 2Sefen in anblungen u t)er=

ivanbeln toeift.

IX.

Seanttuortung ber Gtniriirfe iDtber ben ^omerifdyen dbilb,

20 au biefem ejic^tS^unfte. 2)er id;ter malt ba3

ber $iin[tler intenbiert ^at, unb Idf^t fid; nid)t in bie

fen ber materietten ^unft einfcf)Iie^en.

Cf. S3, i S. t Cf. 94, 5 ff- t Cf. 97, ii S. \ Cf. 117, 27 ff.
320 Ccfftng.

3toeiter 2lbfd;nitt.

I.

2Btncfelmann$ (S3cfdnd;te ber Munft

ift inbeS erfdnenen.*
Sob berfelben. 2ie cr ao!oon angegeben. (T
ba3 2llter be3
bat nid;t ben gertngfteu biftorifdu n OJrunb fur fid; er urteilt ;

bloft au$ ber Jlunft. ^limus fdKint ba, too er be$ iiacfoou
gebenft, toon lauter neuern .Sliinftlevn ^u reben. 2Bibetlegun0
bev 3Kaffcif(^en Weimmg, bic 2Btncfelmann nid>t
ganj ju
fd;anben mad;en toollcn ;
unb toarum.

II.

^Betoei^ au^ beiu eVot unb eTrotT/o-c, ba^ ber Saofoon fein

fo alte^ 2ert ift. Umftanbltd;e CSrfldrung biefer telle bc^

III.

3ft er inbe3 ntd>t au^ ber $eit, in toelcbe it^n 2\>inctelmann

fe|t ; fo i^erbient cr c3 bod) barau^ 511 fein, unb ba3 ift genug
fiir eine ^unftgefd;idUe, bie unfern GJcfcbmacf bilben foil.

ilbrigen^ l)at fid; 2Bincfelmann toegen ber 9hi^e be Saofoon

na^cr erfldrt, unb er ift meiner sJ3ieinung, bafj bie Scfybnfyeit 15

biefe 9tu^e fceranlaftt l;abe.f

IV.
(Sein 9(u^fprud) / bafj bie neuercn 2)icf)ter jenfeit ber Sltycn
mebr 33ilber baben, unb toenigcr-33ilber geben. Moinmentar
iiber biefe 2Borte 511 toiinfcben. 2Bof)er ber Unterfcfyieb ber

poetifc^en unb materieden 33ilber entf))ringe. 2(ud ber $er=

fcbiebenbeit ber g^cben, beren fid; bie 9JMerei unb ^>oefie

be=

bienen. 3 cne ^ m Sfaume unb natiirlid^; biefe in ber 3

toittfttrli^.l
* Cf. 101, i
Sufra, p. cxlv, note. t Supra, p. cxliv. \ ff.
 <nttr?urfe 3iim Caofoon. 321

V.

3n bem SRaume unb in ber 3ett. 5olglid> jene $brtoer,

unb biefe SBetoegungen. !Jene 23etoegungen anbeutungStoeife
burd) ^brtoer. $)icfe $brtoer anbeutungStoeife burd) 33e*

iuegungen. 2(usbrudlicfye Sd;ilberungen toon $brtoern finb

5
s
bafyer ber ^oefie bcrfagt. Unb toenn fie c tut, fo tut fie e3
nirf>t al nacbabmcnbe 5lunft, fonbern al 93?ittel ber (Erfld=

rung. So tt?ie bte 5)ialeret nidit nad;al;menbe ^unft, fonbern

etn blof^c^ ^ittel ber Grfldrung ift, it)enn fie toerfc^iebne

3eiten auf ctnem S^aume toorfteHt.*

VI.
10 !ein ber ^poefie, fonbern
Scfybnfyeit in^befonbere ift 2>oriourf

ber eigentlid;e alter bilbenben Kiinfte.f omer ^at bie elena

nid;t gefdn lbert. 2(ber bie alien Dialer fyaben fid> jeben feiner
gingerjeige auf bie <3cfybnfyeit 511 nu^e gcmacfyt. t ^)e 3 CUP^
elena.
VII.

15 SSon ber ciJ5lic^feit. || ^ertcibigung be ^f?erfite^ ;

in eincm

ebic^te. ^>erlt)erfung beefelben in ber 3Kalerei. (5a^lu

l;atte recfyt il;n au^ulaffen ;
la 9JJotte nid)t. Ginfii^rung be
X^erfite^ in bie Ctyigoniabe. 5?ireu h)ar nicfyt ber c^bnfte
unter ben Gkiecfyen. ^)a^er ift Glarfe^ 2lnnur!ung falfd), in
20 ben 33riefen ber Sitteratur.
N.B. 3>om G!cl. $ie ^)icorbia beim

VIII.

cfybnfyeit ber malerifc^e SSert ber $brper.1T

men h)ir ^ier toon felbft auf bie 3tegel ber Sllten, ba& ber
*Cf. Ill, 10 ff. fCf. 12*, 6. JCf. 138, 12. Cf. 135,n.
JCf. 140, 7 ff. If Cf. S3, 27.
322

brurf ber Scfybnfyeit untcrgeorbnet fetn mitffe. ^beal ber

s
6cfybnfyett in ber Dla!erei fyat me(leid;t ba3 Jbeal ber moralU
fcfyen SBoKfommen^eit in ber ^oefie ueranlajjt. S)a man bafiir

auf ein ^beal in ben anblungen benfen follcn. $>a3

^beal
ber anblun0en bcfteht 1. in ber 33erliirjung ber $t \t, 2. in

ber (Sr^o^ung ber ^riebfebern, unb ^CuSfcfyliejjung be^

3. in ber (Srregung ber cibenfd;aften.

IX.

Seblofe (Sc^cn^eiten urn fo me(;r bem !Dtcfyter toerfagt

[c^ilbcm.* Serbammung ber X^omfonfc^en "SJlalcrci.

ben 2anbfd>aft^malern; ob e^ ein ^beal in ber 3d;bnl;eit ber 10

2anbfd)aften gebe. 2Birb Dernetnt.f T>al)er

ber geringcre
2Bcrt ber 2anbfd;aft^maler. ^Die G5ried;en unb ^ ta ^ cncr
baben fcinc. 53ciuei^au^ bem umgefebrten -ipferbc be^ tyau*
faniae, baft fie and; ntd;t cinmal untergeorbnete Sanbfc^aften
s
gemalt. ^ermutung, baj^ bie ganje ))erf^e!timfd;e 3Jia!erei 15

ber cenenmalerei entftanben.

X.

^Soefie fc^ilbert ^br^er nnr anbeutungSttwfe burd) 33e=

h)egnngen.l ^unftftiic! ber $id;ter, fid;tltd;e (5igenfd;aften in

SBetuegungen aufjulbfen. Gjempel Don ber bfye eine^

Saume^. 33on ber Ghbjje einer @d>Iange. 3?on ber 33eiue=

gnng
s
in ber DJalerei. SSarum fie 3)lenf d)en unb leine iere

barin em^finben.
3?on ber Scfynelligfeit.

*a. 108, 26 ff. t Supra, p. Iviii. JCf. lSl t xoff.

 nttrurfc sum aofoon. 323

XI.

golglicfy fdn lbert bic ^poefie bie orper aucf) nur mit einem
ober jtoei 3"9
cn -"
d;tt)ierigfeit in bev fid) oft bie 9Merei
befinbet, biefe 3u fl
c auSjumalen. Unterfd;ieb ber poetifdjen
GJcmalbe, tuo fid; biefe 3iige leid;t iinb gut aumalen laffen,
5 unb too nicfyt. 3 enc ^ \^ ^ I;orncrifd;en emtilbe, biefe^
bie ^iltonfc^en unb 5llovftorffd;en.

XII.

3Sermutuni3, ba^ bie 33linbl;eit bc^ Stilton auf feine 2(rt ju

fc^ilbern einen C5inflitf^ gefyabt. ^Ben)ei^ 5. G. au^ ber ftcfyt=

baren un!clf>eit.

XIII.
10 $)ie crfte i^eranlaffung toar inbe3 ber orientalifd;e til.
s
5)lofe 3Sermutuiu3;t au bem DJiangel ber 3)ialerei. X>a^

ba^ nid;t fd;on fein mufi, lua biblifd; ift. 2enn ber Cs3ram;
matifer eine fdilecfyte <S^rad;e
in ber 33ibel finben fann, fo

barf ber ^unftrid^ter and; fcfiled)te 33ilber barin finben. SDer

15 ^>eilige G5eift fyat fic^)

in beiben Jciffcn nad; bem leibenben

Subjefte gerid;tet; unb iuenn bie Cffenbarung in ben norbifcfyen

Sdnbern gefc^e{;en Jinire, fo toiirbe fie in einem ganj anbern

tile unb unter gan anbern ^Bilbern gefd;eF)en fein.

XIV.
omer ^>at
nur ^enig; 9ftiltonfdE>e
Silber. t ie fra^^ieren,
20 aber fie attacfyieren nid)t. Unb eben beStoegen bleibt omer
ber grojjte 5Kaler. Gr (?at fid) jebeS
33ilb gang unb nett ge=

bacf)t. Unb felbft aud) in ber Drbnung ein malerifctyeS Sluge

* cf . 103, 7 . t cf 310,
.
3 8. i a .
os, 4 .
324 Ccfftng.

gc^eigt. 2lnmerfung iiber bie ruppen, bie ficfy

bet ifym nie

iiber brei ^erfonen erftrecfen.

XV.
ben folle!titen anblungen, al3 toeldje ber
unb sUtalerei gemein finb.

fritter 2(bfrf>nitt.

I.

bem Unterfc(nebc ber naturlicfyen unb

3cid;en. T^ie 3 c ^ cn ^ er Walcrct finb ntcfyt atte naturlidji;

unb bic naturlidien Mcnnjeic^en iuitlfitrlic^er ^inge Ibnnen

nid>t
fo natitvlicf) fcin, al3 bic natiirlid^en Acnnjcid;en natiir=
lid>cr
Dingc. (5^ ift aud; nod) fonft Diel iiont>cntion baruntcr.
toon ber iH olfe.*

II.

ie fyoren auf, natitrlid^c ju fcin, burd; 5?eranbcrung ber

s
ncn. J2ottocnbigleit bc^
s
IRaler, fic^ ber eben=
grbfte ju bcbicnen. MfaU ber .^Tunft in ben er{?abncn-2anb=

fd;aften. 3cfninbcl fann bie ^Jsoefie, abcr nid;t bie ^Ralerei

ernxtfen. 15

III.

2)ie 3cic^en ber ^poefie nid;t lebiglid; Untlfurlicf?. ^tyre

2Bortc al^ 2one betrac^tet, fonncn l;brbare GJegenftanbc na*

titrlicf) nad)al;men. 2BeId)e^ bcfannt. Slber i^re S^orte aid

unter fief) Derfc^iebner teflen fdf)i(j r !5nnen baburcf) bie tocr*

fdjiebne 9teihe ber ^)inge aufcinanber unb ncbeu einanber 20

fc^ilbern. G^empel (;ierbon. 2(uc^ fogar bie ^eiuegung ber

 (ntit?urfc $unt Caofoon. 325

Drgane !ann bie 23en>egung ber )inge auSbriicfen. @r.embel

baDon.

IV.

(Sinfiifyrung mefyrerer toillfurlicfyer geicfycn burd; bie 2ltte=

gorie. SMigung ber Slttegorie infofern bie ftunft baburrf) auf
5 ben efd^macf ber Srf)bn^eit auriicfgefufyrt, unb Don bem iml-
ben 2lu3brucfe abgei;alten tDerben fann.*

V.

3JJijjbifligun$ alfju tueitlduftiger 2(ttegorien / toelcfye ade^eit

bunfel finb. (S rliiuterung au3 DtaV^ael^ 6d;ule Don 5lt(;en;
unb befonber au^ ber !^ergotterung omer.

VI.
10 5f?u^licf)!eit ber uMflfiirlichen 3^id)en in ber Xanjfunft.
$)aji eben baburd) bie Xanjfunft ber 2Uten bie 9ieuerer fo lueit

iibertroffen.

VII.

ebraud) ber toittftirlidjen 3 e ^ en i" ^ er SKufif.

ba^ SQBunbcrbare unb ben 3Bert ber alien 9J?ufi!

15 barauS ju erfliiren. ^on ber ^Jtacfyt, bie fid; ba^er ber e=

fe^geber bariiber anma^te.

VIII.

ftottoenbigfeit, aHe fd)5nen ^iinfte einjufcfyrtinfen, unb i^nen

ni(^t ade moglid;en ilueiterungen unb 5>erbefferungen 511

Derftatten. Seil burd) biefe Grtueiterungen fie Don ifyrem

20 3n?ec!e abgelenft tDerben, unb it?ren einbrucf Derlieren.

(Sntbecfung in ber
*a. 5A, i.
326 Ceffmg.

IX.

95on ber rtoeiterung in ber 9Ralerei ber neuern 3^iten.*

JBoburcfy bie $unft unenblicfy fd;iuer gctuorben; unb e3 fefyr

iuafyrfdjeinlid) Unrb, baji afle unfere Mnftler mittelma^ig

bleiben muffen. influft, ben ge^ler in SJebcnteiten, 5. (5.
in icfyt unb fatten unb ^perfpeftiue, auf ba^ anje ^aben.
2)a unS fn ngegen bie ganjlic^e SScglaffung atter biefer
nic^t anftbfetg fein toiirbe.

X.

(Srmunterung, bie bilbenben $imftler au^ ben alien

jurftcfyurufen, unb fie mil 53egeben^eiten unferer je^igen $t \t

511 befrf)dftigen. 2lriftotele 9lat, bie Xaten Sllejanber^ 511

tnalen.f

I.

3erftreute 2(nmer!ungen iiber einige 6tetten in 2Bincfel=

efc^ic^te ;
too er n\d)tgenau genug getoefen. 2(nti=

gone be^3 6o^)^olle^. Die letter be^ ^art^eniu^. 2)er

SJteifter be^ d;ilbe^ bom Sljaj K. 15

bem Sorgbefifcfyen gecbter.

III.

25on bem Gupibo be^

* a. 56,g. fCf. 88, aa.
 nttr>urfe sum Caofoon. 327

IV.

ber unft in grj ju giefeen. $afj fie ju ben eiten

nid;t fcerloren getwefen.

V.

SSermutung iiber ba 9iee, p. 203.

VI.
$on ben Srfwlen ber alien 3ftalerei, unb Don ben
afiati*
5 fd^en $iinftlern.
 COMMENTARY

liber Caofoon.
3. 8. The group had been carried
to Paris by Napoleon in 1
796, and
remained there until 1815. Goethe seems not to have heard that it was set
up in the Louvre in 1797. 14. Cf. S)a Mgemetne unb 23efottbere fallen
jujammen, baS SBefonbeve ift baS Mgemeiue, unter Derfdjiebenen 53ebiu=

gungcn erjcfjeinenb. SSaS ift ba3 Mgemeine? )er einjetne ^all. Sa

tfl baS SBejonbcrc? 3KiUiouen ftalte (W. A., II. Abt., XI. p. 127).
17. t)te tticnfd)ltdje Watltr.Man s curiosity and knowledge begin with
his ownnature; knowledge of the outer world comes through the senses
and is conditioned by their capacity. Men interpret the things of the
outer world in human terms because they have no others. A work of
art, therefore, even though it
may contain no human figure, represents
human nature; i.e., a human conception of external nature. 18. btC

bilbfltbeit $HltftC, formative arts, plastic and graphic, in contradistinction

to rebcitbe $iiltfte or fliebefiinfte, rhetorical arts, eloquence and poetry.

The human body is the special subject of the formative arts, but more
particularly of sculpture. Painting represents scenes as well as people,
animals, fruits, flowers and the like. Since very little is known of Greek
painting, and the perfection of Greek statues is so convincing, artists
and writers on art from the days of the Renaissance down to the time
of Goethe were more or less under the spell of this perfection, and more
or less inclined toassume that there was no other comparable to it.
Winckelmann above all fostered this view. Cf. supra, p. cxxxvii ;

jf2, 27. Whether sculpture is a "higher" art than painting is an idle

question; but that the followers of Winckelmann would have done well
to avoid considering painting in the partial light of Winckelmann s ideal
of plastic beauty, is certain. Goethe is now treating a statue. But the
words bitbcnbe $iinfte properly include painting;
the sentence, with this
idea included, is too sweeping; and it
betrays the influence of Winckel-
mann. 20. (Stufcit; cf. Einfache Nachahmung, Manier, Stil, supra, p.
clxii. 21. bcflreift, sc. inftd). 26. SRafte, proportions.
329
330 COMMENTARY

4. I.
9lfcnjeidjett, variation, which leads to individual peculiarities.
4ff. Different can be compared or contrasted with respect
works of art

to significant features, and the different figures in a group may show

significant variations in the expression of character. I2ff. Xiefer <5ittlt

is the capacity for studious penetration hoher oiltlt, the capacity for ;

generalization and idealization. 15. uberfeljCH

= iiberblirfen; cf. Ubd =

ftdjt.
16. bcfrijroitftc SBirflidjfctt. Cf. 2)ie 9totur ijl fdjon bt8 an
eine geroiffe renje. 2)te tunft ift jdjon burrf) eiu geunffeS 3Jtofc. $1:
v
Jiatnrfd)b nheit ift ben ejefcen ber 9fotVDenbigfeit nntenvorfen, bie $unfi
fd)bnf)eit ben efefcen beS l)bd)ftgebtlbeten menfd)lid)en (9eifte; jene erjdjeim
un* bavnm gletdjjam gebmtben, btejc gleid)iam frei (W. A. XLVIII, p.

137). 1 8. 1)iaf? f completeness, self consistency ^ (^rcitJC, restriction

within proper limits ; JHcnHtiit, reality, essential and intuitively percep
tible truth, not actuality
"
"

;
SBiirbe, dignity. ^a and ren$e are com
plementary terms but 3J?aJ3 implies @renje and below (1. 24) contains
; ;

the idea of both within itself. It may there and j 5 be rendered

1

by ,

artistic discretion. Goethe insisted that in life true happiness can be

attained only by moderation in demands and expectations; and as to
art, Cut ber SBefdjranfung jeigt ftd) erft ber 2J?etfter (sonnet Natur und
Kiinst, quoted in Was wir ?himut, u insome-
bringen, scene 19). 19.
s

ness, attractiveness to the eye (1. 22), sensuous beauty (5-, 12), the source
of a pleasurable sensation not different in kind from that of which the
lower animals are capable an indispensable attribute of a work of art,
;

but rather a means than an end in itself, a means to beauty of the

supreme type, fletfttflC 3d)iJltl)Cit (1. 23), spiritual beauty, the source of a
higher pleasure, an experience appealing to the mind, and suggesting a
world of thoughts and feelings that the observer creates in emulation of
the artist. A true work of art is thus doubly beautiful: in that which
it and in that which it suggests; in its power to stimulate both the
is,

senses and the imagination. Cf. 291, 18. Goethe is not a man of defi
nitions; he does not undertake to define beauty. 3)ie djonheit, he
says, fann me iiber ftd) felbft bentlid) loerben (W. A. XLII, ii, p. 139)
and he explains why not : 1)a @d)one ifl eine Sftamfeftation geheimeu

9?atnrgefetje, bie nn ohne beffen (Srfdjeinung ennfl tuareit toerborgen ge=

fctteben. 3 um @d)onen tvirb erforbert etn efe{3, ba in bie (Srfrf)einnng

trttt. Unmbglidifett, ^ed)enfd)aft ^n geben Don bem 9?atur 5 unb ^nnft-

fdjbnen; benn, erften? mil^ten rotr bie (%fetje fennen, nad) benen bie aflge*
metne 97atur hanbeln unit nnb hanbelt, ttj^nu fte fann; unb 3toetten8 bie
 COMMENTARY 331

efefce fennen, ngd) benen bie allge me ine 9?atur unter bcr befoitberen go.rm
b menfdjlidjen Watiir probuftio Ijaubelu null mib fyanbelt, roeun fte faitn.
Further: 2ftau jagt, tubiere, tfiinftler, bie Watur! (S ift aber feine

ftleinigfeit, auS bent emeinen ba3

au ber Unform ba3 ^cfrone ju
(Sble,
entroicfeln (W. A. XLVIII, So much for the spiritual element
p. 179).
in beauty. The simple sensuous meaning in which Goethe employs the
word 5lltmut is
entirely independent of many discussions of the idea of
grace (cf. Franz Pomezny, Grazie und Grazien in der dcutschen Li-
" "

teratur des 18. Jahrhunderts, Hamburg, 1900, and supra, p. and Ixxxvii),
especially essay, Uber Antnut und Wiirde (1793).-
of Schiller s 2I -

(ttcgcnfteUung, opposition, contrast ; cf. gcgeit eiuauber fteflen, uerbinbeu,

harmouteven, abftufeu uub iud
foittraftieren, Icidje bringen (Anzeige der

Propylaen, W. A. XLVII, p. 38). 29. unferc @ru))^c; i.e., the group

under discussion, Laocoon.
5. 13. bent ntobcritcit 2S?a^l!C; cf. what is said about Schadow,
supra, p. clxvi. This delusion was "modern"
again at the end of the
nineteenth century. Arno Holz declared, 2)te .ftimft l)at bic Xciibeuj,

luteber bie ^atur flit feiit. @ie luirb fte nad) SJiaf^gabe il)rer jeluetUgen
9Jepvobitftionbebiuguiti]eit unb beren ^aitbljnbitng (Die famst, ikr IVesen
und ihre Gesetze, Berlin, 1891,1893). 25. abftVflljicrt
= ab[tel)t, dis

regards. 31. fitnftlirl), artful ; now ordinarily "artificial."

C. 13. bic . . fltljt, reposing

in ; i.e., whose form and attitude ex

press the repose of feminine dignity and queenly majesty. 21. The

Muses, originally simple rustic divinities of varying number, all devoted

to the arts, but without specialization, are represented in innumerable
vase paintings, reliefs, and sculptures. Goethe seems to have had a
particular group of statues in mind; and this may well be that in the

Vatican, discovered 1774 under the ruins of a villa south-east of Ti-

in

voli. Cf. W. Helbig, Fiihrer, I, pp. 169 ff O. Bie, Die Musen in der .
;

antiken Kunst, Berlin, 1887. 27. 9tiobe mtt ifyfCU JHltbcrtt, a favorite

subject in Greek sculpture. The most famous ancient group is repre

sented by a copy in the Uffizzi Gallery at Florence. The central figure
is Niobe sheltering her youngest daughter, who has fled to her for pro
tection. Niobe, like Laocoon, compelled to see her children punished
is

for her fault. Proud in the motherhood of seven sons and seven daugh
ters, she exalted herself above Leto, who had only two children and ;

these, Apollo and Artemis, killed with arrows the children of Niobe
before her eyes. The head of the Niobe in Florence, and still more so
332 COMMENTARY

that of another Niobe in Brocksley Park, England, bears a certain re

semblance to the head of I^aocoon. All threeshow moderation in the
expression of suffering, the lips being only slightly parted to emit .\
sigh. Cf. W. Amelung, Fiihrer durch die Antiken in Florenz, Miinchen,

1897, pp. H5ff. and Julius Ziehen, Anschauungsmaterial, p. 14.

;
30.
be$ anmuttgett ftnabcit, a celebrated bronze statue in the Palazzo del
Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill at Rome. Cf. Helbig, Fuhrer, I,

p. 427. 31. Winner, wrestlers, a marble group in the Ufiizi Gallery

Cf. Amelung, p. 45. JvniiiiCH nub Wl)mpl)Clt; cf. Hettner s Verzeichni*
der Bildwerke der kgl. Antikensammlung in Dresden, 1881, Nos. 193,
195-
7. 1-20. It is the climax of artistic execution to produce effects with
the fewest accessories ;
and sculpture tends to dispense with the things
that attach a subject to his environment, concentrating its efforts upon
the representation of the subject as a self-sufficient entity. Laocoon is
nude; the sculptors seem to have freed him from the setting of my
thology and tradition in which his story is told, and to have made of
his death a "tragic idyll," a scene from typical human life. It was in

evitable that Goethe should so conceive the situation, and his concep
tion does not lack plausibility. But it was nevertheless erroneous.
Laocoon is not mere name." The father of these boys is a Trojan
"a

priest :he was distinguished as such by a wreath of bronze fitted into a

groove that is still discernible about his head (cf. Sittl, p. 32) further ;

more, the action takes place at an altar not the place where a father
would lie down with his two sons to sleep. We are obliged to conclude,
therefore, that the sculptors illustrated a myth, and did not represent a
tragic idyll. They represented a very particular and very extraordinary
event in ancient Greek legend. 15. bit Ctlie beifct. Goethe is mis
taken; both bite; cf. 8, 12.

8. 4. ItadjtS bei bcr Ofarfel. In company with Heinrich Meyer,

Goethe had seen the statue thus in Rome. His Italienische Reise,
Zweiter romischer Aufenthalt, Bericht, November, includes a short paper
entitled Vorteile der Fackelbeleuchtung. 7. bcr Jtucitc. Goethe s de
scription of the state of the younger son is at variance with the facts.
He may have been misled by the erroneous restoration of the lad s right
arm, and by the fact that he thought the head of the serpent under his
left hand was incorrectly restored. This head is original, but ambigu
ous. Since it is more or less concealed under the hand, the sculptors
 COMMENTARY 333

did not give themselves the trouble of sharply defining it. The boy
has been bitten, and is at the point of death. This is evident from his
drooping head and the relaxed muscles of his legs; if he were not held
up by the serpent, he would fall to the ground. To illustrate his theory
that the serpent is
merely about to form another coil about the breast
of the boy, Goethe brought, in the frontispiece to the Propylden, the
head of the serpent farther forward, and by a sharp line indicated its
mouth as tightly closed. He emphasized the words fetne$ft>eg8 aber
beifet fte for a purpose. In the Anzeigc we read (W. A. XLVII, p. 39):
liber ben jiingeren Sohn l)ingegen fiet man g(eicf) anfangS, wafjrfdjeinftd)

burri) 9?irgil 33efd)retbnng uerfiiljrt, in ben 3rrtnm, bafj and) er gebtffen

fei. . . . neoon fteljt man ntdjts in ber @ruppe Unb bod) ift e in $e id)*
!

nnngen nnb Jtupferfttcfje nub anbere 9?ad)ahmungen iibergegangen. 2ftan

I)at nicfjt bebad)t, baft em Jliinftler jetnen $ortctl roentg toerftefyen roilrbe,
roenn er jroet ^ignren won breten feiner rnppe anf gteidje SSetfe uerftun*
ben liefje. sJ2ur etn Jtiinftler gaiq ol)ne @efiil)t nnb 9?ad)benfen roiivbe bie
eine 5 9 llr f barfletten, bajj ber iieriunnbete Xeil fliel)t, unb bie iibrigen

Heber \\ gegen i^n jnjanimen^ehen, bie anbrre ^tgur aber fo, ba fid)

ber ^orper Don ber SBnnbe ^er an^bel)nt. ^er teidjtfinnigfie 2Jfanierifl

roiirbe, nm ^ontrafl 511 nmdjen, ntd)t einerlei fpejiette Urfacfye i\\ ganj rjer

fd)tebenen (Sffeften gebvanct)t haben. XtefeS ift nod) nnjerer Uber^eugnng

bie ^)anptfad)e: ber ^ater unrb ini ?lngenbti(f uenintnbet, ber jiingfte <Sol)n

ift anf anfoerfte oerftrtrft nub gedngfttgt, ber dltefte fonnte fid) telleid)t

nod) retten. 3)aS (Srfte erfrf)recft un, bag 3 luf te H 11 ^^ lln m ^ ft 11 *)*/ i

unb ba 2)ritte trbftet nnS bnvd) $offnung. The sculptors did what
Goethe says a circumspect artist would not do he was more refined, or ;

systematic, or schematic, than they. There are, however, three degrees

or stages represented in the group as we have it the younger son has :

been bitten, the father is being bitten, and the elder son is as yet unbit-
ten. Goethe s criticism of the effect of the wounds does not apply when
we consider that the wounds were inflicted at different times. 23. bc3

reftfllirierteit $0pfe$. When the statue was found, this head was in
tact ;
it was later broken off, and restored. 27. ScrfittberuMfl, sc. be8
8.
Orte; cf.JSTote toj,
itlicrrcft ber uorljcrgelicubeit Situation ober $anb(ung;
9. 4.
this

means of including in a depicted scene more than one moment of time

is one of the commonest devices for suggesting motion. Cf. 293, 14.

ii. bcnfltd)
= benfbar. 12. ftnnHdj; cf. j, n. 30. SKMrfung be$
tft8, such as Hirt had postulated; cf. supra, p. clxviii.
334 COMMENTARY

10. 3. pntf)Ctif(f), emotional, passionate, animated, not necessarily

synonymous with tetbcnfd)aft(id). In letters, Goethe commended
sad
"
"

Hirt s insistence upon baS (Sharafteriftifcfje nub ^athetifd)e (to Schiller,

July 5, 1797), and ba Stjarafterifttfdjc unb i etbeufdjaftlidje (to Me yer,

July 14, 1797). 4. ilbergmtg; cf./, 23; Note to /j, 24; andj7,27.

17. Eurydice. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses, I, I :

"

Nam
nupta per herbas
Dum nova naiadum turba comitata vagatur,
Occidit, in talum serpentis dente recepto."

"

As the bride,
New-wedded, with a band of Naiads girt,
Along the meads was sporting, in the heel
A serpent bit her, and the bite was Death! "

Trans/. Henry King.

According to Virgil s Georgics (iv, 454 ff.) Eurydice was not strolling in
the meadow, but fleeing from Aristacus. 22. ba3 3rf)U>nitfcit bcr $flf=

tCH. A similar suggestion of motion in an instant of rest may be ob

served in the draping of the robes of the Virgin in Raphael s Sistine Ma
donna.
11. 6. ftiifciiH Ctfc; erroneous, as was said above, Note to 8, 7.

14- bCJU Wnftc Had) . . . flcilt IJCfyaltcn, disproportionately small. This

is true, and the contrast is heightened by the fact that the sons are given

the form of small men rather than of boys. They are fully developed,
and do not show the comparative largeness of bone and of head that is
characteristic of children and youths. 17. ntrfjt toCflctyt; mistaken, as
above (1.6); ftrcbt lit riff) til}; likewise not quite correct. His resistance
is rather a reflex-action than conscious self-defense. He knows that he
is
guilty, and realizes whence the punishment comes. Cf. supra, p. x.
20. bcr filtcftC Sofjtt. The elder son is at present hardly more than a
spectator. The serpent whose tail encircles his left ankle is rapidly
moving towards his right, and will soon release him; the other serpent
has his right arm involved in coils but it is conceivable that he can also
;

extricate that. both the serpents continue to move in the direction

If
of their motion up to this time (that is, from the left to the right of the

victims), the elder son may be left a witness to the remorseless ven
geance of the gods. But it is equally possible that the serpent now bit
ing the father will in the next instant turn his fangs upon the elder son ;

then all three will perish. 30. fiuft mnrfjClt. As the boy is already
near death, this desire is no longer operative.
 COMMENTARY 335

12. 6. Srfjon oben; /.*., p. 7. 14. erfule3. On July 26, 1797,

Meyer wrote to Goethe : (g ift etn jitnger >erfnte
311 ^forenj fcorbcmben,
jtror nid)t rnhenb fonbern roie er bic @d)(angeu mit fetnen anben enw trgt.
2)er tfitnftler btefes SKcrfeS fann neben bem Urljeber bc8 aofoon feinen
"^tot?
einnehmen. . . . S3eim aofoon ift ber egenftanb tragijd), bei bem
jungen erfnle Don ber fpielenben <Seite
genommen; eS bletbt bei jeuem
!ein 3roeifel "brig, bie >d)(angen merben thn getni^ nebft feinen ofyneu
toten, ber jnnge ^)erfii(c fptelt unb tnau ift fidjer,
{jtiigegen uur, baji ber

gemoltige $nabe feinen tgcfjaben nimmt. 3Sir tjaben trenig ^unftttierfe,

bie jo roeit DorauSgreifeit, luie btcfe^, man ftetjt ben gair,en fitnftigen
^etben iut SBerben (quoted by Goethe in a letter to Bottiger, August 16,

1797). Heracles, as the son of Zeus and Alcmene, was an object of

hatred to Hera, who dispatched two serpents to kill him in the cradle.
This scene was often depicted; but the child is usually represented as
awake. Cf. W. H. Roscher, Lexikon, p. 222 and A. Baumeister, ;

Dcnkmaler, T, p. 653. There is a bronze statue of the infant Hercules

in the National Museum at Naples, but nothing now in Florence except
a clumsy statuette; cf. Amelung, p. 267. I do not know the work to
which Meyer refers.

13. 2. rci^Clt. To emphasize the naturalness of the action here

represented, Goethe repeatedly (7, 15; S, 15; //, 8, 19) declares that
retjen and gebtffen inerben stand in the relation of cause and effect.
As
Schiller says (Wilhelm Tell, 429), d)tcmge ftidjt md)t 3>ie

4. dtc3. The state of the younger son is in fact eill

CUt
Considered by himself, he might be regarded as no more and no less
suitable a subject for sculpture than, for example, the dying Gaul in the

Capitoline Museum at Rome. Being a subordinate figure in the group,

he serves chiefly as a foil to the principal figure and his present help ;

less non-resistance throws into effective contrast the vain, but nervously
self-assertive resistance of his father. 12. eilltef)mer, sympathetic
spectator. 15. aitf fid) ruljt; cf. 6, 13. 24. foilbcnbe Jhtnft . . . ^Socftc.
Goethe here treads upon the ground covered by Lessing s Laokoon.
Lessing (Hamburgische Dramaturgie, 74. Stuck) denned fear and terror
in essentially the same terms as Goethe s here, and insisted that when
Aristotle (Poetics, vi) declared eXeos and ^0^05 to be the emotions
aroused and purified by tragedy, he meant pity and fear, not pity and
terror. If terror is the effect of a moment, and fear the apprehension
of approaching danger, fear is evidently an appropriate
emotion to ac-
336 COMMENTARY

company moments of poetry but Goethe cannot mean

the successive ;

to exclude terror from poetic treatment. Wilhelm Meister s experience

in playing Hamlet in the scene with the Ghost is an illustration : <2eine

Uberfetsung btejer (gtelle fam thin fehr $u (tattcn. (r batte ftd) nal)e att
baS Original gelialten, beffen SovtftcUung ihm bte ^erfaffung eineS iibcu
rafdjten, eildjrerften, Don (Sntfefeen ergriffenen emu ts einjig auSjubvitcfm
(IVilhelm Afeisters Lehrjuhre, 5. Buch, II. Kapitel). The forma
fd)iett

tive arts, on the other hand, restricted as they are to a single moment,

may well find that emotion which is the effect of a moment particular!}
appropriate. But this proposition is open to discussion, and will be dis
cussed in connection with the rules for sculpture laid down by Lessing
We are here to observe Goethe s attitude. The art of this statue seems
to him superlative because the statue represents the highest degree oi

motion, passion, human interest (cf.^, 6, 30; 7, 2; 8, 2 ; 12, 6, 19, 28;

/j, 30); it stimulates in the observer the most overpowering of human

emotions. Other critics might prefer less animation, less "

pathos."

Goethe, who said ^faftif nnrft eigentltd) nnr auf threr hod)ften <3tufe

(W. A. XVIII, p. 193), regarded anything less than the utmost as tame,
roir unS gniau bcobad)tcn, he said, fo finbeu unr, bafc 33ilbmerfc 11118

uad) iDJa^abc ber uorgefteUtcu 33etvfgung intereffievcn. Gttu

ntl)inc ^tatucit fonncn nit bitvd) Ijobc (Scfjbnbett fef(c(n, in ber IKa*
leret Ictftct bn^felbc ^lu^fitbriing unb ^ntitf; abcr julc^t frfjrcttct bocf) ber
jitr ^emeginig tin ^aofoon, unb ber neapolitanifdjen
or, rote

i2tier?, Sanoua bt jnr il>enud)titng be ?id)a8 unb ber (5r*

britrfling bc (Eentaiircn (Reizmittel in der bildenden Kunst, 1832, W. A.

XLIX, p. 32). The Farnese Bull is discussed below (74, 17). Pictures
of Canova s Heracles and and Theseus and the Centaur may be
Lichas,
found in Ziehen, Anschauungsmaterial, pp. 31 f. Most of us would
think that a work of art might be in a superlative degree bebeutenb,
without being Ieibenfd)aftltd) bebeutenb (6, 24).
14-. 16. Meyer contributed articles on Niobe to the second volume
of the Fropylden ; there were none on the Farnese Bull, or Dirce a
colossal work of the second century, B.C., now in the National Museum
at Naples. Volkmann, Grenzen der Kunste^ p. 118.
Cf. L. 20. 2$af)l

ber GkflCttftanbc. Cf. supra, p. clxvi, and the letter to Schiller, August

30, 31, 1797. The second article in the Propylden was a systematic
treatise by Goethe and Meyer, Uber die Gegenstdnde der bildendcn Kunst.
21. 2)Jtlo, Milon
(MtXwv) of Crotona in Southern Italy, was a fa-
 COMMENTARY 33*7

mous athlete of the sixth century B.C. The first mention of him is
found in Herodotus (III, 137); the manner of his death is related
by
Strabo (VI, 263), and by the scholiast to Juvenal (X, 10). The usual
story is was devoured by wolves. Goethe probably had in
that Milon
mind a celebrated statue Milon devori par ttn lion, made in 1745 Dv
Etienne Maurice Falconet. Cf. Cournault, Gazette des Beaux Arts, II
(1869), pp. 117-144; and supra, p. clx. A century earlier, Pierre Puget
also made a Milon; cf. supra, p. xxxi. 26. cilt gcttrijfer llutcrtjnufl.
Laocoon is no less certain to perish than .Milon, and the recognition of
this fact does indeed tend to arouse the feeling described by Goethe;
so that those who feel strongly the essential horribleness of the situation
can see in the statue little more than the marvelous technical skill of the

sculptors. Laocoon is not, however, entrapped. Except for the con

sciousness of his guilt, he is free to defend himself so far as defense is
possible against such elusive foes ;
and this was the aspect of the differ
ence between Milon and Laocoon that Goethe saw. But he saw in
Laocoon more resolute defense than there really is. 30. ISPirflU Mltb
bie ^trfjtfltltft. The reference is to
Lessing.Winckelmann and
It is

true that the treatment of an episode in one art cannot fairly be com

pared with the treatment of the same subject as an end in itself in an

other art; and Lessing himself would have admitted this. But the fact
remains that the manner of treatment is different in the statue and the
poem. In kind, the event is not an unsuitable subject for poetry (cf.
Note to /j, 24); and if it is unfit for treatment in one art, it is for the
same reason unfit for treatment in the other. By just so much as we
recognize in the statue the representation of a highly special incident,
and the work, ceasing to be a "tragic idyll," loses its typical, symbolical
significance, by just so much we must recognize that Hirt was right in
declaring that its merits are chiefly those of characteristic art, and that
Goethe was wrong. Granted the suitableness of the subject, we should
be better pleased with a statue such as Goethe described than we are
with this work, into which he interpreted beauties which for us do not
exist.
338 COMMENTARY

CaoFoon.

Citel.

1 7. 6.
Y\r) Kal rpOTroi? /^,c/u.7;crcaj5 SuH^epovai, M<y differ both in
the material and manner of their
in the imitation. Plutarch, Horcpov
J

A.Orjvalot Kara H6\tfLOV r) Kara 2o<tui>

cvSo^drepoi, Whether the
Athenians "were more glorious in War or in Wisdom j ordinarily cited
as De gloria Atheniensium. Cf. Plutarchi Moralia, rec. G. N. Berna-
dakis, Lips., 1888ff., vol. II, p. 455. The sentence quoted is in chapter
3, p.459. Lessing renders "YAy by fgenfttinbe (24, 29) ; (gtoff would
be more accurate.

Dorrebe.
23* The preface to Laokoon
is a masterpiece of
exposition, pointing
out an evil and
causes, accounting for the inadequacy of previous
its

methods of dealing with it, and promising a new method that shall lead
to a remedy. The evil is confusion of the arts an evil encouraged on
the part of the unphilosophical by imperfect analysis of causes and ef
fects,and as yet unremedied by the philosophical, because they have
thus far rather analyzed effects than differentiated among causes. On
the basis of an unquestionable resemblance, two arts may be said to be
founded upon one and the same principle, and conformity to this prin
ciplemay be said to prescribe a certain conformity of procedure to the
attainment of the object of all art; or, the object of all art being the at
tainment of a certain effect, rules for the attainment of this effect may
be formulated by one who has studied his emotional reactions upon

painting, poetry, and the rest. But the proof of the product is the
effect, not the demonstrable correctness of the procedure. The new
method proposes to examine products of proved agreeable effect, with a
view to determining what it is thatmakes them agreeable, and wherein
one is different from the other. The new method is objective. With
great skill Lessing contrasts, in the person of typical representatives,

three groups of men that have esthetic interests; and it has long since
been observed that the characterizations fit his friends Nicolai and Men
delssohn (cf. xv) and himself. Mendelssohn had spoken
suf>ra, p.

cxxii) of the creative artist, the amateur, and

(supra, p. the philosopher.
 COMMENTARY 339

Lessing (25, u)does not forget the creative artist; the artist cannot
but profit by rules founded upon the practice of the arts; nevertheless
Lessing s prime concern is with the philosopher, and from the philoso
pher he distinguishes the critic as the man who deals with concrete
cases is distinguished from the man who deals with abstractions. Both
the amateur and the philosopher abide within the realm of subjectivity.
The amateur rests content with the pleasurable sense of artistic illusion.
The philosopher examines this sense and finds a single source, beauty,
for all esthetic pleasures. The critic discovers that a beautiful object
in one art is a different sort of thing from a beautiful object in another
art; and that the philosopher s general rules require modification when
applied to particular examples. In this respect, therefore, and in others,
Lessing work supplements Mendelssohn s; and supplements it in the
s

manner suggested by Diderot (supra, p. Ixviii), Burke (supra, p. xcvi),

and Mendelssohn himself (cf. j//, 27).
23. 5. betber XduftfjUltg flCfciflt. The amateur is satisfied to be

pleased by an artistic illusion without inquiring into the means employed,

or into the degree of the illusion. It is a delicate question how far the

appearance of a work of art seems a reality and there are differences ;

in the degree of illusion between an epic, a drama enacted, a bronze

statuette, a colossal marble statue, and a painting. Material and dimen
sions are usually enough to prevent deception (cf. 324, 13). But by
Xtiltfchung and equivalent words, the theorists of the eighteenth century
frequently meant deception and Lessing was not so clear as Mendels
;

sohn as to the difference between deception and illusion. Cf. supra, pp.
Ixiv, cxxi and Konrad Lange, Die asthetische Illusion im iS.Jahrhundert
in the Zeitschrift fiir Asthetik und allgemeine Jfunstwissenschaft, I, pp. 30-
43. As to the effect of a work of art, have
theorists since the Renaissance
combined in all conceivable degrees the Horatian elements of pleasure
and profit (A. P. 333); Lessing here and elsewhere (e.g-,33, 13) emphasizes
the former. 10. abflieljett, now abjhahieren, as 90, 2. Cf. abgqogen =
abftraft in (Sin 53olf . . . fo nngefcfjtcft jit abgejogenen ebanfen (Erziehung
des Menschengeschlechts, 16). 19. $a3 (Stfte; striking but not unex
ampled use of the neuter; cf. $>a8 rt>ar bcr SMebljaber. 21. ntdjt letdjt,

mcber. The double

negative, not infrequent in the language of the
eighteenth century, might have been avoided by the phrasing, 3>ene

beiben fonnteu mcber won tbrem efiibt nod) oon Ujren @cfoluffen feirfjt
einen unrechten ebraucfj ntacfjen. 23. bcrufjt ... in, for the more
340 COMMENTARY

usual bcrufyt auf. Lessing doubtless preferred in because of the follow

ing auf ben etnjelnen $aU. 26. tml?ig = geifheid), spirituel, intellect

ually clci cr ; not, as now, "witty." Cf. @enug, roenn man tDfife, biifj
bic fd)bnen S5}iffenid)aftfn itnb bie freten tfiinfte bafl ffieid) bee Si^fS au$*
mad)eil (Das Neueste aus dent Reiche des Witzes, Monat
April, 1751).
In the translation which Lessing made of this Vorrede into French, the
word ItH^ig is rendered inglnieux.
24. 2. StycKeS Ultb J?r0togene$, A^eAA^, IIpwroycvT/s, Greek
painters of the second half of the fourth century B.C. Cf. Pliny, Nat.
Hist. XXXV,
79. Little is known of their writings, and there is no
evidence that they made any reference to poetry. Lessing s fid)erli(f)
glailbeu expresses such confidence in the ancients as Winckelmann had
inculcated. Aristoteles, Cicero, et al. Cf. supra, p. xix. 10. fciner

SnrfjC Weber 3U Uid nod) 511 lUCltig;

an amplification of the precept
fjirj&kv ayav, not too much of anything, attributed to Solon. The wis-i

discretion of the Greeks was the theme of praise on the lips o

principal
\Vinckelmann and his followers; Goethe found it even in the group o"

I^aocoon. Reiner ad)c may be either dative or genitive cf. be? @lltci ;

Jit Diet.
Double negative; cf. 23, 21. 1 1. in mdjrCW Stiirfcit, in sundry

feints. 12. Menu

tuir, ?C. The sense of this picturesque metaphor,
is In our putative superiority, we have made the paths along
as follows :

which the ancients occasionally allowed their fancy to roam, the ways
of our habitual thought, to the neglect of shorter and safer avenues,

though these should thereby degenerate, like abandoned roads, into

cart-paths. In other words, we seize upon a witty conceit to the neglect
of philosophical reasonings as is illustrated in the
succeeding para
graphs. 14. bartibcr Ctngct)Clt, shrink in the process; ttte flC f such as.
Cf. 3d) hatte mid) oft nmuutbfrt, baft bic gevabe auf bic 3Bafcrheit fiihrcnbe
33ahn bc8 $lfopu8 Don ben Weuern fitr bic bhunenreidjern Tlbruege ber
fdjroatjfyaften abc $n er^d^Ien jo fehr nerlaffcn tnerbe (Vorrede zu den
Fabeln, L-M. VII, p. 415). 16. bc^ gricrfjtfdjCn Solrnire, Simonides
of Ceos. Fragments of his poems may be found in Theod. Bergk s
Poete lyrici Grceci, III, Leipzig, 1882. Cf. M. Boas, De Epigrammatis
Sitnonideis, Groningen, 1905. The aphorism, rrjv /u,ev ^wypa^tav
Troi-rpTiv TT/ocxrayopcva, rrjv Sc rroo^riv ^ooypa^tai/ AaXov-
o-ioDTraio-av

erav, is preserved in Plutarch, De Glor. Athen., ed. Bernadakis, p. 459.

The saying is true as to the effect of the two arts (1. 23), but false in its
suggestion of identity of means to secure this effect. Lessing discredits
 COMMENTARY 341

Simonides by calling him the Greek Voltaire ;

for Voltaire was then no
torious for shiftiness and frivolity. 26. ($k0Cltftdube ;
cf. Note to

Jiad)al)imutfl, imitation in the special sense of artistic

s
XiteL 27. pro
duction. The Greeks called the fine arts
/u/x^TiKai re^vat, imitative
arts,not because they regarded them as processes of copying real things,
but because by means of them the artist produced a real object that
conformed to his idea. Aristotle held that the most imitative of the
arts is musicthe most direct in expression, and the most imme
;
it is

diate in But the highest form of imitative art is poetry for

its appeal. ;

it is an
expression of the universal element in human life. Cf. S. II.
Butcher, Aristotle s Theory of Poetry andfine Art, London, 1895; chap
Imitation as an /Esthetic Term. Our Introduction has shown
"

ter II :
"

the fate of this conception in theoretical literature since the Renais

sance. Cf. pp. xxi, liv, Ixv, Iviii, Ixvii, ci, clxii.
25. 6.
$ornwrf, subject. 8. nnrfjbcm
= je nad)bem, according as.
II.
Sirhiufcit, artists, from the Italian virtuoso. 12. @d)tlbmtUflC<=

flldjt,
mania for malady of the eighteenth century which
description, a
Lessing illustrates in the typical cases of Thomson (86, 2) and Ilaller
(108, 27); cf. supra, p. xlv, and especially chapter XVII. 13. 9lUcflO=

riftcrct,
excessive fondness for allegory. The form of the word carries
with it the same derogatory sense as the form 3urifterei in Goethe s
Faust, 355. Lessing in mind. may have had Rubens
Cf. supra, p.
xxxvii and 323, 3. mndjctt tuolfeit, instead of hat madjen rooUen.
14.

Lessing is extremely fond of omitting the personal verb in the transposed

r.rder when an infinitive form assumes the function of a past participle;

and he frequently omits it after a past participle. 18. luiHfiirlirl)e

djrtftnrf, a manner of writing with

arbitrary signs. Painting natu
rally depicts objects as they appear to the eye; a spade is ordinarily
taken to mean a spade. A collection of farm implements might con
ceivably represent "agriculture";
but if a spade is made to symbolize

meaning, though not far-fetched, is arbitrary

"labor," this the mean

ing might just as well be "digging" or "rusticity" and painting with

such symbols may easily become hieroglyphic. Cf. supra, p. Ixix.
23. 3ufdQtgertttCtfe; cf. supra, p. cxl. 27 ff. Lessing is proudly con
scious of the difference between his inductive method and the fruit
lessly deductive methods not only of Wolf and Baumgarten, but also
of most of his predecessors among the writers on art. 32. troty, as well

as, better than. Cf. (5r ift 8 (viz., ein Settler) and) fdjon, tro^ einem, by
this time he is as much a beggar as anyone (Nathan der Weise, 411).
342 COMMENTARY

2O. i.
SBflumgarten; cf. supra, p. ex. eSner, 3o^ann 2ftattl)ia8
(1691-1761), admirable classical scholar, teacher, and humanist; frcm
1734 Professor at Gottingen. He published a Novus lingua et erudi-
tionis Romano: Thesaurus, Leipzig, 1747-48. 6.
nudfetytc, set out,
started; rare for (waging (28, 2); cf. bci . . . einfefcen. 8. 9lufd)n)d=

f itltgcu, ordinarily
"

excesses
"

here = 3lbfd)n3eifmigen, digressions, ex

cursuses ; cf. mit foeilaufigeu (Srlautcntitgen, title-page. Many of these

digressions are omitted from the present edition. 12. 3)Jalcrct. Since
Lessing undertakes to separate one set of arts (the formative) from ar -

other set (the rhetorical), the use of these two brief terms SJfolfrei and
^oeftf, is convenient; and doubtless there are some things in which all
the formative arts are distinguished from all the rhetorical arts (cf. supra,

p. cxlvi). But it should not be forgotten that as a collective noun, 3)?a

includes a considerable variety of arts, and that it will not always
Ier.fi

be safe to take a pars pro toto. Thus, we can contrast what we call ani
mal with what we call vegetable; but, to say nothing of the lower forms
of each, which are hardly distinguishable, there is more resemblance be
tween a lion and an oak than between a lion and a clam. When Les
sing says 2)falevei, he generally means sculpture, and we shall do well
to look closely at his assertions about SDtoleret in the sense of formative
arts in general, to see whether they apply equally to sculpture, modelling,

carving, reliefs, painting in all its forms, and so forth. On the other
hand, it is only just to remember that the Laokoon as we have it is a
fragment, that Lessing was in this first part to establish gen
s intention
eral distinctions, subsequent parts to go more fully into de
and in the

tails concerning the various arts included under his general designation.

Cf. supra, p. cxlvi. 15. bic iifcriflCU 5iiiuftC are music and dancing;

fortfdjreiteitb, progressive, consecutive as distinguished from coexistent;

cf. chapters XV and XVI.

I.

2O, 20. The simile is an adaptation of a metaphor which Winckel-

mann noted among the maxims of Queen Christine of Sweden: La "

mer est Timage des grandes ames; quelque agitees qu elles paraissent,
leur fond est toujours tranquille."
Winckelmann s comparison is strik

ing, but its members do not by any means fit. He means that the

"surface," where emotions are expressed, is not "agitated,"

but in spite
of emotional agitation, is controlled by greatness of soul.
 COMMENTARY 343

2 7. 6.
Virgil, sEneid, I, 222. 8. fceflemmteS eufecit. Laocoon
is not so much uttering a sigh as holding his breath
preliminarily to
sighing. The professor of anatomy in Tubingen, W. Henke, would
seem to have proved that Laocoon cannot be yelling cf Die Gruppe ; .

des Laokoon, Leipzig and Heidelberg, 1862, p. 23. But there are still
scholars who are not convinced by his reasoning; e.g., L. Julius, in Bau-

meister, Denkmaler, I, p. 24. 15. KlbU!t}J, forma tion, giving of a form

to; the word also has the passive sense of "the form given." The
word occurs in both senses in Winckelmann s Gedanken, DLD 20, p. 9 :

3)er (Sinfluf} eineS fanftcu unb reineu iimne( nMrfte bei ber erftcu 33H*
bung ber eibeitbimgeu aber gabeu biefer Alibiing
ricdjeu, bie frii^eitigen
bie eblc ftorm. SBelttudfer for philosopher is now obsolete, but was
17.
current in the eighteenth century; it is the word regularly used by Men
delssohn; cf. supra, p. cxxii. 24. ge&liebctt ju feitt . , . urtcilcn bttrfte;
a construction parallel to the Latin accusativus cum infinitivo, unidiomatic
in modern German, but frequent in Lessing. 32. Virgil; cf. 314, 23.
28. bt3 @0pf)0fle
4. ^litluftct. Philoctetes, the leader of seven
ships of archers against Troy (JliaJ, II, 716), was bitten by a snake on
the Island of Chrysa, near Lemnos, and, by the advice of Odysseus, left
behind at Lemnos because the stench of his wound and his cries and
moans were intolerable. He
however, in possession of the bows and
is,

arrows of Heracles, without which, as has been foretold, Troy cannot be

captured. Accordingly, Odysseus undertakes to bring Philoctetes to
Troy. But since Odysseus knows that he cannot by fair means prevail
upon Philoctetes to come, he induces Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, to try
a subterfuge. The play of Sophocles opens with Odysseus and Neopto
lemus at Lemnos, looking for Philoctetes. Neoptolemus is fated to take
Troy, but only with the bow and arrows of Heracles, and with the help
of Philoctetes.Although a noble-minded youth, he allows himself to be
persuaded by Odysseus, on the ground that the end justifies the means.
Odysseus withdrawing, Neoptolemus represents to Philoctetes that he has
deserted the Greek host before Troy, because the arms of his father have
been taken from him and given to Odysseus. He thus wins the confi
dence of Philoctetes, and the sufferer beseeches Neoptolemus to take
him home in his ship. The youth promises to do this; but he is so deeply
touched by the misery which Philoctetes endures when his wound festers
and a paroxysm comes over him, that, although the bow is now in his
hands and Philoctetes is completely in his power, he cannot proceed with
344 COMMENTARY

the intended stratagem. Thereupon Odysseus steps forth; but he can

accomplish nothing with Philoctetes. Not until Heracles speaks as a god
from the heavens, and declares it to be the will of fate that Philoctetes

shall aid in the destruction of Troy, does he consent to accompany Neop-

tolemus and Odysseus thither. Cf. Roscher, Lexikon, III, pp. 2311 ff.

13. The establishment of this proposition is the first step in Lessing s

argumentation; and the proposition is established, although some of the

examples are not well chosen. 14. ntdjt fcltcn; Herder (166, 7) properly
corrects to fefyr fdteit. 15. mil, because it was the poefs intention. 18.

Mars; cf.
Herder, 167, 7. 30. Slnftanb. Lessing the more strongly
insists upon the dramatist s and the actor s right to naturalness because

of the artificial decorum of the French stage; cf. ^/, 30 fT. and Ilambur-

gische Dramaturgic, 15., 55., 56. Stiick. As to the difference between

Greeks and moderns in general, cf. Herder, ij2 fT., and Lessing s letter

to Mendelssohn, 28. Nov., 1756, L-M XVII, pp. 72 f.

21). ii. muftte

= burfte. 27. getroffcn = 0efd)(of|c u ;
cf. etnc 2>ev=

abrebuiifl treffen. 28. lucldjc^ = n>a$,

a thing which; auf bcibcn Xcileit
= auf beibeu eiten. Priamus; cf. Herder, 170 f.

3O. Dacier, Anne (1654-1720), daughter of the humanist Tannegui

i.

Lefevre, and wife of the philologist Andre Dacier, herself distinguished

for scholarship. She translated Homer in 1699, and defended him against
the attacks of the "moderns" in two works Considerations sur les causes :

de la corruption du gout, 1714, and HomZre difendu, 1716. 8. inbcnt

= ludfyreilb, whereas. 9. Not indeed that I deem it blame at all to u>eep;

spoken by bcr ftcrbenbc ,$crfule3; i.e., T^u^ifou,

Pisistratus. 16.

Trachinia, The Maids of Trachin^ so called because of the chorus of

maidens from Trachin, or Thrachis, in Thessaly. Heracles, poisoned by
a garment given him by his wife Dejanira, burns himself to death on Mt.
CEta in Thessaly. It was for service in connection with this action that

Philoctetes got the bow and arrows of Heracles. 18.unfcrit arttgeu

s
Jinrf)0(tru: the French, whom Lessing declared i:i the Hamburgische

Dramaturgic (80. Stiick) to have no real tragedies at all. 22. Chateau-

brun, Jean Baptiste Vivier de (1686-1775), member of the French Aca
demy and author of several tragedies in the heroic style. His Fhiloctite
was written in 1755. Lessing s opinion of it (^9, 30) appears not to
have been unjust. 24. gaofoon .. . be3 3up(jof(c^; cf. supra, p. x.
26. gegtinnt, granted, i.e., allowed to come down to us; cf. ii>on bev Xl fl*
gobie, ale itber. bie uuS bic ,3eit jo jUmlid) aUeS baraiiS [^ot] gonnen
 COMMENTARY 345

(Ifamb. Dramaturgic, 101. Stiick). 30. untfjCdtraUfrf), undra-

matic, not adapted to the stage. l)eatralifd) has to the modern Ger
man the same connotation as "theatrical" to us. 31. gleidjmafftg =
pVOportiouiert, proportionate to.

31. 3. bte SBettwnberimg ift eitt fatter Slffeft; a proposition of funda

mental importance in Lessing s esthetics. Cf. ^95, 12 ff.; 322, i. In
1756 he discussed the subject in reference to the drama with Nicolai and
Mendelssohn, and in the Hamburgische Dramaturgic he elaborated his
view (based upon Aristotle) that the passions aroused by the tragedy are
pity and fear (which is pity applied to ourselves; since we fear that we
may some time find ourselves in the hazardous position of the tragic hero)
and not, as in so many French tragedies, pity and admiration. To Ni
colai he wrote (Nov. 13, 1756; L-M XVII, p. 68), 3)er beftwuberte elb

ift bcr SJortinirf ber Gpopoe ;

ber bebauerte, be3 rauevjpiels. >ie 33e*

uniubentug in bcr Xragobie ift ba eutbefyrlid) getuorbene 2Jfitleiben (ibid.,

p. 65). He calls admiration (in tragedy) the 9hif)epuuft be3 !U?itIeibeii8
(to Mendelssohn, Dec. 18, /.<:., p. 79); he says @d)recfeu linb 23eU)unbe=
rung ftub feiue S eibenfdjaften, nad) ineiuem ^erftanbe (to Nicolai, I.e., p.

65); he asks Mendelssohn whether he admires Auguste (in Corneille s

Cinna), Hippoiyte (in Racine s P/itdre), and Chimene (in Corneille s
Cid}\ and answers for him that he does not, because these characters in
no wise surpass our ideas of human excellence and proceeds, 2Ba8 fitr
Cigeujdjaften beiuunbent ^tc benn itituV @tc beiuunbevn etneit Sato, eiiieu
(Effer (tragedy by Thomas Corneille) nut etitent 3Borte, iitd)t al 33et=

fpiele ciner uncrfdjiitterteu ^efiigfeit, enter imerbittlicQeit tanMjaftigfett,

cineS nidjt ju erfd)vecfeubeu 9J?itt^, einer tjeroifdjen SBcrarfjtung ber efatjr
unb be8 XobeS ;
itnb afle biefe 33eifpte(e betuunbern @ie inn fo niel me^r,
je beffer @te futb, je fitljtbarer 3^r $erj, je jcirtltdjer 3()ve Gnipfinbung ift.

@ie ^abeit etnen \\\ ric^tigen 33egriff on ber tnenfd)lic^eu 92atur, al8 bag
@ie nic^t alle wtentpftubUdjen e(ben fitr fd)5ne Unge^euer, fiir meljr al8
iKenfc^en, aber gar nidjt fur gute SKenfc^eii tjalten foflten. @ie bettjuiiberu

ftc alfo mtt 9?ec^t ;

aber eben beitr>egen f
\vx\\ @ie fie bettmnbern, tnevbeu
@ie @tannen, j/, 4] ... Staff on (?ie
itjnen nid)t nadjeifern [cf. itntatigeS
nn8 ^ier bet ben ?t(ten in bie @d)u(e gefjen. 2Ba8 fonnen trtr nad) ber
y^atnr fur beffere ef)rer tunfjien? Urn ba 5WitIeib befto gemiffer gu ertnerfen,
niarb CebtpuS (op^oWc) unb HIcefte (nriptbe) non aflem ^erotmu
ent!(eibet. 3ener Magt meibifd), nub biefe jammert niefyr a!8 lt>eibifd) ; fie

luoUten fte tieber 311 empftnblid), al8 uueiupftubtid) macfjen ; fte liejjen fie
346 COMMENTARY

Uebcr gu toiel $lagen auSjdjittten, 311 Diet Xranen toergiefjen, al gar feine
(I.e., pp. 72 f.).
It was in answer to this letter that Mendelssohn wrote
the one quoted above (p. cxxix), calling Lcssing s attention to the heroism
of Laocoon. Mendelssohn stoutly defended the element of admiration ir

the French dramas; as a disciple of Shaftesbury, he insisted upon the

moral elements in all esthetic objects and he brought Lessing to the ;

point of admitting that admiration is eiu angeitefymer 5Iffeft (letter of Dec.

18, p. 79), of protesting that he had not denied it aUeS <d)i)ne, aUe
/.<:.,

5lngenel)me (ibid.) as indeed he could not have done without condemn

ing all epic poetry. But Lessing on his part insists: 3d) laffe mid) Jinn
2)iit(etben im Xrauerfpiele betuegen, urn eine $erttgfett im lUitleiben 311

befouimcu; ftnbet aber ba* bei ber ^euwnberimg ftatt? tfamt man jageu:
id) luiU gent in ber Xragobie betuunbent, inn eine ^erttgfeit im ifieunnibeni

gu befommeit? 3d) glaube, ber tft ber grbftte erf, ber bie grofjte ^ertigfett
im ^euwnbern fyat; fcuute otjne 3^etfel berienige ber befte 9)Jenjd) tft, ber
bie grofete 5fvttgfeit im 9Jittleibeu l)at. And the fact remains that Lessing,
by subordinating admiration in the drama, and referring it to the realm
of intellectual perceptions so far as the formative arts are concerned,
marks a stage beyond Mendelssohn and Winckelmann in freeing esthetics
from the incubus of moral considerations. Admiration for the "great
soul" of Laocoon prevented Winckelmann from reaching, in the eban=
felt, the conclusion that Lessing draws at the end of the first chapter of
his treatise. 10. bcftcfycn fann = Uertra gltd) ift.

II.

The first chapter having demonstrated that the motive of the sculptors
in representing Laocoon as merely sighing was not solicitude lest he
should appear pusillanimous, Lessing now declares that they were deter
mined by considerations peculiar to their art : their object was beauty of

form, and the face of a man yelling in agony is not beautiful.

31. ben erften ^erfurf). Pliny relates (Nat. Hist. XXXV, 12)
16.

that the daughter of Butades of Sicyon, a potter at Corinth, being in love

with a youth who was about to start on a journey, outlined on a wall the
shadow of his face. Filling in this outline with clay, her father burned
the form with his wares, and thus produced the first bas-relief. A similar

legend on the origin of painting is found in Pliny, XXXV, 3. 23. nid)t

aid ba3 Sdjflne; cf. Herder, pp. fSj ff.
25. JBorttwrf; cf. ^-,6.
 COMMENTARY 347

assumed to be the chief constituent of beauty in

is here
accordance with the philosophy of Baumgarten and Mendelssohn; cf.
supra, pp. cxvi ff.

32. i.
SBcrgntigen. Cf. supra, pp. cvii, cxxiii. There is a sensuous
pleasure to be derived from forms and colors quite independently of con
sideration of the artist s skill, or the success of his imitation of realities.

4- Chtbjtoed ; cf. jj, 13. 6.

Ctyigrammatift, Antiochus, a poet of
uncertain date represented in the Greek Anthology cf. Codex Palatinns, ;

ed. F. Jacobs, Lips., 1814, vol. II, p. 439. Anthologies, or collections of

short poems, passages from longer poems, epigrams, "familiar quota
tions," and the like, were made even in Greek times. Of later collec
tions there are two of importance ;
one by Constantinus Cephalas (tenth
century) and the other by Maximus Planudes (fourteenth century). A
new edition of both is in process of publication by Hugo Stadtmiiller,
Leipzig, 1894 ff. Herder translated many poems from the Anthology in
Zerstreiite Blatter (\Verke, ed. Suphan, XX VI); and made some interest
ing Anmerkungen ilber die Anthologie der Griechen, Werkey XV, p.
335 ff. 8. 9JJafl bid) fd)on nicmanb Qcrn fcf)en
= roeuitfd)on (ruennqleid),
obfd)ou, obg(eid)) nienianb bid) gent fefjiMi llla fl T 3- ^rafyferci tnit leb
btQCn vain show of good-for-nothing technique.
(tycfd)irflid)fcttcit, Lessing
does not underestimate technical execution as such (cf. &/, 16) ;
but de

precates the application of it to unworthy subjects. Winckelmann s

friend in Rome, Anton Raphael Mengs (1728-1779) published in 1762
Gedanken ilber die Schonheit ttnd den Geschmack in der Afalerei (cf.
114, 28), in which matters of technique usurped the place of almost all
other considerations with respect to painting. Cf. Justi, Winckelmann,

II, pp. 26 ff. 15. 5U ttOtttrlid), Ol3 bafe JC., too natural for the Greeks
not to have had etc. a characteristic German turn of phrase gu imtitv=
:

ba . . One step farther and

ltd) (or naturlidjer) al8 [lllir fo naturlid)], .

we get iiatiir(id) fleniig, ol^ ba^ ; cf. 163, 6. 16. Pauson, Hava-wv,
a painter of the second half of the fifth century B.C., twice ridiculed for

poverty by Aristophanes (Plutus, 602; Acharnenses, 854). Aristotle

(Poetics, II) says: "Polygnotus depicted men as nobler than they are,
is mentioned by Pliny
Pauson, as less noble."
<tratCU3, HeipatKo?,

(XXXV, He
appears to have lived in the fourth century B.C.,
10).
and
to have been famed for interiors and subjects in still life such as were
centuries later characteristic of the Dutch School. 20. $a3 efe^ bcr
Varies Historic,
I)Cbaucr, reported by Claudius ^Elianus in (Greek)
348 COMMENTARY

IV, 4, ed. R. Hercher, Leipzig, 1864-66. This law is a dubious matter

as a piece of legislation (cf. Herder, s86, Anm. 3), but it illustrates the

tendency of Greek sculptors, and for this reason was referred to by Wink-
kelmann (Gedanken, DLD 20, p. 15): 2)a8 efe^ aber: bie ^erfoncu

al)it(id) unb 311 gleidjer 3^t jdjoner 311 madjen, tuar alle eit bad l)i)d)jte

ejete, lueldjeS bie griedjtjdjen Jtitnftler n ber fid) evfannten, unb fejste not-
luenbig eine 9lbfid)t bed 2fteifter8 anf etne jdjonere unb ttoflfoimnene e
Watnr Doran. 24. Junius, Franciscus (Francois du Jon, 1585-16711,
the first Germanic philologist, and an indefatigable investigator in classic: .1

learning as well. His Latin book On the Painting of the Ancients, 163;,
second edition 1694, is a huge compilation containing everything that an
cient and late Latin and Greek writers handed down about the arts, th?
whole systematically arranged, but not quickened by any new ideas. -

25. Ghezzi, i.e., caricaturists, like Pierleone Ghezzi (1674-1755), ;i

Roman painter of historical subjects and caricatures, well known in Les-

sing s time, but now forgotten. 26. UDcrtrctfoung, Exaggeration o
any feature, beautiful or ugly, is the commonest device of caricaturists
cf. 3jl bad feine Ubertreibnng? Unb ift e8 meiite Ginddjtnng, baf} allt

Ubertretbungen be^ ad)frltrf)en fo fiitiig ftub? (Afinna von Barnhelm, IV.

6). Caricature was recognized and practised by the Greeks no less than
by modern nations; cf. Ziehcn, Anschauungsmaterial, pp. 18 f. 29.

,$eU(inobtfcn, EAAui/oSuau, the nine chief judges at the Olympic games.

30. ifonifrf), -TJ-OI/, portrait ;
aVoviKos, from ctKon/, image, likeness.
J5. $. i.
Lessing planned to devote the sixty-eighth of his
^ortrrit.
Antiquarische Briefe to the cfefe ber ^eUanobifcn.
He wrote (L-M
XV, p. 1
08) : 3)ie ifontfdjc tatnc folltc freilid) bie grofeere Gljrc jein.

^Iber tua bemog fte beini, biefc^ ,^tr gro^ern, nnb ntc^t ^nr ffeinmi Gfjrc
gu inadjen? SBarum madjten fie bte efatjr, in bem S3ilbe eine6 ininber

jdjbnen ftorperS anf bic Diadjiuclt 311 torn men, jjur grofiern (5()ve?
SSarum
nmd)tcn fte ben einem fdjonen, aber [reinben 3beal aiifgcjleUt
3>orteil, ftd) in

\\\ fetjcn, jnr fleinern? These questions

admit of two answers: the vanity
of human nature, and a higher regard for characteristic art than Lessing

(or Winckelmann) attributed to the Greeks. $bcaL Cf. note to 2 f,

27; and Conti in Emilia Galotti (I, 4): ?tnd) ift e8 [bad ^ovtra t bor
Orftna] in ber at nid)t melir gefd)metd)elt, at bte $nnft ferine idjeln in nft.
3)ie tfnnft mnft maten, inie fid) bie plaftifdje ^atur, wcnn e eiue gibt, baS

53i(b bad)te, ofyne ben 9Ibfafl, tt)eld)en ber uMbevftvebenbe @toff niiwerineib*

lid) madjt ; ofyne bad ^Berberb, mtt tueldiem bie tit bagegen anfompft.
 COMMENTARY 349

13. (nb$tt)Crf. Schmarsow remarks (Erldtiterungcn, p. 88), 2)icfer Slugbtlicf

flingt iniS ctttaS l)aubaa*en realiftijd). And in a suggestive article en
Kunst, Symbolik
titled und Allegorie (Zeitschrift fur bildende Kunst,
XVIII, pp. 120 IT., 145 ff.), Veit Valentin properly protests against the

question, What is the purpose of art ? He says art has no one

purpose,
but three kinds of purposes, as the case may be; namely, (i) geftfyaltUMfl
bcu (Svtnuerung, (2) $erforperitng iiberirbtfdjer, ber irbifdjeu analog or*

aiiSflefcfcter 9Jtad)t, (3) 9J?ittei!itng befjeu, urns niait luitt ober Dcvlcmgt.
The arts are an end in themselves, not a mere means of giving pleasure.
Lessing s remark about the prerogative of the government may be said to
smack of paternalism ; but art is universally recognized as having a social
function; and interference with art of doubtful social utility is familiar
in all lands. 23. mtt, along -with other causes. The notion is, that ever-

present ideal beauty reacted favorably upon men and women, and tended
to develop personal beauty in the race. 25. bic d)0nI)Ctt b(l3 l)0d)fte
QJcfc^; Winckelmann said: bte Uornefymfte 9(bfid)t ber $unft, bie
so

W?r*, I, p. 203). As in the first chapter, (cf. 28, 13), Lessing

@d)i)Hljett(
has now made a point in the form of a general proposition. On the fol
lowing page, he illustrates it ;
and then (jj 1

, 20) he applies it to his par

ticular problem. 31. fcin inuffcn, sc. I)at; niuffeu modifies ineidjen as
well as fcilt. 32. The edition of Pliny to which Lessing refers is that of

Jean Hardouin, Paris, 1685.

34. I. bet bcm Wutfbrucf ftefyctt MciOctt, dwell upon the element of ex
pression; i.e., upon the things belonging to individuality and character
as opposed to type. 5. Stttnb, status; umfdjretbcn, describe, in the
geometrical sense. 8. SJJdft. Beauty, then, is a measurable quality.
ii. S* ur ^ c c *- chapter IX, p. 76. 18. Timanthes, Ti/xav^s of
Cythnus, flourished about 400 B.C. A relief on a marble altar at Florence
represents the scene in accordance with the conception of Timanthes;
cf. Amelung, Fiihrer, p. 55; and Ziehen, Anschauungsmaterial, p. 22.
Winckelmann s Gedanken bore a vignette of this scene by Oeser. 25.

QC&ctt 311 fiinncn cf. Note to 27, 24.

; 33. Valerius Maximus, Roman
historian, who
dedicated to the emperor Tiberius Factorum et dictorum
memorabilium libri IX, nine books of memorable deeds and sayings.
35. 2.
Unuermiigenfjett = Unoermogenbfyeit, ba3 Uiujermoflen. 15-

btefc 23erf)tittunQ ift Ctn Opfcr. The concealment of the face, as the

most expressive part of the person, is the last thing that a painter would
ordinarily desire;and the unpleasant effect of such a concealment may
 350 COMMENTARY

be observed, e.g., in Chodowiecki s illustration to Minna von Barnhelm,

II,9 (ed. Nichols, opposite p. 45). It is not to be supposed that Timanthes
adopted a device of his own. Attention has been called to the fact that
in this very scene Euripides
{Iphigenia in Aulis, 1546) makes Agamemnon
cover his head with his mantle. It is natural for the unhappy father vo

shut out the tragic scene from his eyes; and the painter knew that in his

picture this gesture would be universally intelligible. These considera

tions do not, however, affect the validity of Lcssing s proposition that i s
a matter of fact Timanthes did not represent the highest degree of suffer
ing in the person of Agamemnon. But here as elsewhere Lessing to 3
rationalistically postulates a device for what was an almost inevitable
procedure. 20. btefc3, all this; i.e., the principle as illustrated. flt =

beitete w$ t
worked to achieve. Cf. 3d) Ijabc e$ barauf abgefefyen, angelegt,
tifruxnibt ; id) fyoffe, luartr, beufe baraiif in all these expressions aiif

points to the future. 27. cfclljaft, properly "disgusting," "nauseating,"

was in the eighteenth century more current than now in the sense of dis
agreeable. In this sense it is now rather vulgar; cf. /j, 9; j6, 5. fccr

fteHt
= entflellt. 29. JBtlbung = Gtaftolt ;
cf. Note to 27, 15. 32
toenocnbct = abiueubct ;
cf. ntit unuenuanbtem 2litge, with fixed glance,
*9> 5-

36. 4. X tC blojjc WCttC CffttUttQ bc3 Sttltltbcd is not in and of itself

disagreeable, as evident from innumerable pictures of singing men,

is

women, and angels. Cf. the well-known Angel and Lute of Fra Barto-
lommeo. The case is different when a shriek is represented, with the
accompanying distortion of the features; and in sculpture, a wide-open
mouth is in fact a hole. Cf. Volkmann, Grenzen der A iinste, p. 89.

III.

Supposing beauty is artist, but is made

not the supreme object of the
subordinate to truth and expression, is there any limit to this subordin
ation, or to the degree in which truth and expression may be allowed to

prevail ? Lessing asks this question so as to meet those who may be

possessed by bent mobenten SM)ne (cf. 13) on their own ground, and j",

finds that even though the ancient domination of beauty may have been

outgrown, the very material conditions of painting and sculpture impose

limitsbeyond which truth and expression cannot be allowed to go.
These arts, namely, can represent but a single moment (j6 t 26),
 COMMENTARY 351

and what they represent is immobile (jjr, 26). This is a third self-
evident proposition and from it, as from the first two, Lessing draws
;

conclusions.
36. 9. geb(ld)t, past participle of gebenfen ;
the usual modern formula
is lute gejagt. SdjiincS ber Jhutft is different from
18. cin
djbnhett
in ber &Ulljt : art transforms even the ugliest object in nature into a

thing of beauty. This has been a commonplace since Aristotle (Poetics,

IV, 3 cf. Boileau, Art Pottique, chant III, vers 1-4), and the reasons
;

given for the pleasure to be derived from such imitations are two men :

enjoy seeing a likeness, and they can appreciate technical execution in

such matters as coloring cf. supra, p. cxxiii, and 32, 1 1 ff.
;
23. 2lubtttff
. . . A;>flnbllUi(j.
From
this point on, Lessing abandons the first-
mentioned modern quality, 2Bal)vljett, and brings the second, 5lnbrillf,
into immediate relation with ^cmbliing. Both of these steps are signifi
cant. Objectively considered, 2al)rl)eit is separable from 9til$bnt(f. In
a painting that represents still life, an artist may express himselj and yet
treat with fidelity to truth a subject which in itself is expressionless,

such as a bunch of grapes. By means of the Lion of Lucerne (cf. Zie-

hen, Anschauungsmatcrial) p. 5), Thorwaldsen expressed admiration
and regret for the Swiss guardsmen who fell in the Tuileries the dying ;

lion himself is near the point where all expression ceases. Objectively
considered, 3(ll$brn(f is inseparable from aitblmtg ; and conversely,
^anblltlig means action that may consist merely in expiession in

other words, it does not imply locomotion ;

cf. 284, 28. That Lessing
should have jumped at once to expression is in accord with the tendency
to prefer subjects from history (in the widest sense) which he inherited
from the French supra, p. Iviii), and with Winckelmann s tendency
(cf.
to restrict his observations to the artistic representation of man as

well as with Lessing s own predilection for the drama. Man is object
ively the most expressive of natural creatures and human expression, ;

as Lessing defines it, is action. In the essay Von dem Wesen der Fabel
(1759, L-M VII, p. 429), Lessing said, (Sine anbiurtfl itenne id) cine

$olge rjou SSeranberunnfit, bic snfammen cut arr,e6 auSmadjen. 2)tefe

Ginhett bee otter ette 311 einem

air,en rjerufyt auf ber Uberetnfttmmung

Gnbjtrjectf. And farther on in the same essay

he ridiculed certain critics,
Don
saying, (S fyat ihnen nie beifafleit njoflfn, bag and) jeber innere $ampf
o fine bie anberc
?eibenfd)aftfn, jebe ^olgc oon Derfdjtebeitfn fbaufen,
our attention
au^fbt, etne anbtuno fci. This subject will engage
repeatedly.
352 COMMENTARY

37. 3. Wcjiff)tvpuuft. Sculpture, of course, can be viewed from all

sides. 5. crMirft . . .
ftctrntfjtct. Winckelmann says, Gtf ift lltd)t

gcnitg, bafc eiu emalbe gefdflt ; eS mujj beftdubig gefallen ( IVcrkc, I, p.

154). And s
again, 2)cr crftc 3lnMicf fdjoitcr Statiicn ift bci beni, lucldjcr
(Siupftnbimg bat, nrie bie crfte 3lu$fid)t aitf bad offene 3Keer, tuoriu ful) itufev

33tict Dcrliert unb ftarr njirb, aber in hneberljotter. ^etradjtung luivb ber
(9eift fttflev, unb ba8 ^litgc ruf)in?v ititb gcljt uom (9aujen aiif baS CSiiijcIuc
(/., V, p. 262). Cf. Herder, 797, 24 ff. The first glance at anything is
notoriously inadequate, and even careful or repeated examination seldom
leads to the perception of all the details of a picture. There is, there
fore, generally less danger that familiarity and absorption in a work of
art will impair its fruitfulness than that they will not suffice to do it

justice. The
painter expects concentration of attention upon what is
actually represented, satiation with tl\e fullness of his sensuous expres
sions. It is the imagination of the spectator which makes these ex

pressions satisfying; but not because the painter leaves the imagination
free play rather because it is irresistibly but agreeably coerced alone
esthetic paths. Throughout this paragraph Lessing abstracts the poetic
content from the artistic form. Intuitive perception of that which is
within the artistic form is the end at which the painter aims; pleasures
of the imagination due to thoughts that the spectator adds to what the

painter has expressed do not belong to the painter s art, but are the
stuff of which poetry is made. 11. fyin^iibcitfcu and bajllbcitfcit are

synonymous. 14. bic Stnffel cf. Goethe, 7, 2; Note to /j,

l)i)rt)ftc ;

24 and Herder, 797 ff

;
The difference between Lessing and Goethe
.

in respect to the climax of expression is the difference between poetic

interpretation, which adds from her own abundance, and complete sub
mission to the artist s sensuous expression. Lessing says, if the utmost
isrepresented, the fancy cannot soar above and beyond it ;
the fancy is

confined within the limits of what the eye sees provided, therefore, ;

any contributions are to be made by the imagination, they must be

inferior to what is already represented what is already represented is a ;

limit beyond which the fancy cannot go, and it chafes under restrictions,
its impulse is to get iibcr ben finnHdjen (Stnbrudf hinaiiS. Goethe, on the
contrary, desires only to exhaust the possibilities of this very ftnnlidjer
(Sinbrucf : man iibertrage bie SBirfung, bie ba flunfhuerf aiif unS niailjt,

nidjt 311 lebfcaft aiif ba 2$ert fefbf* (9, 28). Goethe may be too
"

pathetic
"

for our taste ;

but Lessing is too little sensuous. We look
 COMMENTARY 353

for fruition rather than for fruitfulness in the creations of the artist.
His creations should contain the elements of the whole story, and
should give an immediate impression of it the imagination which sees :

the end in the beginning can also see the beginning in the end and
there is no point in the succession which under particular circumstances

may not become "fruitful" in his hands. Before we condemn the

climax of emotion, we must ask what emotion ? How caused ? How
manifested ? And if we
finally agree to a general
preference for some
thing below the climax, this will be because extremes are dangerous and
nerve-racking, not because they are essentially unpicturesque, at least
on the ground of unfruitfulness. 18. iiticr bic = liber bie l)iitau$.

24. crft = nut. When we see Laocoon crying out, our imagination
can add to what is seen only two pictures the picture of Laocoon
:

either merely sighing or already dead both of these represent him in

;

states more tolerable to him than the state that causes him to cry out
and less interesting to us. But how about the shrieking Laocoon
that is before our eyes ? Does he produce no effect upon our imagina
tion ? Is there any work of art which produces none ? And are the
weaker pictures (1. 17) able to efface the strong one ? 27. tmtlfttortfrf).

Lessing s definition of transitory as the quality of those things which,

breaking out suddenly and disappearing suddenly, can be what they are
only for a moment (1. 29 f.) is a little more precise than Goethe s (7, 24 ;

cf. /j, 1 8, 24 and Note thereto; also Herder, /?j ff.), but his applica

tions of it show that he meant the same thing as Goethe and his ;

doctrine concerning the transitory is the opposite of Goethe s. It has

been held (e.g., by Bliimner, Laokoon-Studien, II, Freiburg, 1882) that

the transitory of Lessing s definition, the as " "

eminently transitory
Bliimner cannot be represented in the arts. That which is incon
calls it,

ceivable except as transitory, which in the swift course of its motion has
no moment of apparent rest, would seem to defy the painter or sculptor;
for his product is at rest and if the thing represented never seems at
;

rest, is there not an irreconcilable contradiction between our idea of the

thing and our impression of the representation ? Bliimner distinguishes

between the transitory of expression and the transitory of action. A
gleam of merriment or of anger in the eyes, a twitching of the lips
in scorn, are expressions of a momentary feeling which is not recog
nizable as momentary when fixed in marble or on canvas. A whirling
top or a falling body have and seem to have no moment when they
354 COMMENTARY

can be conceived as at rest. But on the other hand, as Veit Valentin

pointed out in his review of Blumner (Beiblatt zur Zeitschrift f.ir
bildende Kunst, March 29, April 5, 1883, col. 409 ff., 427 ff .), it is im

possible to define the in such

" "

eminently transitory away as :o

exclude from the arts; and differences of speed are immaterial.
it

For, as Valentin says, neither motion nor anything else is really

represented in the arts, is really put on canvas; the painter puts on
canvas indications, suggestions, stimuli which mean to us what he can
make them mean: everything visible and some invisible things aie
within his power if circumstances enable him to call up images whic i
we habitually associate with the substance of his expression, however
fleeting this may be. Given the possibility of indicating adequate causi
or effect, the artist needs no further enablement. cannot see a fly We
ing arrow; but we know that an arrow is flying, though on the canvas i:
is stationary, when we see the archer in the attitude of one who has jus
shot an arrow. Blumner suggests an example of a transitory expressior
(p. 59): (Sin JtiinfHcr nMfl ben Jliiflenbltcf inalen ruo Xell nor bent iierl)iing=

ni$uoUcu (d)itfj jetnen srueiten ^fctl anS bent $od)cr ttinimt nub tit ben
93nfen ftecft. Gin brantatifd)er 2)arfteIIer luirb l)ter uidjt oljne OHiirf nub
ftd)er in ber intention be$ 2)td)ter3 ein anfjenbltcfltd)e3 2liif(end)tcn beS

9?ad)eflebanfen$ fur ben $ au/ beS 9RtHngen6 in ben 3U (1

CU beS >elben

miebergeben: inontentan line ein ^Inflendjten beS SBH^o^, benn ba^ lanernbe
be^ ?aiibuogt
ritht anf il)tn. ^aim ba ber bilbenbe ^nnftler eben*
?UltmbgUd). True the artist cannot represent such a gleam of
;

vindictiveness without making it so permanent and self -betraying as to

defeat Tell s purpose of vengeance. But he can conceivably indicate
that there was such an expression in the eye of the hero by its effect

upon spectators not under the immediate observation of the tyrant.

Thus the artist makes use of circumstances. In the case of an isolated
is very much more difficult, but the desire to repre
figure his problem
sent transitory states also very much less likely. On the general subject
of the representation of motion, cf. Ernst Briicke, tfber die Darstelliut^
der Bnvegung durch die bildenden Kiinste, Deutsche Rnndschau, XXVI,
pp. 39 ff., and Justi, Winckelmann, 394 ff. III, pp. 213,
We may thus dismiss the question raised by Lessing s definition of
the transitory as largely academic; his application of the definition does
not imply a meaning different from Goethe s and it remains to be seen
;

how he denied to painting the very thing that Goethe most desired in it.
 COMMENTARY 355

His examples do not illustrate the "

eminently transitory." Letting

them pass for the present as examples of what should not be done in
art, we shall return to the general question of transitoriness in connec
tion with the criticisms of Herder;
cf. 193 ff.

38. 3. La Mettrie, Offroy de (1709-1751), a materialistic

Julien
French philosopher who, in his later years, enjoyed the favor of Fred
erick the Great. "Scmofrit, A^/xoVpiros,
Democritus of Abdera, the "

laughing philosopher," contemporary with Socrates (fourth centuiy B.C.).

6. etlt Gfrtttfcn. His laugh is a grin from the beginning. The
painter, deprived of circumstances which might have provided an ade
quate cause for merriment, represented a man in an unworthy character.
Laughter is not transitory in a "

philosopher"; but apparently

laughing
causeless laughter is ridiculous. Cf. 289, 28. 10.
iiunMiifUirf). As
Herder points out, the same observation might be made of a sighing
Laocoon. Lessing s criterion is therefore rather ethical than esthetic in
the case of both laughter and shrieking. 14. fyfitte flfjoit . . lUtire .

fd)0tt; cf. j^, 8. We

question Lessing s reasons based upon tran
may
sitoriness, and yet admit that he has adduced a second consideration to
show why the sculptors did not choose to represent Laocoon as crjing
out. The first was that his face would not then have been beautiful;
the second that the perpetuation of a cry would have derogated from
is

our opinion of him as a man not because a cry cannot be perpetuated,

but because peqjetual crying is unmanly. Timomachus, Ti/xo/Aa^os,
of Byzantium, a painter at the end of the fourth century B.C. Julius
Caesar bought the two pictures mentioned and set them up in the temple
of Venus Genetrix at Rome. Cf. Tliny, XXXV, u. 20. Ajax, Aias.

Aias, the son of Telamon, king of Salamis, was celebrated by Homer as

the mightiest hero next to Achilles. He rescued the body of Achilles
from the hands of the Trojans, and laid claim to his weapons. When
these were nevertheless awarded to Odysseus, Aias was so enraged
that he tried to murder the leaders of the army but Athena caused ;

him to become insane, and he fell upon herds and herdsmen instead.
After slaughtering many men and animals he recovered his sense?, and
in atonement took his own life. Sophocles represents his death in the

tragedy Aias. Medea, MrySeta, the daughter of yEetes, king of Colchis,

helped Jason capture the Golden Fleece, and followed him as his wife
to lolchos. Put away by Jason in order that he might marry Creusa,
Medea killed her rival by means of a poisoned garment, murdered her
356 COMMENTARY

children, and fled. Medea is the subject of tragedies by Euripides,

Seneca, Corneille, and Grillparzer (Das goldene Vliess). 21.
5tfefrf)rct=

IwmjC". For references see Johannes Overbeck, Die antiken Schrift-

qnellen zur Geschichte der bildenden A iinste bci den Griechen, Leipzig,
1868, pp. 407 ff. As to Medea, we have still better evidence in two
copies of Timomachus found respectively at Pompeii
in wall-paintings

and Ilerculaneum; cf. \V. Wandgemiilde der von dem Vcsuv

Ilelbig,
verschiltteten Stiidte Campaniens, Leipzig, 1868, Nos. 1262-1265. The
latter copy, Helbig, Plate C, Fig. 4 (also in Ziehen, Anschainingsmaterial>
p. 30) is thus described by Helbig: SDJcbca ftcl)t neben Jtuct tllfen,

iueld)e 311 etner Xitr cmporfiifyren, gefleibet in eiueit irjeiften (()itou mit

rbtltdjen <3ct)atten
imb einen roteu iDtantel, lueldjer nm bie niften gettnuu
ben ift nnb iiber bic linte <Sd)iilter
nnb ben liiifeii 5trm Ijerabfdllt, ge=

jd)iniicft mit golbfarbigem aarbanb, ?lnnfpangen nnb Sanbalen. 3bve

$anbi , in rueldjen ba Sa^luert rnbt, ftnb auf bem c^ofje nefaltct nnb bte
SpttJen ber Xanmen snfammengelegt. SDiit bem
^(n^brncfe bcS bbdjften
s
tragtjdjen ]3athod bltcft fie, ben 2Jhtnb ein tnenig geoffnet, nad) lints,
gluten 3DZeev. \ nncnlilirfc ,nuur.
29. etltigc lThe moment chosen for,

Medea, like thatrecommended by Shaftesbury for Hercules (supra, p.

Ixxvi), is obviously, with its $ampf ber miittevltcfyen icbe mit brv Gifcr-

flldjt,
more "fruitful" for the imagination, and more full of motifs for the
painter, than the moment of murder, which would hardly seem to sug
gest or contain anything but wanton or insane cruelty. Whether tran- "

sitoriness" has anything to do with this preference is an open question.

39. 2. cbcn bttruitt. These are ethical considerations. 9. cr=

ftd)cru tinmen, sf. batten ;

cf. ^5-, 14. 10.
ttge0gett=tterfdjafft. 12.

WnfcrCt is certainly no
subject for a painter (cf. the sketch by Michel
fit

angelo in Ziehen, p. 27), but for the simple reason that it is not pictur
esque, not because it is transitory. Medea murdering her children
would be a horrible sight, and Aias slaughtering cattle and herdsmen
would be a ridiculous and at the same time a painful example of mental
anarchy sufficient reasons why the artists should avoid these supreme
moments; cf. Note to jj-, 15. 13. iibcrl)titgcl)cnb
= tioriibergefyenb.
1 6.
^fftloftrat, 4>tAoorr/3aTos,
Flavius Philostratus of Lemnos, a sophist
and rhetor who flourished about 200 A.D., teaching at Athens and
Rome. Of his numerous works, the life of Apollonius of Tyana and
the Heroicus, a dialogue giving a mythical history of the heroes of the

Trojan war, are the most important. His complete works were edited
 COMMENTARY 35^

by C. L. Kayser, Leipzig, 1870-71. 22. baft cr gcroft Ijdt. It is

noteworthy that the most fruitful moment may occur after as well as
before the hocfjfte taffel beS 2lffeft.
This chapter agrees with Goethe s distinction between 9?atumnrflid>
feit llltb ^unftlualjtheit (supra, p. clxvii), and finds that particular con
ditions are imposed upon the artist by the single moment to which he
is restricted. The examples from Timomachus, like that from Timan-
thes above (34, 18) show that, whatever the painter s motive may have
been, he did, as a matter of fact, choose moments not at the climax of

passion, and moments that could be sensibly prolonged. Having thus

observed certain peculiarities of expression in painting, Lessing pro
ceeds in the next chapter to examine the peculiarities of expression in
poetry.

IV.

39. 27. ii&erfcl)c

= itberbUcfe ;
cf. 4, 15. Urfndjeit ; chiefly the
desire to represent physical beauty, and the restraints imposed by the
necessity of representing but a single moment. The following para
graphs take up these points in order.
40. 6. forperlirfjC Sdjiittljeit in poetry is the particular subject of
chapter XX. 7. ^ollfoutiitcnlicit. In conformity with Baumgarten
and Mendelssohn, Lessing assumes that an esthetic object is a specimen
of some variety of perfection ;
his definition of beauty, bte fid)tbave ipitlle

miter iuelcher Soflfommenfieit jur djonljeit luirb, is also Mendelssohnian

(cf. Werke, I, 123, 285); but

it includes
only beauty of bodily form, to
which, of course, neither Mendelssohn nor Lessing restricted the term,
though Lessing seems hardly to have recognized any other beauty in
"painting,"
and Mendelssohn declared that in its strict application,
beauty is a property of bodily forms. Cf.jfz, 27. The first point that

Lessing now makes about poetry is its comparative indifference to this

12. DcrftrfjCrt, past participle, assured. 16. tt)0 ttirfjt . . .

beauty.
at least, at any rate. 18. gng, like 93ilbling (cf. ^7, 15),
bod), if not . . .

of an action. Thus gebcrsilfl is

expresses either an action or the result
a stroke of the pen vxt features. On this
(in either sense), @eftrf)t$$itge

page, 3119 is stroke in the sense of action in 11. 18 and 32 (etnen eiu=

gifleil
and is detail or feature in 11. 23 and 32
3lig), quasi gfeberjUfl ;

ba3 That painting is restricted to

(blefet 3lig). fUr eftrf)t bcfttmmt.

effects that may be produced through appeal to the eye, and poetry
is
358 COMMENTARY

not so restricted, isof course the fundamental difference between the;

two arts familiar from time immemorial. 19. biirfctt, as often need>

in the eighteenth century. only of animals, 01

21. 9J{cwl, now used
contemptuously of human beings, had in
Lessing s time no derogatory
connotation. Cf. Franziska s speech, 3d) l)abe . . lltir mit ber bad . >anb

2Jtallt guljalteil (Minna von Barnhelm,^, 12).

niiiffeit JjaftUdj liifjt,
is not pretty to look at. Cf. (Sin tfamin, ber tin Sominer redjt tjiibjd) lajjt

(Minna von Barnhelm, I, 2). 22. clamores etc., &neid, I, 222 he "

lifted up his voice in horrid cries to the heavens."

31. cut (JdU^CC?

befoubcred Htrf=ein tiicf fiir fid).

fiir fid) bctrndjtct. The differ
ence between the independent treatment of a theme and the treatment
of the same theme as an element in a composite subject has been
alluded to in the Note to /j, 4; cf. also 14, 30 ff. The secret of the
difference is the significance of represented cause or effect.
41. 15. ft
nil lid) 11tnd)CH, make sensuous, give a vivid impressionof, make

poetical. Whether crying out is the only action by means of which a

poet can give the sensuous impression of a man in agony is perhaps an
idle question it is the most natural and effective action
; and this ;

typical illustration of the poetic process is worth dwelling upon. If we

are simply told that a man is suffering, the idea is conveyed to our
minds by a and we perceive the fact but if we are made
direct route, ;

to hear the man s outcries, even though only in the imagination, we/*v/
his suffering. The first process of expression and perception is intel
lectual, the second is sensuous. The first is prosaic, the second is
poetical. Poetry is the expression of ideas in sensuous terms. Things
that affect the senses exist in space, and language is sensuous when it
conveys a vivid idea of such things, or conveys ideas by giving them the
form of such things. If I say, for example, Private life permits free "

dom of action; public station imposes restrictions upon personal liberty,"

the proposition is intelligible, but prosaic and dull, because expressed in

abstract terms. As expressed by Klaus Groth (Werke, Kiel und

Leipzig, 1904, I, p. 253) it is sensuous, vivid, interesting, and poetical:

2>e
$atyn be op ftn 2)Hften fttt, be fann tmil freibn nit fcfcrigen ;

$od? op ben fllocfentfyorn be nbn, be mutt fif brcifrn un ftviflen.

21. mit beflrtffen

= nuttnbegnffenor mibfflrtffen, included. 22. CHnen
onbcrn. . . eincn unbent, one . . . another; cf. Gin anberS ift ; ftd) in it ben 9?e-

getn abftnben, ein anberft, fte tutrffirf) beobadjten (Hamburgische Drama-

turgie, 64. Stiick). 24.
s
Icbcnbti]C JKolerci. Historical painting was
 COMMENTARY 359

brought into especially close association with the drama by the Italian
and the French theorists. The drama is animate painting, with the
important property of incessant and rapid transformation from one
scene to another. Lessing s interest in the drama impelled him to make
the following rather long digression but the comparison of Laocoon ;

with Philoctetes by Winckelmann and himself

(cf. .27, 1 1, 28, 4) gave
sufficientexcuse for the digression, and furnished a typical example of
the representation of violent agony on the stage. Cf. supra^ p. cxlviii.
42. 2.
ftifjtfl, capable of arousing. 3. ju U)Cmg . . . fl(3 baft ;
cf.

32, 1
5. 4- fllei(^ma jjifl ;
cf. jo, 3 1 .
7. ftllftaitb, say admonition to exer
cise caution \
cf. $itftanb ltd) me 11, hesitate. 8. UWtjdn and bvulleu are
strong words when applied to human beings. u. @tc = bic Untfteheu*
ben. 15. $orftcttitng
= >

X)arfh niing. 19. mit ciiicm leirfjteu $nl)He.

The figure is picturesque, though not quite nautical. The light skiff
was perhaps suggested by the idiom cutf Me leidjte <Sd)iiiter nehmen.
The idea is, modern dramatists have either avoided scenes exhibiting

physical suffering, or not made much of them they have not run the
risk of wrecking their ship on this cliff, though they may have cruised
around it in a small boat. 21. f)C0ric. Cf. 282, 10, 22. One should
always remember to Lessing s credit that the utmost confidence in the
efficacy of critical insight never led him to dogmatism or blinded him to
the merits of actual achievements ;
cf. 102, 15, and Hamb. Dramaturgic,
101. 4. Stiick. 29. ^Intltcrfungcit, now restricted to notes to a text,
had in Lessing s time the sense of SBeiuerfung cf. @iehft b, granjiSfa, ;

ba tjaft bu elite fefyr gnte 2tnm!ung gemadjt (Minna von Barnhelm, II,
i). 32. Utnftaitbe bcr efrf)td)te.
In the Dramaturgic Lessing insists,

with Aristotle, upon the dramatist s freedom with respect to the details

of historical fact (Sr brcutdjt elite

:
efd)id)te nidjt barum, tueit fie gefdje*

Ijeu ift, jonberu bantm, vueU fte fo gefd)eheit ift, bafj er fie fdjuierlid) ju
feinem geflemuavtigeu 3iuccfe beffer erbidjten founte (19- Stuck). 9?ur bie

(l)avaftere finb iljni (jeHig (23. Stiick).

43. 5. This, then, was also ftnnfid) ntadjen; cf. 41, 16. 6. Cf. Note
to aS, 4.
44. i. Robinson Crusoe. Defoe s masterpiece (1719) became as
popular in Germany as in England, and gave rise to a host of imitations,
one of which, under the name of the Swiss Family Robinson found its
way back into England. Cf. H. Ulrich, Robinson und Robinsonaden,
Weimar, and F. v. Zobeltitz, Eine Bibliographic der Robinsona-
1898;
360 COMMENTARY

Jen, Zeitschrift fitr Bilcherfreunde, Nos. 8 and 9 (1898). 17.

Cf. ie uergeffen . . . bafe ic uur e i n e 8 ttnuctf macfytin [tub (Minna ion

Barnhelm,\, &). 22. <5djaubcrn Ultb (S lltfcljCH conform to Goethe s

definition of djrerfflt ;
cf. 13, 18 ff.
30. mufitc, had to, because it

was the only means he had.

45. 7. bnfiir, to make up for this. n. SBcforgniu]
= SBejorgniS.
-
14. ifikg JU Hllferu .^er^Clt; cf. Boileau, Artpoctique, chant III:
"

De cettc passion [1 amour] la sensible peinture

Est pour aller au co?ur la.route la plus sure."

Whereas in the play of Sophocles the motive animating Neoptolemus

is desire to obtain possession of the bow, in Chateaubrun s Philoctlte
the chief desire of Pyrrhus (= Neoptolemus) is to obtain possession of

Sophie. 1 6. bctUt (Uttf), as might be expected. 26. Witftcntb, decorum ;

cf. 42, 7. 27. etlt G ltfllailber, Adam Smith (1723-1790), who, though
best known as the founder of modern politicaleconomy, began his career
as a moral and esthetic philosopher. From 1751 professor of rhetoric
and moral philosophy at Glasgow, he published The Theory of Morel
Sentiments in 1759. His Inquiry into the A uture and the Causes of the
Wealth of Nations appeared in 1776. Englishmen are on the Continent
reputed materialistic and "splenetic." 29. beritljrt, touched upon, men
tioned , cf.
j6, 9. iijiit
= bent Ginuwrf.
4O. 2.
bctritfllidjer
= triigenjdjer. (SJcltngt
c3 . .
fdjon; cf. j2,l. .

chapter XXIII.
8. rcillC (lttpftllbltng u ff. What was though:
;
cf.

to be a general law turns out to be an empirical observation of experi

ence in a few isolated cases. 15. flu III crftcit 9)JaIc; cf. jS, 10. 16.

ticrbcifjcu; cf. 29, 4. 27. feute f one s. uuninnbelbarcm. The differ

ence ingender between tebe and aJ3 leads to an awkward grammatica
difficulty. Lessing wrote UlUtjanbelbareill, and this form appeared in the
first edition; but in the proof he had corrected to UUU)anbeIbaren. The
omission of the indefinite article einer would have solved the problem
easily.
47. i.
lottlttett, can; past subjunctive because a condition contrary
to fact is implied. 4 ff Observe the picturesque figure.
.
9. lt3flt=

lniltfti)C J^ragCII. The second of Cicero s stoical Tuscnlanian Disputa

tions was On the Endurance of Pain. 12. nbrirljtCU, train, now used
only of animals, but in Lessing s time also applied to men. Cf. .^millet,
ruemt cr bie $ombbianten abrid)tet (Dramaturgic, 5. Stuck). But in a
contemptuous sense (as here): 9hut rirf)te man etnnml fine bummer $>evbe
 COMMENTARY 35 j_

ab (Dramaturgic, n. Stuck).
<5tatiften 14. nfrfjtS toemger at$, aj-
//// and so, no evidence one way or the other as to the
w/ . . .
bravery
of the person; cf. 29, 9. 16. 6opljotte3. The fact is, Cicero quotes
from Lucius Accius (170-90 B.C.) and, as Bliimner points out, not from
Sophocles. Cf. J. K. O. Ribbeck, Sctznicie Rotnanorum poesis fragmcnta,
Leipzig, 1897, pp. 236 ff. 22. cf.
I, j 9 27.
17. iibcrfief|t; 4, 15; ,

The Roman gladiators were either convicts, condemned to fight, or free

men who fought for pay. 31. bic ettt5tge 9lbfirf)t. This is not incon
sistent with the doctrine of Aristotle referred to above nor did
(/j, 24),
Lessing, in speaking only of pity for Philoctetes a few pages back (43,
24), mean to exclude the other element of fear. He holds pity and fear
to be two different developments from the same source, or two different

aspects of the same thing: pity for the sufferer and fear of the suffering.
In the Dramaturgic^ he says: ?Itte8 ba, fagt ev [9Mftoteie], ift llllS
fiirdhterlicf), tuaS, rocuu e8 etnem cntbern begegnet retire, ober begegneu

follte, unfer 2J?it(eib erruecfen luiirbe ;

nnb aUe8 ba8 finben rutr niitleib=

untrbig, roa8 roir fiirrfjten rwtrben, rocnn c3 un felbft bcDorftiinbc (75.

Stuck); biefe gurcfjt ift ba8 auf un felbft bejogene 2ftttleib (ibid.) and a
perfectly exact definition of the tragedy is bie itarnlid), bajj bte Xvagobie,
nttt eineni SBorte, eiit ebicrjt ift, tuelrfje^ 2ttleib ervegt (77. Stuck).
48. 3. a nickname for professional swordsmen of the
,Ulopffcci)tcr,
seventeenth century, had at first reference to the banging (flopfen) of
weapons, contrasted with the true elegance of cuts and thrusts; later,
however, its meaning was extended to include the swaggering talk of
such fellows. ft Dtljuru, Latin cothurnus, the buskin of the tragic ac

tor. im tfotfyurttC may be translated prize-fighters on the

$Hol)ffcd)tcr
stage. At the most, prize-fighters can expect only admiration of their
stoicism ;
and bie SBetuiinberung ift etn falter 5Iffeft (j/, 3). 5. bie foge=

nanntcn @enecajd)en Xragobten; so-called because of doubt as to the

authorship. Under the name of Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 B.C.-65
A.D.), a stoic philosopher, preceptor of Nero, and
author of numerous

essays, dialogues, and letters, there have come

down to us nine complete
to him. In 1754,
tragedies, of which seven are generally attributed
Von
Lessing printed in his Theatralischc Bibliothek (2. Stuck) an essay
den latcinischcn Trailerspielen, welchc unter dem Namen des Seneca be-

kannt sind, containing summaries and criticisms of two of the pieces (cf.
influence over the
supra, p. xvii). The plays of Seneca exercised a vast
modern "classic" drama, especially of the French, in which much of the
362 COMMENTARY

preponderance of declamation over action may be traced to them. In

England, they were the models of the "drama of blood" preceding
Shakspere. 9. IcrittCH . . allc 9idtur \X\\t\\\\t\\, forgot all they knew
.

about nature, got to mistake unnatural ness for nature ; cf. SRUbtfittQCtt, >en

ber ben Pettier auS

rofemnt uerfennen mitt, verfennt ber Settler uneber
(Minna von Barnhelm, IV, 3). 10. allcllfnUd cilt fitCJU(Ilt, at most a

Ctesilaus. Winckelmann wrote (Gcdankcn, p. 14):

Jtoiiig in Srjrien, ueridjrteb $ed)ter tlou 9tom,

djanjptele btefer itngUicf(id)fu UNeiifdjeu feljeu, bie iljiicn aiifaiiflltd) etu
3lbfd)eii maim 3)iit ber $ett uerlor ftd) baS nienjd)lid)e efiil)!, uitb and)

biefe 2d)aujpiele uuirben <5d)iileu

ber tfiinftler. (Sin ^tefUad ftitbierte I)ter
fetnen fterbeuben ^edjter, ,,an incident man jel)en fonnte, une inel uon feincr
(Seele nod) in tf)in itbvtg tuar." The quotation is from Pliny, XXXIV,
8. The artist s name is
variously spelled in the MSS. Ctesilaus, Ctesilas, :

and Cresilas the last now being generally recognized as correct. He

lived at Athens in the time of 1 hidias when, of course, there were no
gladiators there and was particularly celebrated for a statue of Pericles
(Pliny, I.e.). The famous Dying Gaul in the Capitoline Museum at
Rome (cf. Ilelbig, Fiihrer^ I, 367) is a product of the Pergamenian
school (c. 200 B.C.). There is no certain identification of the statue of
the dying gladiator attributed to Cresilas by Pliny. 12. fiinftlirf) ;
cf.

j,3i. 13. OiobontOlttabCH, rodomontades, boastful speeches. Rodomonte,

"one who rolls away mountains," is a braggart in Boiardo s Orlando In-

namorato and in Ariosto s Orlando Fur ioso. 17. cillCC?

s
J!)lcitfd)CH ;
a
Latinism for bie etneS 2)?enfd)en. 20. jeljt . . .
jeljt, equivalent to balb
. . . balb.
49. 15. 3fall = *\\\\Q&, paroxysm. 21. Wctftcr
= err.

50. i. SciVjUrfnitflCU, now ^ncfnncien ;

as above (45, 25). 5. Gar-
rick, His unsurpassed fame as an actor began with
David (1716-1779).
the impersonation of Shakspere s Richard III in 1741. UCriniiflCnb ;

cf. Note to jj, 2. 7. SftUOpOC, (TKcvoTrotta, "the making

of masks,

costumes, and stage properties;" here in the sense of stage business in

general.
As we have said, the latter part of this chapter is a digression, but it

is germane to the subject, and

the argument. The epic poet
it fortifies

does not avoid shrieking; neither does the dramatist and the dramatist ;

is a poet-sculptor (cf. supra, p. cxlviii). If the sculptor avoids shrieking,

this is because of the special demands of his art, demands not im-
 COMMENTARY 3(53

posed upon the poet or the dramatist. The following chapter returns to
Laocoon, taking up first the question of the date of the statue, and then
the natural inquiry whether Virgil imitated the sculptors, or the sculp
tors imitated Virgil.

V.

O. 12. ilatfer; the Roman

emperors, beginning with Augustus,
i.e.,

27 B.C. Marliani of Milan, an antiquary of the sixteenth century.

15.
His Topography of Kome appeared in 1544. On a sheet of paper con
taining the passage quoted at the foot of the page, Although they seem
-

to have designed the statue according to Virgil s description,

they did
not imitate the description in all respects, perceiving that many things
are not equally suitable or pleasing to both the ear and the eye," Les-

sing made the comment, 3d) folttc fa ft jelbft gtaitben, irf) Ijcitte iiber biefe
SSovtc ciiieu ommentar frfjreiben ruolleit (written in 1765; L-M XIV,
p. 403).Marliani s words contain the substance of Laokoon in a nut
shell. Montfaucon, Bernard de (1655-1741), was a learned Benedictine
monk and antiquary. His chief work F AntiquitS cxpliqute et represented
en figures, was printed in fifteen volumes in Paris, 1719-1724. 27.
Agesander, Polydorus, and Athenodorus, the sculptors, seem to have
"

worked in emulation to leave a monument corresponding to the incom

parable description that Virgil gave of Laocoon."
51. 5. mirf)flCnl)Htt, copied, in the ordinary sense, not to be confused
with the discussed above (Note to 24, 27). In both
"artistic imitation"

senses itad)af)llieit when the object is a thing; in

takes the accusative
the sense of copy or imitate (as ordinarily understood), it takes either
the dative or accusative of a person. Lessing s usage does not differ
from that of the present day with respect to this verb. 7. Macrobius,

Ambrosius Theodosius, a Roman grammarian of the fifth century A.D.

Ilis principal works were two books of commentaries on the Dream of

Scipio, and seven on the Saturnalia. The latter, in the

form of dialogues,
is especially rich in literary, mythological, and antiquarian lore, compiled

from a great variety of sources. Lessing s citation from the Saturnalia

may be rendered as follows: "

Do you think I am going to tell of all

the things that, as everybody knows, Virgil got from the Greeks ? That
in the pastoral he cribbed from Theocritus, in poems on country life
from Hesiod; and that even in the Georgics the signs of a storm
and of fair weather he took from the Phenomena of Aratus? Or
 364 COMMENTARY
that he transcribed almost word
word from Pisander the story of
for
the sack of Troy, wooden and everything else in his second
horse, Sinon,
book? Pisander is eminent among the Greeks as the author of a wo k
which, beginning with the marriage of Jupiter and Juno, narrates in
order all the events that have occurred during the centuries up to Pisan-
der s own time, giving one connected account of events that happened
at wide intervals. In this work the destruction of Troy is thus relate^,
among other things. Virgil made up his account of the fall of Troy I y

faithfully translating the account given by Pisander. But these and the
like matters I pass over, since everybody learns them in school." Pi
sander. There are several Greek poets of this name, and opinions
differ as to which one was meant by Macrobius. There is no evidence
of the way in which the story of Laocoon was treated by any Pisander.
52. 5. btc flrierf)tfrf)C XrnbittOH
is uncertain,, and the evidence of

late authors who make references to it, conflicting; cf. supra, p. ix.

12. Virgil and only poet who represented Laocoon and

was not the first

both sons as having been killed; Sophocles did the same thing. Fui-
thermore, it is not certain, though probable, that the sculptors intended
to leave open no hope of escape for the elder son. Cf. supra, p. x
Ileinrich Brunn, Kleine Schriften, Leipzig, 1905, II, pp. 500 ff., and II
Bliimner, Nene Jahrbiicher fur Philologie und Fadagogik, LI, pp. I7ff.
In Lessing s syllogism, the major premise is erroneous, the minoi
premise doubtful; the conclusion proves nothing and is on othei
grounds probably erroneous. Lessing uses the conclusion, however,
only as a working hypothesis, and its historical inaccuracy does not in

validate his esthetic argumentation on the difference between sculpture

and poetry. He returns to the question of the age of the statue in
chapters XXVI
and XXVII, which we have omitted. 29. in ctMCtt
ftnotcn. The pictorial value of this bond of union, upon which Goethe
lays so much stress (/o, 30 ff.), becomes apparent by contrast to a Pom-
peian wall-painting in which the victims are not thus united; cf. Brunn,
p. 510; Bliimner, Plate III.
I.e., Only by means of this idea could the
work be flefd)foffett (6, 10). This is the first of four points of comparison
between the sculptors and the poet. 32. ttiifl . . . ntdjt ftltbeit, pro
fesses that he cannot find: "There is some little difference between what
Virgil says and what the marble represents. It seems, according to the
poet, that the serpents left the two boys in order to coil about the father:
whereas in the statue they wind at the same time about the boys and
their father."
 COMMENTARY 366

53. 3. JEneid, II, 212 ff.:

"

Their destined way they take,

And to Laocobn and his children make ;

And around the tender boys they wind,

first

Then with their sharpened fangs their limbs and bodies grind.
The wretched father, running to tlieir aM
With pious haste, but vain, they next invade ;

Twice round his waist their winding volumes rolled "...

Dryden.
The exigencies of his verse compelled Dryden to omit the weapons (tela)
which Virgil mentions; to the sculptors these would have been a still
greater encumbrance. 16. <y0rtfri)rettUUfl ovtgcmg. Lessing s in
=
terpretation plausible; but the poet does not compel it.
is 20. Dona-

tus, Tiberius Claudius, a Roman grammarian who flourished about 400

A.D., and wrote a book of commentaries to the -Eneid. He is not to be
confused with ^Elius Donatus (fl. 350 A.D.),
the author of a Latin gram
mar was the standard during the middle ages. Note 5
that Which :
"

[serpents] he said above to be both long and powerful, and to have sur
rounded the bodies of Laocoon and his sons with many coils and to
have reared to some extent above their heads."
23. ciuleitdjtct, shines,

flashes in, is used in this admirable expression with the full force of its
original sense. The verb has now for the most part only its secondary,
derived sense of "be
apparent," "become clear," "seem the right thing
to do," with the dative of the person ; e.g., 2)iefe rititbe lendjteteii iljm
fill, Jie saw
the force of this argument.
54. 3. With both his hands he labors at the knots." Freedom of
"

the hands is the second point of comparison and concerning this there ;

could be no doubt, Lessing says, as to what the sculptors would do :

attitude and gesture are their principal means of expression. 15. Third
point of comparison. 19.

round his waist their winding volumes rolled,

"Twice

And twice about his gasping throat they fold.

The priest thus doubly choked their crests divide
And towering o er his head in triumph ride."

22. b(t3 OJift. The serpents will presumably strike at his face. 26.

Jtt foitttcn.
The subject of this infinitive is the indefinite observer,

understood; cf. 28, 15.

55. i. (wSbrutfenb = ausbrucfsoofl. 5- flettrirft,

obsolete for be*

tuareiu This effect is still

iuirft; sc. 5. Wrauttoalifdje Bufphjung.
366 COMMENTARY

more striking with the right arms properly restored. 10.

9)tenfur,
Latin mensura, proportion, balance, harmony of parts. 13. bciltt .

Ollrf),
as
you might expect; cf. 43, 16. 14. ftrtUIJ ((et)ll, a Germa i
painter and engraver, born in Rostock in 1590, died in London in 1658.

-15. flberfoljen; cf.

S9
3bce bcr flefjcmmtcn ftlwljt is
, 27. 20. bte
one of those poetic imaginings which Lessing adds to what is actuallv
represented in the statue; cf.
j;, 10. 21. This
Ullbctt>CflUrf)fett.

seems the very opposite to what Goethe saw; cf. 7, 28 ff. The statue
certainly does represent a moment of rest, however short. Goetht
thought especially of the shortness; Lessing, of the rest. Cf. 314, .\

-fitufiltrf); cf.j, 31.

5<>.
4. SBeflciblUlfl ;
the fourth point of comparison. 8. $luilifli? :

fofylt.Laocoon was the son of Antenor, one of the princes of Troy;

Hyginus makes Laocoon a brother of Anchises. 13. fctltc Stoffc.
Greek sculptors were by no means unable to carve drapery, and modern
virtuosos have achieved marvels in the reproduction of laces and veils;
but still, the Greeks preferred the nude even when in actual life the

persons represented must have been clothed as Laocoon the priest

must have been in the exercise of his sacerdotal functions. The Greek
fondness for the nude a ready explanation in the reasons
in all arts finds

adduced by Lessing 24 ff.)and by Goethe (j, 18), as well as in the

(1.

habits of their daily life. But there are special reasons for the avoid
ance of clothing in sculpture. In the first place, it is true that thick
folds (1. 14)
mean large masses of stone that would upset the equilibrium
and detract attention from the human forms; and though clinging gar
ments would not be similarly inconvenient, buttons, buckles, braids, and
even girdles are too frail, and too suggestive of human frailty, to endure
petrification (cf. Goethe s criticism of Schadow s Zieten, supra, p. clxvi).
In the second place, the simplest clothing is hardly conceivable without
color; and this, the very element of painting, is an element which finds
no employment in sculpture. In the third place, as was said above
(Note to 7, i), clothing not only detracts from the typical quality of the
human figure in sculpture, but also tends to sxibject to circumstances,
and, since costume etymologically and actually custom, to connect
is

with habits. necessary and desirable in certain cases but the

This is ;

sculptor will desire to minimize the necessity. Clothing is a picturesque,

not a statuesque element. Cf. in Schmarsow s Erlauterungen, chapter
IV: Nacktheit und Bekleidung, pp. 29 ft.
31. ttttfcre
 COMMENTARY 357

fraft fteljt itbcrafl Ijiltburdj. What it sees, as Lessing explains, is the

imagined outward expression cf emotions that are made known to us
by the poet s narrative.

57. 3.IjiltbCft mrf)t oKctU Utrfjt, bicfc 2$illbe.

ftC Lessing is ex
tremely fond of this form of expression: the subject is a pronoun, and
the noun for which it stands is added as a kind of afterthought, for the
sake of clearness. Cf. Hub ift fte bltub, llieilte JiebeV (Minna von Barn-
helm, V, 13). 6. sEneid, II, 221 :
-
"

His holy fillets the blue venom blots."

This intensification through the use of color would, of course, be possible

in painting; would it be equally effective in painting and in
pcetry?
12. bicfc ^iltbe. As we have seen above (Note to 7, i), Laocoon wore
a wreath; but it could not have concealed much of his brow. 17.

flCrtltnfdjiilJtfl,
now "contemptuous," is here contemptible, i.e., unimpor
tant. 20. 9Jot erfailb bic ftlctbcr is a dubious proposition; in warm
climates the motive of adornment was at least equally strong. But this
element of the characteristic operates equally with the considerations
adduced above to assign clothing primarily to painting as distinguished
from sculpture. Here, as in so many other places, Lessing does not
distinguish between these two arts.
In chapter V the assumption having been made that the sculptors
imitated the poet, it appears that in the interest of their art they departed
now and then from their model. Chapter VI reverses the supposition,
and inquires why the poet, if he imitated the sculptors, departed from
the model before him in their statue.

VI.

58. 22. $er

dij; 23, jr, Anm. 5. 28. Maffei, Francesco
cf. \\

Scipione, marchese (1675-1755), Italian poet

and archeologist. His

tragedy Merope(\ j\^) attained great celebrity and inspired Voltaire to

write his ; cf. Hamb. Dramaturgic, 36.

Mtrope u. 37. Stuck. Richard

son, Jonathan supra, p. Ixxix

; Hagedorn supra, p. rxxxii. Hagedorn ;

of Virgil: @ctu frioloon ift bciS fllitrflidji abev etruaS rjeran*

1

(I, p. 37) said ,

bcrtc 9?ad)bilb ber bevrtidjcu ruppe bveier titnftter, unb a He feiue 53e=

fd)reibuna,eu fmb nialerijd) gemeffen, ate ob or niit ^iehung ber

unb fo

fliinftler obcr fitr biefelbni gefcfivieben ptte. Gr hat ibneu bic enmlbe
tJOrgertffcit (sketched or outlined).
368 COMMENTARY

59. i.
Spljarc bcr ^ocfic ;
cf. 40, 7, 26. 2.
ctftigfcit ;
cf. 4, 23.

4. berft=Derbecft. 5. frf)aubct=beeintvaci)tii3t. bic $ingc fdbft.

Bliimner and Schmarsow aptly cite Schiller s verses (
IVallensteins Tod,

11,2):
fieidit bet eincmbcr u?olwcn bic Okbanfcn,
odj bart im 9Iaume ftofecn fid? bie 3ad?en.

6. ^cirf)CH, the signs or symbols, i. e., the means of expression. Since

between painting and poetry has
Aristotle, every attempt to distinguish
taken some account of the different means of expression in the two arts,
though it may not have got beyond the observation that painting uses
lines and and poetry uses words. Du Bos attributes to painting
colors,
and to poetry the use of artificial or conven
the use of natural signs,
tional signs and Mendelssohn bases his classification of the arts upon
;

the same difference defining the terms, however, more sharply than
they had been defined before. Lessing adopts Mendelssohn s definitions
(cf. supra, p. cxxiv). A sign or symbol is natural if its distinctive

quality is a quality of the thing which it designates, or for which it

stands. In drawing, lines are natural, because they make a contour
which corresponds to the contour of the thing drawn. Colors are
natural symbols for redness of a color represents redness in an object.
;

Marble is a material which may be carved into natural symbols; for it

may be made to resemble objects with the three dimensions in which

they exist in space. Painting and sculpture, then, so far as we have

seen, make use of natural symbols. But poetry makes use of words;
and if we except certain onomatopoetic words, and the exclamations
which rather accompany than designate certain emotions, the distinctive
quality of words is not a quality of the thing which they designate, or
for which they stand. What we call a rose, by any other name would
smell as sweet. A statue or picture of a horse is recognizable as a
horse by anyone who can see, and knows what a horse is. But the
word ^ferb has none of the qualities of the horse it is a sound; it can :

neither run, haul, kick nor bite; it cannot be seen or if seen when
spelled and printed, it does not look like a horse it does not represent
the animal to the senses; it can only suggest the idea "horse." Fur
thermore, it can suggest this idea only to those who understand German,
^fffb, cheval, TTTTTOS, equus, horse, are all conventional or arbitrary

symbols conventional not in the sense of having been adopted by

agreement, but in the sense of passing current by common consent of
 COMMENTARY 36 g

the peoples using them and arbitrary because ;

any other words that
might be in use would serve the same purpose just as well. 3)tc lldtur,*
Iirf)cn ,3eid)en be* 2)ingc must take up space and consume time, if the

things themselves exist in space and time as all things do. 10. bet
mnleitbe is an expression that in another context
"Stdjter Lessing might
have avoided. But we do not forget the universal currency of maleit in
the sense of "depict
in words" before and during his time;
especially
in the vocabulary of the Swiss
critics. Cf supra, p. civ. 16. uilfcre .

Qwtbilbttugofrnft ; cf.j?, 9 ff Lessing disregards the sensuous pleas

.

ure of purely physiological reactions; it is probable that he was not

himself very sensitive to it, certainly not in the degree that Goethe was.

His meaning may be illustrated by reference to another art. The means

of expression in music are natural sounds; conventionally, music is
written in notes on a staff, which have no tonic quality. Nevertheless,
a trained musician can in imagination get more pleasure by reading a
printed score than a person ignorant of music can derive from an
orchestral performance. Lessing affirms that beauty experienced in
contact with a work of art is a subjective phenomenon for the pur ;

poses of the present argument it is therefore indifferent whether the

imagination be stimulated by a representation to sense, or by the subtler
suggestion of words ;
that which is beautiful to the outward eye is also
beautiful to the inward eye. The preceding chapter has shown that the
converse of this proposition is not true to the full extent. Chapter
XVII draws other conclusions from the difference between natural and
conventional symbols. 22. btC 2$ornu3feljU1tfl, which Lessing makes
for purposes of argument, is now postulated by F. Hiller von Gaertrin

gen (jfahrbuch des archtiologischen Instituts, XX, p. 119), on what

grounds he has not yet made known. It seems probable that the statue
was not brought to Rome until after Virgil s time. 27. Uttbcqucmltrf)

tcttCtt, ineptitudes. In the eighteenth century bequettt was regularly

used in the sense of paffenb ;
cf. j<5, 14, and ftrf) 311
etttmS beqiteinert. 31.

by printing in a note which we have omitted

illustrates a de
Lessing
Sadolet
scription of the statue in Latin hexameters by Cardinal Jacques

(1477-1547).
CO. 4. cinlcnrfjten 54, 23.
;
6. fid) . . . mafctgett,
cf. moderate, ^s
content himself. 8. erratctt Jit lafictt, be only surmised , cf. 53, 10
Itltr
cf.
ff. 11. uorfteff)Ctt=I)eruorfterf)e:t, be prominent. 3rfj fjabe gcfogt ;

8. -14. $rurf=ftad)brucf, ^//foj/.r.-- discover, re 15- eittberfeit,

jj, 1

veal.
370 COMMENTARY

61. 2. rabatton. To this the poet might well have been impelled
not only by the example of moderation in the statue, but also by the
particular capacity of his art to express it ; cf. Notes to /j, 24, 14, 30.
ii. ouS ciitcm mnlcrifdjcu fttinenpunftc (
= eftd)tpimfte; cf.jo^,
16). Pictorial art requires, as is explained in 1.
15, a whole that the eyi
can take one glance. In a single picture, therefore, the painter would
in at

not represent the misfortune of Laocoon and the destruction of Trov

each for itself, but both only as parts of a greater whole. The poet cai
treat both, one after the other. Cf. 293, 23 ; J//, 3.
O2. 4. One starts and makes its way to Laocoon, writhes about
"

his whole body above and below, and with a savage bite strikes at his
side. But the slippery serpent glides along with frequent turns, and
. . .

ties itself into a knot about his knee." 9. Sadolet ;

cf. Note to 59,

31. 13. Bis medium etc. Cf. jv. 19. 16. mujj = bavf ;
cf. 29, 11.
- tnifS reinc
= in8 reitlC. 26. iilicr bic 1)fot, more than is necessary,
cf.J7, 1 8.

<> $. 10. nrie oben ;

cf. 52, 12 and Note thereto. 21. bcritljrt ;
cf.

j6, 9, 43, 29. 24. looHcn = fageit ruollen.

VII.

According to the sentence quoted from Plutarch on the title-page,

which is the motto for this treatise, poetry and painting differ both in
the things imitated (or expressed) and in the manner of imitating (or

expressing) them. The first four chapters of Laokoon deal with the
things imitated, with the question as to what is appropriate for painting
and what for poetry and the discussion i3 based upon an observation ;

of Winckelmann s about two different treatments of one and the same

subject. To this discussion chapters and VI are supplementary, V
dealing with the possible relations of the sculptors and the poet who
treated this subject and also transitional, preparing the way for chap
;

ters VII
deal with the manner of imitation or expression
to XV, which
in poetry and painting. The method of these chapters is identical with
the method of the first group (I to IV). In chapters VII to X the dis
cussion is based upon observations made by Joseph Spence (supra, p.
Ixxix) ;
in chapters XI to XV, upon observations made by Count Caylus
(supra, p. Ixiii). All the chapters from I to are in turn preliminary XV
to chapter XVI, in which Lessing summarizes the results of his previous
 COMMENTARY 371

inductions in a series of propositions, from which, as fundamental prin

ciples, the true differences between painting and poetry are deduced.
Chapter VII begins with a definition of two kinds or modes of imita
tion; one, artistic production in the Aristotelian sense (cf. 24, 27); the
other, copying, in the sense of following a pattern or model taken from
a different art (cf. j/, 5). It seems as if Lessing must have had in

mind the distinction made in a book that exerted a strong influence

upon generation in England and in Germany.
his In 1759, Edward
Young (1681-1785), the author of the celebrated Night Thoughts, pub
lished an anonymous letter to Samuel Richardson, with the title,

Conjectures on Original Composition. Young took the ground that only

he was entitled to the name of a great poet who followed the bent of
his own genius andrefrained from copying the methods of literary
however much he might admire them and their works.
authorities,

Young s Conjectures were translated into German by Hans Erich von

Teubern in 1760, his demand for originality was echoed by Ilamann,
Herder, and Gerstenberg, and gave a powerful impulse to the self-
reliance of the Sturm und Drang. In the Dramaturgic Lessing took
occasion to rebuke the claims of genius to superiority over the rules of
reason and experience. Cf. J. L. Kind, Edward Young in Germany,
New York, 1906. s examples make clear his application of
Lessing
Young the problem of the relation of the arts.
s distinction to

28. The subject of Sadolet s poem was the statue his description
C>3. ;

of the statue was an artistic production just as much as if he had de

scribed a group of real persons in combat with serpents.
64. 3. Virgil, ^-Eneid, VIII, 626-731. Virgil describes the shield as
a shield. like Sadolet s, is an artistic production.
His description, 9 ff.
But if narrative Virgil had adopted methods of expression used
in his

by the sculptors in the statue of Laocoon, he would have copied; his

narrative could not have been called an artistic production for his sub ;

ject was the

story of Laocoon, not the statue,
and in copying from the
statue, he imitated an imitation, not the thing itself. 26. ntrf)t fcfylett,

, .
ntdjt. The
pleonastic negative,
due to French and Latin in
baft
fluence, was commoner in Lessing s time than now, but still occurs.
29. SBceifcrilttfl
= ffietteifer. 32. CUtfftU^en, trim, adorn, glorify ;
cf.

ben 53art fhifefii, gufhifeen, @tufeer.

65. 6. rtJCnn ott HUH, deo volentc; colloquial in much the same
sense as meinettuegen. 9- Spence; cf. supra, p. Ixxix. The extracts
372 COMMENTARY

from Polymetis made by Tindal bore the title A Guide to Classical

Learning. mit triclcr ffafftfcfycn; nowadays we should prefer mit mel

ttafftfcfjer. 17. Valerius Flaccus, a Roman poet (died 89 A.D.) who left
an unfinished Argonautica in eight books (ed. E. Baehrens, Leipzig,
1875). In the passage cited, Valerius tells how the soldiers of the Scy
thian king Colaxes anticipated the Romans: "Thou, Roman soldier,
wert, then, not the first to display upon thy shield the ruddy wings of
[Jove sJ gleaming lightning." 23. Juvenalis, Decimus Junius, Roman
satirist of the latter half of the first and the first half of the second cen

tury A.D. ,$crmcf(il!tc, hermes, hernia, a boundary stone dedicated to

Hermes ordinarily a shaft surmounted by a head, as Lessing says
; (66, 2).
Hermie are, however, sometimes found with hands and even feet.
OO. Jo. Juvenal, Sat. VIII, 52 ff :
-
"While thou in mean inglorious pleasure lost
With Cecrops! Cecrops! all thou hast to boast

Art a full brother to the crossway stone

Which clowns have chipped the head of Hermes on."

Gtfford.
I 5- fl^OflCtt ftdjdbt fytittC. @ef)abt seems here superfluous, very much as
got in the expression I ve got it, meaning / have it; but flefyabt is here
logical, is still occasionally found in such constructions in literature, and
is frequent in colloquial speech. Cf. Grimm s WbrUrbuch^ IV, ii, 76,
s. v. fyaben. 25. ^nbcm = inbeffen. 31. abgcfiUjrt
= abijeferttgt.

34- flcringfrfjabtg ; cf.j?, 17.

<>7.
Tibullus, Albius (c. 54-19 B.C.), Roman elegiac poet.
5. 7.

fl)rifrf)C (tycriidjC,
Oriental perfumes. The Roman poets frequently use
Syria for Assyria. Cf. supra, p. xli. 35. The edition of /Esop s
Fables referred to is Johann Gottfried Hauptmann, Leipzig, 1741.
that of
68. 2. cin anbcrcr Xirfjtcr, Publius Papim us Statius (c. 45-96 A.D.),
celebrated for his epic poem Thebais, and an unfinished Achille is. Of
his collected occasional poems, called Sylva, there are five books. 5.

Araxes (a river in Armenia) shelving his contempt for the bridge. 10.

2Ba3 fallen lutr, sc. aufangen. 17. efel; cf. 36, 5. 20. Addiscn; cf.

supra, p. Ixxii. 25. ticrflctncrlirff

= tterfleinernb ;
cf. 34, 17.

VIII.

69. i.
5(f)nttd)fett. Spence assumes similarity as a matter of course;
Lessing, in emphasizing the difference, sometimes proves too much, but
 COMMENTARY 373

is right in his main contention. 6.

$oefte bic lueiterc Shmft ; this has
been established above, j?, 27 ff. 14. Bacchus. Dionysos, or Bacchus,
the god of fruitfulness and growth in the vegetable later es
kingdom
pecially associated with the vine and wine was a divinity of Oriental
origin; and his strong animal characteristics led him to be actually con
ceived, in primitive times, as having the form of a bull or a goat. Even
in later times, poets referred to his horns (though meifteitteitS, 1.
14, is an
exaggeration) and sculptors also gave him this attribute (75, i) along
with the wreath of ivy (69, 19) and the diadem (70, 7) of which he was
said to have been the inventor (Pliny, A at. Hist., VII,
r
191). These were
natural horns (contra 69, 22), and Dionysos is represented with them in
the best period of Greek art. Herder points out, in a passage that we
have omitted, that Bacchus, like any other god, might assume any form
that he chose, and was, indeed, especially distinguished for such trans

formations, as when, for example, he in the shape of a lion helped the

other gods beat down the giants (cf. Horace, Odes, II, 19, 21 ff.). The
motive attributed to him by Lessing (69, 28) has no justification in ancient
literature. In the arts, we should expect primitive times to take more
pleasure in animal forms, and more civilized times to give the god a more
human character. This was certainly the tendency; and although it is
true that the primitive Greeks were more under the spell of religion, and
the civilized Greeks were more sensitive to esthetic considerations, there
is no reason supposing (75, i ff.) that all statues of Bacchus with
for
horns were intended for temples, or that all statues made for temples
were provided with horns. Even the artist free from the constraint of
rejigious ritesand symbols (76, i) might still give the god his attributes,
though a skilful artist would undoubtedly seek to beautify them. Dionysos
is represented in two distinct types in ancient art: as a venerable bearded

man, and as a voluptuous, rather effeminate youth, the latter being the
favorite after the time of Praxiteles. Both types occur with horns, the
youthful one the more frequently. A celebrated bust of the youthful

Dionysos in the Capitoline Museum (cf. Helbig, Filhrer, I, p. 364) has

horns so little obtrusive that Ovid in the line quoted (69, 25 f. "Thou

hast, when thou appearest without horns, the head of a maiden ") might
easily have had a bust of this type in mind. Cf. Roscher, Lexikon, I,

den
1089; Baumeister, Denkmaler, I, 433; Friedrich Wieseler, Uber
der Wisscn-
Stierdionysos, in the Nachrichten von der kgl. Gesellschaft
schaften, Gottingen, 1881, pp. 367 ff. 23. ftaiWCtt linb atyrtu The
374 COMMENTARY
fauns were the satyrs, Greek mythological figures in later times
Italic, ;

often confused, and commonly mentioned together. In art, the fauns

were represented with the horns and goat s legs of the Greek Pan: satyrs
usually had goat s ears, but no horns. Cf. 290, 24. 24. 3tirn|*d)mii(f :

erroneous. Ovid, Publius Ovidius Naso (43 B.C.-I; A.D.), the facile
27.
teller of stories in verse, whose influence on modern painters has been

hardly less considerable than his influence on poets since the middle ages.
70. 6. tfihugl. .Qabtnctt, now in the Old Museum. The horns on
the head of Bacchus here referred to are not attached to the diadem.
The bust is perhaps not of ancient workmanship. Cf. Wieseler, /.<:., p.
379. felten should be oft.
8. 15. SBcinamen. Lessing s pair of epi
thets are only two of many applied to the god; and his supposition of a

upon the basis of beauty or ugliness is unfounded.

classification 17.
Don fcincr (tyejtalt appears to be a slip of some kind. One
bicjcniftc
would expect biejemge eftalt or biejenicje Don feiuen oftalten. By
the example of Bacchus Lessing has not proved much. 20. 9J2incrti(l

unb 3uno, an( a so Apollo, Mars, Bacchus, and other gods and goddess
l

es, do occur hurling thunderbolts in works of art. In one of the Perga-

menian marbles (cf. Ziehcn, Auschauungsmaterial^ p. 13) Zeus may be
seen hurling a thunderbolt that looks somewhat like a flamboyant marline-

spike. Cf. J. Overbcck, Keitrdge zur Erkenntnis und Kritik der Zeus.
religion in the Abhandlungen der sachsischen Gesellschaft der Wissen-
schaften, X, pp. 45 fi". The discussion in this whole paragraph is otiose.

24. The
mysteries of Samothrace, the secret cult of the Cabiri (Ka-
/Jcipot),
were celebrated, but obscure religious rites having nothing to do
with the question under discussion. Cf. Roscher, Lexikon, II, pp.

2525 ft", and Goethe s Faust, 1.

8074.
71. i-
^Irtiftetl.
The Greek artists also, for the most part, hardly
enjoyed higher esteem than that given skilful handicraftsmen. 20.

iyerftofcunflcn
= ^erftofje, o/enses. 26. vcrfonift$ierte Slbftrafta ;
cf.

Herder, 202, 13 ft".

72. 3. Slffeftc
= ?abenfd)aften. 4- toorfterfjeit ;
cf. bo, u. 7. ab a
flcfonbcrt, abstract; cf. al^ielKit
= abftrafjieren, 23, 10. 13. einc $ttr=

itcnbc would indeed be a poor subject for a statue; nevertheless,

2>cnu

it is too much to say that every statue of Venus represents the goddess of

love as the personification of an abstract quality and nothing else. How,

then, can we account for the differences between the Aphrodite of Melos
and the Venus de Medici? Each of these has an individuality, as well
 COMMENTARY 375

as the Venus
of any of the poets (11. 16
ff.). 23. in sufammengefe^ten
SBcrfcn works in which more than one person is represented, obvi
;
i.e.

ously allowing the artist greater scope than a monumental statue, which
has for principal purpose the representation of the person in his or her
its

essential character. Cf supra, pp. cxlv 324, 3. . 26 ff. If the gods ;

are conceived as persons and not merely as personified abstractions, they

may take part in actions contradictory to the character they are usually
thought to typify, and yet not inconsistent with the conception of person
alities having this or that most prominent trait. Herder mentions (206,
30), for example, Diana (Selene) visiting Endymion, acting, that is to

say, quite contrarily to the ideal of chastity represented

by the goddess,
but naturally, as a woman. Cf. Baumeister, Denkmdler, I, 479 ff., s. v.

Endymion Helbig, Fiihrer, I, p. 301.

;
28 ff; cf. sEneid, VIII, 608 ff.
Venus gives ^neas the weapons forged for him by Vulcan.
to her son
73. ... JU SemitoS. Cf. Hyginus, Fab. 15 "On the
2. Skrtirf)tcr :

island of Lemnos the women having neglected for a number of years to

pay homage to Venus, the wrathful goddess caused their husbands to de

sert them for Thracian captives. But the women, impelled by Venus
herself, banded together and killed the men on the island that is, all ;

did except Hypsipyle (74, 24). She secretly conveyed her father Thoas
to a boat that had been blown thither in a tempest." 5. tmt fterfifldt

SSanflen = maculis suffecta genas, 1. 16, below. 9. cincn anbcrn . *

bamtt For, being swollen with anger,

"

511 tierbiltbcn ;
cf. ^/, i ff. 13 ff.

she does not wish to appear benign; neither does she confine her hair
with a golden comb, nor cover her heavenly bosom. She is fierce and
cheeks are enflamed with rage; she bears a crackling torch,
terrible; her

and, like the Stygian maidens [the Furies] is garbed in black." 19 ff.
Leaving ancient Paphos [a city of Cyprus, sacred, like the whole island,
"

to Venus] and a hundred altars, her face and hair not being as they
were before, she is said to have laid aside the girdle of love and dismissed
the Idalic birds doves, so called from Mt. Idalion, the site of a
[viz.
others who relate that
temple of Venus in Cyprus]. There were indeed
the goddess, wielding in the darkness of the night other fires and greater

darts, hovered with the sisters of Tartarus [the Furies]

about in bridal

chambers, and filled the secret rooms of the houses with writhing serpents,
and all the thresholds with a wild terror." 28. $unftfttt(f
= $unftgriff ;

cf. mit ncflatiocn 8ii9 5 fetylbern.

The painter can
32, 25. 29.
also a means of expression; cf.
negate only by omissions; but omission
is
376 COMMENTARY

Note to j*j, 3. Description in negative terms enables the poet to double

the range of association in the suggestions of his words, and give to Us

expressions a connotation without which they might be almost meaning

less. In Uhland s poem, Freie Kunst, for instance, the final stan;-.a

gains its full effectiveness only by the use of this device:

9tt$t in falten 9)larmorfteinen,

9Jid?t in Zcmpeln bum^f unb tot:

3n ben frifcfyen Gid>enlmtnen

2Bcbt unb raufcfyt ber beutfcije Wott.

A more elaborate description of this sort may be found in Holderlin s

poem, Der Wanderer (Kluge s Austvahl deutscher Gedichte, Altenburg,

1899, p. 238).
74. 7 ff. The metaphor repeats the idea expressed literally in tho
sentence 69, 6 ff.

IX.

In accordance with his fondness for sharp lines of demarcation, Les-

sing, who has said that the supreme object of painting is beauty, and its
sole purpose is to give pleasure, now insists that there shall be no con
fusion between esthetic and historical considerations, and that rules of
art shallbe deduced only from works which were produced in perfect
freedom from extraneous constraints. This principle is sound, but often
apply; and the great artist often proves his greatness by trans
difficult to

forming a religious or social constraint into a means to the production of

beautiful objects. Lessing himself makes a wholesome modification of
his demand when he says (76, 3) jit merfficfye tyurcn.
74. 21. a(3 bic fdiunftcn the most beautiful form.
; i.e., represented in

27 ff.
"

With the wreath,

and garments of young Lyacus [Bacchus]
hair,
she disguises her father, then places him upon a chariot and puts round
about him the brazen cymbals, the drums, and chests full of the silent
horror [i.e., Winding the priestly ivy about her own
the mystic serpent].
bosom and limbs, she brandishes with whistling strokes the wreathed
thyrsus, looking back to see whether her veiled father holds the reins
wound with green leaves, whether the horns swell up from under the
snow-white mitre, and whether the sacred goblet marks him as Bacchus."

75. 26. ber mcnfcfjHrfjcn (tyeftalt. Although Lessing

cine <sd)ttnbun0

is right in his description of the esthetic effect of horns on a human head,

artists have not feared to represent horned heads even in statues to which
 COMMENTARY 377

Lessing himself could not deny the name works of art. In the case of
Bacchus, they held fast to the tradition of semi- animal character when
they made busts and statues which could or could not have been intended
for temples. Jupiter Ammon, with his ram s horns, is a special case; and
so is Alexander the Great be thought his son. But
(11. 32 flf.),
who wished to

Michelangelo chose to represent his Moses likewise with two tiny horns
on head (cf. Springer, III, p. 253); and the ancient sculptors used
his

thismotif in a similar spirit, not because it was a thing of beauty, but

because it was characteristic and symbolical of exuberant power; and
lecause they did not in every work strive to express the typical. The
horns were a means of expression, not an end in themselves. 31. Cle
mens Alexandrinus, Titus Flavius, Greek Father, who died in Alexandria
about 228 A.D. Lessing used the edition of his works published by John
Protrept. = / /Wr^//;Vw;//(7r/30T/37rrt/coV), exhor
>

Potter, Oxford, 1715.

tation. 35. 511 fetn glaiibte; cf. 27, 24.
2. bte
7(>. cf. j/, 23. 4. $eraferebitttgett, conventions.
<Sd)i>nf)cit;

In all ages art has been the hand

^tlfdmtttcl bcr WcIifltlW.
6.

maiden of religion; and Lessing could not have denied artistic quality
to the Athena Parthenos of Phidias, or to the Sistine Madonna of
Raphael. But there is a difference between the constraint (7^, 14) and
what may be called the inspiration of religion ; between the necessity of
producing a work that shall indicate a character (76, 8) and the privilege
of aiming only at beauty of form. 8. bo3 ScbctttCltbc ba$ SBebeut* =
fame. 13. &eitlter Ultb "Jllttiquar.
The connoisseur, following his
instinct, and judging
accordance with his esthetic insight, has the
in

right to establish standards and make definitions which to the antiquary

or archeologist, who is a historian, are at most, of secondary value; for
the archeologist seeks to determine facts and understand phenomena
with reference to conditions of time and place, and does not primarily
inquire whether the truth that he discovers is beautiful
or not. The
connoisseur recognizes a certain relativity, and is grateful for historical
information that helps him to an appreciation of works which have for
him low esthetic value. But only the connoisseur is justified in decid
ing whether a given piece of work is a product of
art or of handicraft;

and the archeologist will often misunderstand him if this distinction is

disregarded. iS.e3,theassertionof theconnoisseur. baljtltnu$bef)lteit,

stretch, as if the connoisseur had meant to say. 19. e3 biefe 8 obff

= i

jenes 1
(l.
22. mtt bcr
6). nut bcr bcfteu ; so Lessing regulaily
erftcn
378 COMMENTARY

repeats the article. Cf. IS8 ift bev enipelherreri ^flid)t, bcm Grften, bc;ii

S3eflcn beijujpringeu (Nathan der \Veise, II, 5). 26. obeu ; ^f.j/, n.
29. Cerynea, Ke/awcat, Kcpvviu, a city in Achaia. Pausanus .f
Magnesia (second half of the second century A.D.), an indefatigable
tra-veller, and the chief authority on ancient Greek topography nnd art.
His great work in ten books was called Hcpo/y^cns rfjs "EAAuSos, LJ-
scriptive Guide to Greece. 32. CUtbriltflCH ;
more commonly UUi b T
einbringen, retrieve, make up. 33. til3 lucldjc
= ba btejelbeu.
77. i.
(ilcQCiitcil*; obsolete for ini egentet(, anbercrieitS. :>.

ftolge
= 5olgerung, inference. 10. Xodjtcr bc^ Satimtutf nut) bcr Cp3
[obft ber SHbea = dljbcle]. This is the Vesta minor of Roman mythol

ogy (cf. Ovid, Fast. VI, 285); the Vesta major or cana ("unsullied )

was the wife of Crelus or Janus, and the mother of Saturn (cf. Virgi ,

SEneid, V, 744; IX, 259). 13. Abraxas, a mystic word probably of

Persian origin, used as a symbol of divinity, and also applied to genn

upon which the word was engraved. Chiffletius is Jean Chifflet, ;i

French advocate, canon, and antiquary of the seventeenth century.
14. Licetus is Fortunio Liceto, Italian physician and antiquary (i577~c.

1656). Banter, Antoine (1673-1741), French archeologist, Les

15.

sing authority in the matter of the Furies.

s principal Cf. Antiqnarischi

Briefe 7 and 8. 16. ctnmfrf). They were really Greek. Very few oi
such vases were then known, and they were incorrectly regarded as
Etruscan. 17. Antonio Francesco Gorio (1691-1757), an
Gorius is

Italian antiquary a Museum Etruscum.

who published Crcftc3 llltl)
V
4*t)(ftbcd, pursued by furies after
Orestes has slain his mother Clytem-
nestra. The situation is familiar from Goethe s Iphigenie. 30. (53

flltb alfo fturicil, llllb filtb aitrf) tcitlC.

Whatever forms may have been
given to Medusa and the Furies in archaic art, these divinities were not
in civilized times represented in horrible forms in the fine arts (as distin

guished from the lower arts and the crafts); but were designated by their
attributes of serpents, torches, and scourges. When Christian Adolf
Klotz, professor at Halle, attacked Lessing s proposition in his book,
tfber den Nutzen und Gebrauch der alien geschnittencn Steine (Alten-

burg, 1768), Lessing had no difficulty in showing in his Briefe anti-

quarischen Inhalts, nos. 6-8 (Berlin, 1769) that the kind of confusion
between connoisseur and antiquary which he had tried to forestall was
the cause of all this tempest a teapot. Herder loyally upheld Les
in

sing; cf. 188 ft.

34. (atufl, Gaius Valerius Catullus (87 B.C.-C. 54
 COMMENTARY 379

A.D.), Roman lyric poet. The verses quoted come from his Carm. 44,
194 .:
"

Eumenides, quibus anguino redimita capillo

Frons expirantis praeportat pectoris iras."
"

Furies whose brow, encircled with snakes in place of hair, portends

bursts of wrath from the breast."

78. Priapus, the lusty god of gardens and vineyards, the very
i.

antithesis of the chaste Vesta, nearly surprised her once when she was

asleep in a garden. Cf. Ovid, Fast. VI, 321 ff Numa, Pompilius, .

the legendary first king of Rome. Tradition placed his reign from 715
to 672 B.C. 1 8. Sylvia, or Rhea Sylvia, bore to Mars the twins
Romulus and Remus. 23. Fool that I was, I lotig supposed there "

were images of Vesta; but I later learned that there were none under
the round dome. Inextinguishable fire is hidden in that temple but ;

neither Vesta nor fire has an image." 30. was the work of the "It

gracious king, than whom the Sabine land has never borne a more god
fearing spirit." 33.
"

Sylvia became a mother; and the images of

Vesta, so it is said, covered their eyes with their virgin hands."

79.Palladium, statue of Pallas, a symbol of the liberty of the

3.

state, comparable to the colossal statues of Roland in several of the

North German cities, such as Bremen, Halberstadt, and Stendal. The
famous Palladium of Troy, reputed to have fallen from the heavens,
was stolen by Odysseus and Diomedes. Various cities later professed
to have it, among others, Athens and Argos. In Rome it was believed
to be preserved in the temple of Vesta. For a picture of Vesta holding
a little palladium in her right hand, see J. B. Greenough, The Greater
Poems of Virgil, Boston, 1890, I, p. 88. 23. With his own hands he "

bore the fillets, the mighty Vesta, and the eternal fire from the inner
most sanctuary of the temple (Virgil, sEneid, II, 296 f .). "

X.

79. 10.
betten; for the more usual gegen bic.

80. 6. = hin^ufefcen; cf j/,

. n. 7- Radius = tab
bajufeijen
the palace of the
(1. 2). 10. Seraglio, @erait, properly speaking
sultan, is here used in the sense of harem. 18. in btefeitt 6tilrfc; cf.

n. cf. cf. 77,

24* 19. barf; 40, 19. 24. Stbftrofta Jjerfonifaiert ;

26; and Herder, 202 ff. 29. etttW aubcrS ;

cf. 41, 22.
380 COMMENTARY

81. i.
nllcflorifrfjC ^igurett. In the Introduction to his Fabeln
(Berlin, 1759, L-M VII, p. 421), Lessing quotes Quintilian s definition

of allegory (Inst. Orat. VIII, 6, 44) and paraphrases it: 2)ie Megorie

joflt ba uid)t, roa8 fte ben SBorten nad) ju jagen fdjeint, fonberu etmaS
s
JU)ll(td)e8.
It behooves us to be clear about Lessing s application of

this definition. In sculpture, personified abstractions are not recogniz

able unless provided with symbolical attributes; and these attributes
make the figures that are endowed with them allegorical; for the figures
are one thing and signify another. In poetry, on the other hand, per
sonified abstractions are not allegorical; they are what they represent;
and since their action reveals their character, they do not need attributes.
In sculpture, a woman
holding a bridle signifies moderation. In poetry,
Moderation as a person exercises or counsels self -restraint- she is not
like something, she is that thing; and if instead of making that thing
the subject of his "imitation" that is, letting Moderation act in ac
cordance with her character the poet elaborates symbols and at
tributes such as the sculptor uses to distinguish Moderation from Con
stancy, he not only mistakes the means for the end of his "imitation,"

but also (as appeared from pp. 63 f.) copies the procedure of another
art, and imitates an imitation. Most writers on poetry have regarded
the fable as a form of allegory. But Lessing declares that the simple
fable not an allegory; for the reason that it does not express some
is

thing similar to a moral truth, but the truth itself; for the reason that
the actors in the fable, whether persons or animals, are qualities per
sonified. The relations in which they stand to each other are those of
a given situation, not like such relations; their actions are those which
belong to their character, not like such actions. In the Wolf and the
Lamb, for instance, the Wolf is
the stronger, not like the stronger; in
the Cock and the Fox, the Fox
the crafty one; and Lessing blames
is

La Fontaine for elaborating the characteristics of a particular fox in the

lines :

"

Un vieux renard, mais des plus fins,

Grand croqucur de poulcts, grand preneur de lapins,
Sentant son renard d une lieue
"

etc.

La Fontaine can be defended; but, to say the least, his heaping up of

attributes distracts attention from the thing expressed (craft) to the
means of the expression (personification); and it is less poetic than

pictorial and rhetorical.

 COMMENTARY 3gj

On the other hand, we must remember that allegory in painting and

sculpture was the favorite device of those professed faith in the who
dogma Ut pictitra poesis, and conceived painting to be at its best in the
expression of thought. It is the
poetry of painting that has most fre
quent recourse to allegories; and it is poetry often pretty bad poetry
that furnishes painter and sculptor not merely with the thoughts
which he endeavors to embody in allegorical figures but also with the
attributes which he needs for the purpose. Pictorial allegories existed

long before painters put them on canvas; and it was not the painter s
need (1. 8) which invented the means of making them recognizable. On
the history of this development Lcssing is entirely mistaken; but the
rule that he lays down for the poet (11. 14 ff.) is not a whit less binding
on this account. Besides Herder s comments (20? ff.) cf. Schmarsow,
Erldnterungen^ pp. 53 ff. 24. eiu SiebltitflSfcljIcr bcr ncucru $trf)ter;
cf.the review of Johann Elias Schlegel s Werke, vierter Theil (1766),
contributed to the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek by Herder; Werke, ed.
Suphan, IV, p. 235.
82. 16. is some objection to calling by the name poetic the
There
attributes that are of the nature of instruments; for they are universal
in sculpture as well as in poetry. Schmarsow (I.e., p. 105) suggests
frjtnbolifd) and mtmifd) instead of aUegovifcf) and poetijd). I should my
self prefer, with V. Valentin, the terms allegorical and symbolical. But
what we call the attributes is immaterial. Lessing s distinction be
tween them, and between painting and poetry accordingly, is as valid as
it is clear. Cruel Necessity always precedes thee, carrying spikes
22. "

and wedges in her brazen hand; nor are the unyielding clamp nor the
molten lead wanting." 30. Sanadon, Noel Etienne (1676-1733),
French philologist. The passage cited is from (Euvres d Horace en
/atin, traduites enfrancaispar M. Dacier et le P. Sanadon, Amsterdam,
1735, II, p. 400. M. Dacier was the husband of Anne Dacier mentioned
above (jo, i). 31. dare say that this picture, taken in detail,
"I

would be more beautiful on canvas than in a heroic ode. I cannot bear

such a hangman s kit of spikes, wedges, hooks, and molten lead. I
have felt in duty bound to lighten this ballast by substituting in the
translation general for particular ideas. It is to be regretted that the

poet needed this corrective." On this ode cf. Herder, 210, 19 ff. One
cannot help thinking how much more Shakspere expresses by Neces
"

this heap of at-

(King Lear, II, 4) than Horace by
"

sity s sharp pinch

382 COMMENTARY

tributes; and the reason is clear. Though Horace s attributes

may be
more poetical than allegorical, they have little effect on either the eye or
the ear, and none whatever on the imagination. It is difficult, if not
impossible, to conceive Necessity as doing anything with her attirait
patibulairc; whereas Shakspere represents action itself.

XI.

83. i. Caylus; cf. supra, p. Ixiii. 3. SWalcrcL Caylus was a con

noisseur of painting, and a generous patron of painters. 12. flcnuttt
= beitufet. SdjUbcrci = emalbe ;
cf. 2>ie
rfjtlberei fefbft, roof fit fie

fl-.feffeii, fjat itjr abun fenber ^ater betommen (Emilia Galotti, I, 4); bie

fbiiiglirfje alrrie ber @cf)ilbereien in !J>reSben (VVinckelmann, Gcdankc:i

von dcr Nachahmung, DLD

20, p. 28). 29. "And send him to be
wafted by fleet convoy, the twin brethren Sleep and Death." 31.
-

regrettable that Homer has left us no account of the attri

"It is

butes that were given to Sleep in his time. To characterize this god
we know but his action itself, and we crown him with a wreath
of nothing
of poppy. These ideas are modern; the first is of some use, but it
cannot be applied to the present case, in which even the flowers seem
to me to be out of place, especially for a figure that is associated with
Death."

84. boweftc 9Jarf)af)mun8 cf. 63, 26.

2. 7. tocrttetncrltrf)
;
cf. ;

68, 25. $te ttltcn ftttnftter. The representation of Death in

31.
the form of a skeleton (cf. Holbein s Dance of Death) is a Christian
conception which gained wide currency in the middle ages, but is hardly
paralleledby anything in antiquity. Skeletons are found in ancient
art,but they represent the dead, not Death. Death is symbolized in
various forms, the one described by Lessing being perhaps the most
common and certainly the most beautiful; cf. Baumeister, Dcnk water,
III, pp. 1728 ff., s. v. Thanatos. Klotz, who had assumed Lessing to
deny the occurrence of skeletons in ancient art at all, took occasion in the
introduction to a translation of a volume of essays by Caylus to "cor
Lessing s statement. Lessing replied in his splendid treatir.e
rect"

Wie die Allen den Tod gcbildct (Berlin, 1769, L-M XI, pp. i ff.) which in
its time was a revelation, and in its main
permanently true. outlines is

The effect of Lessing s discovery on his own generation may be seen in

Goethe s Dichtung und Wahrhcit (book VIII), and in this stanza ol
Schiller s Cotter Griechenlands (i 788) :
 COMMENTARY 383

SBor bag 33ett be3 terbenben. <tn

flufc
37a^m ba leid&te fieben Don ber Cippe,
(StiU unb traurig fenft ein emu
cine Cartel.

85. i. bte fdjtoerer; this point was made by de

2fo3fttf>rung

Piles (Cours de Peinture, p. 422) and others.

3. Virgil; cf. 52, 28, (50, 5.
15. bem aWciftct , . . 511 erlaffen, to forgive the master for the
lack of just so much of the one (viz., invention) as we believe he has
given us an excess of in the other (viz., execution). 18. ein grtffeereS
Serbienft. This computation is exceedingly rationalistic and un-
esthetic. Undoubtedly it is easier to express an idea in words than to
carve it in stone or paint it on canvas; and a familiar idea is more wel
come in a statue or a picture than in a poem
supra, p. Ixiv). But
(cf.
neither poems nor pictures are graded according to their intellectual
contents. Literary form has a value; and painting and sculpture are
not mere expressions of ideas. No landscape painting worth having
is a "copy"
of nature. The artist cannot reproduce the hundredth
part of what really exists in the scene before him, and his representation
of the essential features of the scene to say nothing of suggestions of
tone and atmosphere must be made by means which involve as much
"invention" as is involved in the objectivation of fancies. On the
other hand, the conventional symbols of language can convey no idea
of a natural object to a person unacquainted with the object, or some
thing like it, and the translation
symbols into the language
of these
of line and color is a process of expression not different from imitation
of the object itself. It may indeed be doubted whether illustration
is not an easier art than painting from nature.

86. 2. Thomson; cf. supra, p. xlvi. 17. JBortourfe ; cf. 25, 6

21. rfinbunfl. Lessing s low estimate of the value placed upon in
vention in the art of painting finds some justification in the book by
Hagedorn (cf. supra, p. cxxxii) to which he refers; but Hagedorn s own
authorities (notably Dolce, du Bos, du Fresnoy, and de Piles) mean by
invention much more than disposition and expression; they mean by
it what is called by the same term in books on rhetoric and poetry.
Those who associated painting with the drama, as these men did (cf.
supra, p. Ivi), held that a picture as well as a play should
have a plot;
and the invention of a plot was what they designated as ,,btd)terijd)e
(Srftnbung." 29. "You would do better to dramatize the epic of
384 COMMENTARY

Troy than to be the first to come out with unknown and heretofore un
treated subjects."

87. 2. bcqucmcr =
paffniber; cf. 59, 27. 4. cincn flrofeen erfjritt
uornitv = i orteil, as in 1. 9. 12. ttiif ein3 = mit cinem s
JJta(e. 13.
Lessing here quite at one with the French theorists who likened
is

painting to the drama. In the following line, however, he protests

against their "poetry." 18. bcm Stu^brurfc aufflcopfcrt ;
cf. 36, 12.
20. fiiuntc, can because of the condition contrary to fact; cf. 47, i.

29. X8cqucmltd)fett is here indolence.

88. bo$ ^ubttfum. After Lcssing s time the German public
12.

became more familiar with Homer, especially through the translations

of Johann Heinrich Voss (Odyssey, 1781; Iliad and Odyssey, 1793); and
eminent German artists have since treated Homeric subjects. Asmus
Jacob Carstens drew in the latter part of the eighteenth century re
markable sketches of various scenes in Homer; between 1819 and 1830
Peter Cornelius adorned the ceiling of the Glyptothek in Munich \\ith
Homeric pictures; and Friedrich Preller finished in 1868 a series of

magnificent landscapes from the Odyssey in wax colors on the walls of

the Museum at Weimar. Hardly any of these works are, however,
fully intelligible to the general public without a "key"
fill iinter

(at)lus. 16. Ovid; cf. 69, 27. 19. faiircr ;

cf. 2Bo$ii bie faitre

Arbeit ber braniattfrf)nt ^orm

(llamb. Dramaturgic, So. Stuck).
20. 511 ftefycn fommcn, ordinarily modified by truer or fyod), cost, cuter

mixes the metaphor somewhat; but e8 tommt mid) (mir) jaiter an

would be similar. Lessing would undoubtedly have written fein in
stead of jit ftefyeu fommen, but for the recurrence of fein at the end of
the sentence. 22. Protogenes; cf. 24, 2. 32. gcfc^t, staid, well-
balanced.
8O. i. Impetus animi, etc. Pliny s expression artis libido is vague
and of uncertain meaning. It is perhaps best to translate, after Bliim-

ner, "the impulse of his ambitious mind and a certain eagerness to

master his art" he being a self-taught painter. By this translation
Lessing s illustration loses its point; but he seems to have done Proto

genes an injustice.

XII.

89. 16. ttcntflften3 fdjctnen fifnncn, ftc nirfjt nottoenbig fcfjen 511

inttffen would be a somewhat clearer order for this awkward expression.

 COMMENTARY 335

It would be still better, as Hamann suggests, to read, ober VoenigftenS

fo, bafj e fdjeiuen fonute, al3 ob fie bicjclbeu md)t notinenbig fefycn nriijjjten.
18. tiirf, detail of the action. 21. cnbliri) = am (Snbe, perhaps after
all. 22. tltafcrifrf}, on the part of the painter.
91. 2. SStrfuug . . SScrfjeugc ; cf. p, 12. 6. aufcerorbcntUdje
CiriiffC, The ancient artists avoided subjects in which the gods
would have had to appear towering above human beings. Herder
took needless pains (in a chapter which we have omitted) to prove
that in Homer the emphasis is rather on the strength than on the
size of gods and goddesses. The fact remains that the conception of
such superhuman qualities is poetic and not picturesque; and this is
all that Lessing endeavored to maintain. The absurdity of the plastic
representation of a giant in contact with a normal man may be seen in
Canova Hercules and Lichas (Note to 13, 24).
s 9. ongiu, Dionvsius
Cassius Longinus (c. 213-273 A.D.), Platonic philosopher, gram
marian, and critic, to whom is ascribed a treatise On the Sublime (Trepl
ttyous), which was translated by Boileau, and held in high esteem
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It is accessible
in a translation into English by W. R. Roberts, Cambridge, England,

1899, and into German by F. Hashagen, Giitersloh, 1903. Lessing

refers to a well known passage (IX, 7) in
Longinus s treatise. 20. Derate

rcbct ;
cf. 76, 4. 24. toon bcr Scitc, on the side towards.
92. 5. Vocttfdjc 9icbendart. Herder rightly protests against
this ruthlessly prosaic interpretation (cf. 220 ff.). Homer s cloud
is a real cloud (cf. joj, 28), and it is found represented as such in
ancient and in modern paintings. Nevertheless, Lessing is right in
declaring that persons invisible to the actors cannot in painting be
properly represented as taking part in the action behind a cloud of in
visibility. As spectators in the heavens, they might be in place; or as
persons whom we can see and who are unnoticed by the actors with
whom they mingle not because they are hiding, but because they are
gods. The execution of such a picture is difficult; but in some actions
it is not impossible. bcr 2JMcrct; cf. 63, 26 ff.
ir. (SJrcitSCU
16. QOtiftf) signified time medieval, and was in universal
in Lessing s

use as implying crudely barbarous. Cf. cmpt* iinb @taotaftioneu

int often gotifcfyen @e^d)inacfe (Ilamb. Dramaturgic, 69. Stiick). Appre
ciation of Gothic architecture and other fruits of the middle ages was
an achievement of the Romanticists. Cf. Erich Schmidt, Die Ent-
386 COMMENTARY

deckung Number gs, in Charakteristikcn, Berlin, 1886, I, pp. 38 ff. In

modern parlance attfrtinftfd) corresponds to the flOtijct) of former

days. 24. Jiitnftftttff; cf. /j, 29; and Herder s well grounded protest,
227, 16 ff.

93. 10. finultrfjcr; cf. 41, 15. 19. Xatigfeitcit^Xatlirfjfetten

23. Unfid)tbar fcin. Herder is right in correcting Lessing on
this point also; cf. 222, 29. 31. eillC 393olfe. Lessing is hardly
consistent in the assumption that this cloud is real, and the clouds men
tioned above are poetic figures of speech.
94. i. bcwmmtc $CUtltrf)fett. Lessing begins this chapter with
the assertion that in painting everything is visible, and visible in only
one sense of the word. At the end, he demands that the symbols of
painting, whether natural or conventional, shall be distinct that is,

shall unmistakably mean one thing and one thing only. In demanding
Deittlid)fett in a work of art, he departs, as Mendelssohn did (cf.
<

281, 23), from the philosophy of Baumgarten, in which, as we have seen

(supra, p. cxv), the realm of all esthetic reactions was the indistinct per
ceptions of the lower powers of the soul; and, in restricting the painter
to one kind of visibility, he burns away with the white light of the in
tellect all the twilight in which the senses take their chief delight. In
painting, all things are not visible in one and the same way. There
is painting with distinct, and painting with indistinct, outlines; there
is vision for formsand vision for more or less formless colors. Lessing
takes no account of the latter, he left that for the Romanticists. He
is here as elsewhere too much of a rationalist to inquire whether all
painting is subject to the reason, which decides the particular question
now at issue between painting and poetry in terms open to grave ob
jection, however little we may be inclined to quarrel with the result.
Cf. Volkmann, Grenzen der Kiinste, pp. 25 ff.

XIII.

94. bcrgleidjen,
7. 13. mit bcm crftcn bcm bcftcn;
such as.
cf. 76, 22.
15. tote cidjttamc; no tautology. Scidjnom here has
the meaning body, as in the colloquial expression feinen ?eid)nam
pflegen, pamper oneself. 24 ff. "And Apollo came down from the
peaks of Olympus wroth at heart, bearing on his shoulders his bow and
covered quiver. And the arrows clanged upon his shoulders in his
 COMMENTARY 387

wrath, as the god moved; and he descended like to night. Then he

sate him aloof from the ships, and let an arrow
fly; and there was
heard a dread clanging of the silver bow. First did he assail the mules
and fleet dogs, but afterward, aiming at the men his
piercing dart, he
smote; and the pyres of the dead burnt continually in multitude."
95. 6. fiber ba ($emalbe, sc. erfyaben, fyinauS; modern usage
would construe with the dative; the accusative, implying motion,
makes a livelier expression; cf. 37, 18. 20. ^wuptUOr^Ufl; cf. Herder,

233, 15 ff. 21. bnv matcrieHc emalbc CUtS iljm is the picture de
scribed on the preceding page, 94, 15 ff. 26. UJtflf itrltd) = jlDdttgtoS.
96. 3. plane
= eiufncf)c, jd)lirf)te, plain. 7. "Now the gods sat
by Zeus and held assembly on the golden floor, and in the midst the lady
Hebe poured them their nectar: they with golden goblets pledged one
another, and gazed upon the city of the Trojans." n. Apollonius
of Rhodes (born c. 270 B.C.), the most important epic poet of his time.
His Argonautica, a work of more learning and industry than poetic
genius, was much admired by the Romans, and was imitated by Valerius
Flaccus; cf.
65, 17. 18. $rittf)tbarfcit, namely for the poet. $tt . . .

(f)araftcrenwould be a more natural construction to follow. poctifrfje

emolbe; the meaning of this term is more fully developed in the

following chapter. 26. t(iufd)cnbcrc, more vivid; cf. 23, 5.

97. 7- ftfflflC; cf. 94, 5.

XIV.

97. 14. tjetatt

= gejrf)d)en. 22. Preface to the Tableaux: "It has

always been agreed that the more images and the more action a poem
presents, the higher type of poetry it is. This has led
me to think that
the calculation of the number of different pictures offered by poems
might serve as a basis for comparing the merits respectively of poems
and poets. The number and the sort of pictures that these great works
or rather an in
present would be, accordingly, a kind of touchstone,
fallible pair of scales for weighing the merit of poems, and the genius

of their authors."

98. i. cine . . . Hegel; cf. 24, 28 ff. 3. Milton;

Sotge fritter
Paradise Lost is no less the first epic after
cf. supra, p. Ixxxiii. 9 ff .

Homer because it furnishes few pictures than the story of Christ s

Passion is a poem because one can hardly touch it anywhere without
388 COMMENTARY

hitting upon a spot that has suggested subjects to a multitude of the

greatest artists. In other words, pictures do not make a poem. Les-
sing s balanced sentence would be clearer if the last member were in
positive form; for instance, toeil jebe nod) fo Heine <Stclle barin eine
avenge ber grofjten Strtijlen befd)dfttgt tjat. Even in negative form
it might be simpler; thus: toetl man faitm eine telle barin treffen

faun, bte nirfjt ... befdjiiftigt fyatte the relative clause being here
in the regular tense and mood of the condition contrary to fact in past
time. Dfjne eine ^tefle 311 tveffen, bte md)t . . .
bejdjcifttgt l)dtte con
tains a double negative and the ntdjt is pleonastic. Such a nirfjt after
otjne is, however, not uncommon in the eighteenth century; and Lessing
might readily have written ofyne bafj man nid)t anf eine <SteUe trafe,
bie eine ilJicnge ... befdjaftigt fyatte; cf. 2)iefc3 jur ^robe, mein lieber
euialjl, bafe ie inir nic ctnen tretd) jpielen fallen, ofyne bafc id)

3t)nen ntdjt gletd) baranf umber einen jptele (Minna von Barnhelm,
V, 12). 16. fte = bie Goangettften. 20. ma(crifd) hereof course in
the particular sense of poetically pictorial; it would have been better to
avoid the ambiguity of this word; cf. 59, 10. ucrmiiflcnb tft
= tttrmag;
cf. 50, 5. 21. bed 2orrc$; viz., emalbe. Cf. 281, 8. 28. bcm
(^rabc bcr ^llnfian, the degree of illusion that the painting in colors
is especially qualified to produce, and that we can best define with
reference to our experience when face to face with such a picture.
This is an effect of ftnnltd) mcid)eil (cf. 41, 15), of making us more

conscious of the thing expressed than of the words expressing it, and
conscious in the same way as we are conscious of an object depicted
on canvas. Lessing does not make a qualitative distinction between
the sensuous experience of painting and the sensuous experience of
poetry (cf. 282, 17), only a distinction of degree. But whether it is
in our power by means of words to call up at all such images as painting

presents to the eye, whether the effect of poetic language is not the
vague but pleasurable emotional reaction upon ideas suggested by the
words, but incapable of picturesque form these questions were raised
and answered, as we have seen (supra, p. xcvii) by Burke; and have
been treated with all the precision of modern psychology by Theod.
A. Meyer, Das Stilgesetz der Poesie, Leipzig, 1901 H. Roetteken, Poctik, ;

Miinchen, 1902; Johannes Volkelt, Asthetik, Miinchen, 1905; Max

Dessoir, Asthetik und allgcmeine Kunstwissenschaft, Stuttgart, 1906,
and others. Cf. Meyer s review of Volkelt in the Gottingische gelehrU
 COMMENTARY 339

Anzeigen, 1906, Nr. 4, pp. 298 ff.; Jonas Cohn, Die Anschaulichkeit der
dichterischen Sprache in Dessoir s Zeitschrift fiir Asthetik und allgem.
Kunst-wss., II (1907), pp. 182 ff. Modern philosophers naturally
probe deeper into the problem than Lessing (or Burke) did, and make
distinctions notdreamed of in the eighteenth century. There seems
to me, however, no reason for denying the name 5tnfcf)auung to the
effect of poetry; and this is also the effect of painting. We shall return
to this subject. 33. bought, op. cit., 15, i: auj befouberS, rnetu
lunger ftreunb, fmb bann aurf) ^antafteuovfteUungeu ba$u geeignet,
ber SRebe rbjje, euricfyt, Grfyafaenljett mttjugebett. SJton neunt fie

aud) (Sibolopoicn (eiSuAoTroueu, i>crforpeningen ber SBorfteUungen be

eifle). Trans. Hashagen, p. 63.

99. 22. (Sltargie, evapyeia, clearness, perspicuity, vividness of
description; not to be confounded with (Sltcrgtc, cve/oycia, action,
operation, energy. 23. Plutarch, Eroticus, edited by Henricus Ste-
phanus, Geneva, 1572; in Moralia, ed. Bernadakis, IV, p. 425. Les-
sing s protest is well founded; but, as we have observed, he does not
himself avoid the ambiguous terminology of his contemporaries.

XV.
99. 4.
=
abgel)cn mangeln, 5. 1)rt)bctt3 Dbe, Alexander s
feljfeu.

Feast, written in 1687, set to music by Handel in 1739. 8. baft bic

Ofarbeit fctne Time JC.; cf. Caylus s citation from La Fontaine,

supra, p. Ixxi. 13. eigentlirfje, before called materiefle; cf. p8,

29. 20. fo italic tutb bo(^ fo uutcrfdjiebcn, following in such close

succession and yet so distinct, one from the other.
100. auSetnanbcr ; i.e., the two ends of the bow,
8. fdjlttflt . . .

which have been drawn close together by the pulling of the string,
now fly apart again. 9. tt& fprang ber ^Sfcil past tense in a descrip ;

tion which otherwise in the historical present. This sudden change

is

of tense (the shock is still greater because of the inversion after ab)

effectively expresses the swiftness of the flight

of the arrow. The
other actions take an appreciable time; this one was instantaneous;

the arrow already speeding towards its goal before the spectator
is

realizes what has happened. 10. ll&erfefjen is very emphatic in this

unusual position; cf. 39, 27. n. toarum, on account of which.

has conducted us
Looking back over the stages by which Lessing
390 COMMENTARY

to the point where the subject may be deduced from its first principles,
we find a true and rapidly rising climax of interest and significance
after we have passed
(with chapter VI) from the particular comparison
of Virgiland the sculptors to the general consideration of the relations
of poetry and painting. We distinguish two kinds of imitation, and
see that the poet degrades himself when he imitates the methods of
the sculptor (chapter VII); we find that the poet has a wider range
than the sculptor, because he can represent actions not
germane to the
typical character of his hero (chapter VIII); we are warned not to
misunderstand the poet because the constraint of custom and religion
seems to have prevented the sculptor from doing what the poet did
(chapter IX); we perceive that the sculptor needs the addition of
attributes to make clear the meaning of figures representing abstractions
which the poet makes recognizable by naming and causing to act (chap
ter X); we hear why the painter or sculptor may take his subjects
from poets, without derogation from his dignity (chapter XI) but
not subjects treated by the poet: not invisible actions, not super
all

human actors in relations with human beings (chapter XII); the most
effective of the poet s "pictures" appear not to be the pictures most
suitable for canvas; a series of pictures from Homer would give no
idea of the picturesqueness of his poem (chapter XIII); by "poetic

picture" we do not understand a picture suitable for canvas (chapter

XIV); the most effective poetic picture cannot be transferred to can

vas at represents an action (chapter XV). Modern lit
all, because it

erature affords no better illustration of Socratic reasoning than is af

forded by these chapters; and occasional mistakes of fact do not mar
their cogency.

XVI.
101. 4. 3eidjen; cf. 59, 6. 7. bequem; cf. 87, 2. 18. $onb=
luttflcn ; the qualifying iibedjaupt shows that Lessing is aware of a
possible objection to this definition, and disregards it; cf. 283, 29, and
J<*, 23-
102. 6. prttgnant; called frudjtbar above, 57, 9. 10. ba3 ftnn-
lirfiftc SBUb bed tt orpcrc< turn ber 3 ci tc, Don lucl rficr fie iljn Braucfjt ;
this
iswith reference to the pictorial element of poetry; poetry takes that
aspect of bodies which it needs; they are visible to the imagination in
only one aspect at a time. 15. Sdjlufjfette ;
on its cogency cf. Herder,
 COMMENTARY 391

238 ff. 16. Corner; cf. supra, pp. Ixxxiii, cxliii. 21. neuere tdjter;
cf. supra, p. xlv. in cinem Stnrfe; cf. 24, n. 24. Corner; cf.

Herder, 233, 249. 29. cine SDtenge fefyflner $flrper in fdjflnen @teflnn=
gen is not enough to make a beautiful picture. Here as above (86, 21)
Lessing underrates the importance of invention, which furnishes a plot.
Cf. supra, pp. Ivi, Iviii.
103. 3. Hnmerfnng; cf. 79, 5. 4. ftat&enftein, the stone on
which the painter prepares his colors; here for palette. Observe the
skilful play on the words 5 a ^benfteitt and ^robterftcin. 8 f. Lessing
noted such Homeric epithets in his collectanea. 20. ftunftgriffe.
Herder rightly protests against the imputation of so much artifice to

Homer; cf.
250, 17; 257, 14. 22. entftanben . . . entftefyen; a

clear antithesis: the painter represents the product; the poet, the process.

24. ben SSagen ber 3no; cf. Herder, 249, 31. 27. e3
= ba alleS.
104. = ber 3eit. 6. ben $egem This word is now ap
2. beren
plied only to the modern sword; baS @d)tt)crt to any sword, ancient
or modern. n. "And donned his soft tunic, fair and bright, and cast
around him his great cloak, and beneath his glistering feet he bound his
fair sandals, and over his shoulder cast his silver-studded sword, and

grasped his sires scepter, imperishable forever." 18. an etnem anbern

Drte ; Iliad, I, 246.
105. i. cine Whatever Homer s motive may have
efrf)irf|te.

been, it is and does not describe

in general true that he tells stories

objects. But we must remember that he writes epic poetry; cf. Herder,
255,10. 2. bemerft = bejeicfjnet. 5. A strong statement. 14. Iei=

fjen
= uuterlegen, impute to. 20. itftt,
the scepter. Lessing makes @cep*
tcr either masculine or neuter; it is now generally neuter. 22. &e=

quern
= paffenb, as before, 101, 7.
106. i. au3 bem 9JWtel = au8 ber 2JWte. 14. ben SBogen be3
*)3anbani3 ;
cf. Herder, 251, 8.

XVII.

1O7. 3. $tfrper . au^jubrttrfen ;

a more usual, but less spe
cific verb would be jcfyUbeni ;
cf. symbols of
702, 2; 283, 27. If the

were that if words had no other quality than that of

poetry natural, is,

successive sounds, they could not express anything not likewise suc
cessive. The sounds of a running brook naturally convey the idea of
392 COMMENTARY

liquid in motion. Milton s description of Satan (cf. Burke, supra,

p. xcvii) consists of words whose sounds are hardly less liquid than those
of running water, and the repetition of them requires several successive
moments but the meaning that they convey is that of a com
of time;

manding figure standing "like a tower." There is no analogy between

a brook and a tower; words could not describe or "express" a stationary
body if they had no other than a natural effect and meaning. 5. rf)Ub
be3 9ld)ifle3; Iliad, XVIII, 478-617; cf. 1/7, 28 ff. n. gcflcnteite =
anbererfeita ;
cf. 77, i. 21. ^rofaift = ^rojatler. 22. btc ^bccn . . .

fo lebfjaft madjcn; cf. 98, 22; 310, n. How can the poet do this?
Not merely by being comprehensible, clear, and distinct in his ex

pressions but by using expressions

; that have a sensuous value.
How far is this value conventional? The meaning of words is con
ventional; but meaning is a matter of
not sensuous per
intellectual,
ception. The more sensuous language becomes, the more it departs
from the cool distinctness of intellectuality, and approaches the state
in which sound was the direct, that is, natural expression of emotion.
Hence the unquestionable esthetic effect of verses which cannot be
interpreted in prose, or are indeed confessedly nonsense. Lessing,
though he persistently speaks of "poetic pictures," plainly hints at the
fact, of which Herder (cf. 243, 10, 254, 23, 258, 5, 262, 30 ff., 265, 4 ff.)
makes so much, that the effective element in poetry is not a picture,
but the force or energy of the language. The chief difference between
Lessing and Herder on this point is this: Lessing declares (108) that in
a poetic description we get no adequate impression of the whole of the
object described; and Herder says (262, 26) that we neither need nor
care to. Cf. 309, 6. 26. fciner SSortc, in apposition with SJttttef.

28. tmmer. Just how this word is to be translated is uncertain. It

may have the common meaning of ever; then we shall render the sen

tence, But the poet is said

by everybody always to paint as Lessing
himself says without hesitation ber mateube (59, 10). Or inuner >td)ter

stands for immerljin (cf. 82, 28), and we interpret, But let the poet go
ahead and paint.
1O8. i. tu iitlici). The emphasis is on this word; the whole
description of the operation of perception taken almost verbally
is

from Mendelssohn; cf. 284, 25 ff., supra, p. cxx, and pS, 28. In a study
On the Limits of Descriptive Writing (Ann Arbor, 1906), F. E. Bryant
has a chapter (III) treating Lessing s Psychology of Vision, with the con-
 COMMENTARY 393

elusion, is unquestionably wrong" (p.

"it
14); and right or wrong, it
is certainly far from adequate. We
should bear in mind, however,
that Lessing is dealing with a Wolfian conception, and that distinctness
is not a quality of simple sensuous perception. The order of the processes
in simple sensuous perception is the reverse of that indicated by Lessing,
and whatever the comprehension (SBegriff) of a whole may be, the per
ception (ilBafjrnefymung, 5>orftellung) of a whole is not the result of

23egriffen ber Xeile itub tfyrer 93erbtnbungen (l. 8). Our first impression
isa vague impression of totality, not without a sense of unity and correla
tion of parts; and from this we proceed, if we are so inclined, to a closer

inspection of parts and a clearer or more distinct intellectual comprehen

sion (SBegviff) of the object. This last is a slow and gradual process. On
the other hand, the eye, which ordinarily picks out so little from the
multitude of details in the field of vision, and which knowledge and habit
so supplement that imperfect images, though they lead to errors, serve
all the ordinary purposes of sight, is undoubtedly capable of exceedingly

quick passage from object to object, and from part to part. Words
can designate all that the eye distinguishes in a scene as rapidly as the
eye distinguishes; but if the scene contained nothing else than what the
words enumerate, the eye would pass through the complete circuit
before the enumeration were fairly begun. The view of things in nature
gives us a vague impression of coexistent parts which is supplemented
and rendered more and more distinct as we examine the parts one after
the other; we are content with the vague impression, our imagination
if

supplies what is lacking in the most fragmentary visual image. The

poet does not lack power to stimulate the imagination with equally
slight and fleeting means so long as an indistinct impression of co
existent parts suffices for the purposes of the whole which he wishes to

present. And such an indistinct impression fulfils the definition of

sensuous effect the preceding page (707, 22). But to give us
made on
a distinct comprehension of an unfamiliar thing he can have no other
recourse than to the method described on p. 108 (11. 9 ff.), with its conse

quent disadvantages. On page 107 Lessing places vividness above

and makes vividness depend upon illusion. It would be
distinctness,
Wolfian to hold that beuttidje 2>orfteflungen
are in and of themselves

unesthetic (cf. Note to 94, i) and that distinctness of perception is the

one thing that prevents illusion; consequently the poet whose only
available method is the effort at distinct presentation of images is fore-
394 COMMENTARY

doomed to failure. Or we might say with Mendelssohn that distinct

ness of perception may enhance the esthetic value of an object by in
creasing our sense of its perfection; but that this distinctness is an
auxiliary to sensuous effects, not a cause of them. With Lessing,
finally, we shall have to agree that, whatever the facts of vision, ex
haustive description of bodies has in poetry the effect that he describes
(108, 14 ff.) and lacks the quality that he desires (in, 2), whether he
has correctly accounted for the phenomenon (in, 4 ff.) or not. 32.
Haller; cf. supra, p. xlv.
109. i ff. According to Haller s own Notes to his poem, the flowers
described are: in the first stanza the Gnjiaii, Gentiana lutea; in the

second stanza, 11. 7-10, ^oiuennmul, Antirrhinum; 11. 11-14, fcfyumqe

2fteiftenuurj, Astrantia major; 1. 15, ttrilber 9tomarin, Ledum palustre;
1. 16, ilene, Silene acaulis. 25. tttdjt, pleonastic after leugnen, as
after fetjlen above (64, 26). In his treatise Vbcr das Epigramm, Lessing
wrote, 2Ber faim leiignen, baft biefc Kiev $ei\tn iiidjt etn DotligeS (Spt*

gramm ftub (L-M XI, p. 238). 32. mit einS 12) gefdjcn.
(cf. 87,
As is pointed out above, we do not see in nature all the details that the
poet has enumerated; but this fact does not facilitate the poet s task
when he desires to give us a vivid impression of the whole by an enu
meration of the parts. In this consideration rather than in Lessing s
computation of time lies perhaps the explanation of the whole matter.
Cf. 310, 43.
110. 10. bit fiufjcre 3djdn!)ctt; cf. 40, 8. 21. Huysum, Jan
van (1682-1749), celebrated Dutch painter of fruits and flowers. Brei-

tinger s supra, p. cviii) criticism is of course absurd; and Lessing s

(cf.

suggestion that the poet use flowers as symbols of expression for human
emotions, or reveal the inner perfection of the vegetable kingdom,
gives a hint of the real poetry of nature which is not a description of
bodies.
111. 15. bogmatifd) was then in common use for btbaftifd).
Du Bos (Reflexions, I, p. 65) calls Virgil s Georgics un poeme dogma-
tique. 22. narfjbcm = je nadjbem; cf. 25, 8.
112. 2. oraj. Herder points out (261, 19 ff.) that Lessing cites
Horace and the others not quite in the sense that their words properly
bear. mature.
5. tttaitnltrf), Pope, Alexander (1688-1744). 9erfudje;
especially Windsor Forest (1713), written for the most part in 1704.
10. JHcift; cf. supra, p. xlv. n. ba3 focuigftc, very little. 2$.
 COMMENTARY 395

Warburton, William (1698-1779), edited Pope s works with a com

mentary,. London, 1751.
113. 4. Marmontel, Jean Francois (1723-1799), French poet.
His Poetique franqaise, to which Lessing refers, was published in 1763.
Lessing quotes: wrote these reflections before the attempts of the
"I

Germans in thisform (the eclogue) had become known among us.

They have put my
ideas into practice; and if they should succeed in
giving more attention to the moral content, and less to the detailed
depiction of objects, they would excel in this species of literature, which
more extensive, more abundant, and infinitely more natural
is richer,

and moral than that of rustic gallantry in the pastoral. "

XVIII.
113. Mazzuoli, Francesco (1503-1540), called Parmeggiano,
1 8.

or Parmigianino from his birthplace in Parma, was a painter of the

Lombard school, an imitator of Correggio. No work of his is known
to which Lessing may here have referred. 2Bal)rfrf)eiuUcf) liegt eine

3$ertued}j(iiiig nut obooico 3fta$jolino tton ^errara uor (c. 1481-1530),

beffen erjtifylenber StarftelhmgStoeife auf fleinfigurigeu S3ilbern bie

9lu8jage i effingS fiber ben 9faub ber @abinerimten ganj enttyricfyt

(Schmarsow, Erlauterungen, p. no). On the Rape of the Sabines, cf.

JEneid, VIII, 635. 20. Xtsian, Tiziano Vecellio (1477-1576). Lessing

knew this picture only from the description of Richardson, Traite de
la peinture, p. 43. The original, in the Villa Borghese at Rome, is now
ascribed to Bonifazio (Schmarsow).
114. 9 ff. This suggestive figure has more force than that of a mere
illustration. Artistic effects are often incalculable, and it is hazardous
to dogmatize about a form of human activity in which reason plays
but a subordinate part. $mtft is derived from fonnen; and as Veit
Valentin succinctly puts it (Kunst, Symbolik und Allegorie, Zeitschrift

fiir bildende Kunst, XVIII, pp. 120 ff., 145 ff.) bem fliinftler ift ertoubt,
roaSerfann. 25. Scrttcnbung = 2Ibtt)enbung; cf. 35, 32. 28. Mengs;
cf. Note to 32, 13.
115. 15. As remarked above (Note to 10, 22) this effect is notice

able in the figure of the Virgin in the Sistine Madonna. 19. bfl $erj$
=
ben SWut. 21. JBoflfommeuljeU be3 9lu3brurfe3. In conversation
with Eckermann (April 18, 1827) Goethe commended Rubens for
396 COMMENTARY

achieving an artistic effect by making in the same picture one shadow

fall in one direction, and another in another direction. 30. ein 3d)tft ;
cf. 103, 8.
116. 16.
gelten foitnen . . . fltouben. This is an importan:
recognition of the precedence of ftunftiuaf)rf)eit over 9taturunrflid) :

fett (supra, p. clxvii), and of the sovereignty of the human spirit over

the senses and the phenomena that affect the senses. As Schmarso\v
fittingly observes (Erlduterungen, p. in), 2S3iv (tub eben Uov beni ^ilbt

nidjt flanj 9liige, uor bcm ejaug be3 2>id)ter md)t blofj )l)v, jonbern
Dor bcibeit 0an$e 2ftenjd)eu. 27. ben ticitern Spradjeu. English is

in this matter inferior to Greek only to the extent that the lack of de
clensional endings sometimes causes ambiguity. We could say "curved
wheels, brazen, eight-spoked" as well as Shakspere says "An unles-
son d girl, unschool d, unpractised" (Merchant of Venice, III, 2).
117. 4. Sfrau Racier; cf. 30, i. 5. Unferc fcnitfrtjc Spradjc.

Modern German, like English, has come to be more and more a fort=
fdjreitenbt pracfye, ntit jirfelnben Biigen (cf. Herder, 229 ff.), indeed,
in writers appositional constructions and participial phrases are
some
so much a mannerism as to be disagreeable. Voss s translations of
Homer and Goethe s style in epic poetry naturalized in Germany
many Homeric turns of phrase. Voss translated Iliad, V, 722 f. thus:
$be filflt urn ben SBciflen ibr fdmell Me genmbeten Xaber s

9Ktt a$t cbernen Speic^en umb, er an bie eiferne 3lc^fe.

olb nen ber ilranj, unalternbe3 aber barauf finb

tft ib, ;

b.erne Scbienen gelegt, anpaffenbe, fflunber bem Slnblid.

Goethe wrote in Hermann und Dorothea, 250 ff.

2llfo fpracb^ fie beb,enbe, unb jog, tiom Steine ficb fyebenb,
s
Slitib, worn Si^e ben <2ob,n,
ben tinUi(? folcjenben. -8eibe
Jtamen fcbivetiienb berunter, ben wi^tigen ^?orfa bebenfenb.

And in the Achille is, 148 f.

2lber X^etig erfc^ien, bie 8ottlic6,e, traurenben SHcTeg,

SJolIgeftaltet unb grofj, bie lieblic^fte Xocbter be3 DJereu^.

Fichte (Reden an die deutsche Nation, ed. E. Kuhn, Berlin, 1869, p. 150)
apostrophized the German princes in these words: 3fyr befyerrfd)et
Golfer, treii, bilbfom, bc8 Iuc! wurbtfl, nrie fctncr j&tit unb feiner

Nation ^iirjlcn fie bc^errio^t Ijaben. Kleist and Heine furnish abun
dant examples of such usage. That it is not new in German appears
from the Nibelungenlied (Bartsch) 449
 COMMENTARY 39-7

Diu Priinhilde sterke vilgroezlichen schein.

man truoc ir zuo dem ringe einen swaeren stein,
gror unt ungefiiege, michel unde wel:
in truogen kiime zwelfe helde kiiene unde snel.

19. 3tt)cibCHttflfctt. There is no ambiguity when the postpositive

adjective is inflected, as in Kleist s Zerbrochener Krug, 626 ff.
2Btr fjaben fyier, mit euerer GrlnubniS,
Statuten, eiflentiimUc^e in >uifum,

TOctyt aufgefcf?rtebene, muf? i$ fleftebn, bod? burcfy

2rabttion un3 iiberltefert.

20. 3ttt statu absolute, in uninjlcdcd form. 29. in SRitrf-

bcffdt
ftd)t
= in 9?iia*ftd)t morauf. 31. Thomas Gale (1635-1702), Eng
lish philologist, published Opuscula Mythologica at Amsterdam in 1688.
Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Greek rhetorician and historian, who
f
lived in Rome under Augustus, and wrote among other works a PWJUCUKT)
ApxaioXoyia, Roman archeology.
118. 7. ncucrc tfiiltftlcr. E.g., John Flaxman; cf. Frontispiece
to the translation of the Iliad by Leaf, Lang, and Myers, New York,

1883; W. Helbig, Das Homerische Epos aus den Denkmdlern erldutert,

Leipzig, 1887, pp. 311 ff., 395 ff.; A.
S. Murray, History of Greek Sculp

ture, London, 1890, I, pp. 42 H. Brunn, Griechische Kunslgeschichtc,

ff.;

Miinchen, 1893, I, p. 74; H. Brunn, Kleine Schriften, Leipzig, 1905,

II, pp. 13, 21 ff.; Joh. Overbeck, Geschichte dcr griechischen Plastik,
Leipzig, 1893, I, pp. 46 ff.; The Iliad of Homer, edited by W. Leaf and
M. A. Bayfield, London, 1898, pp. 448 ff.; W. Reichel, Homerische
Waffen, Wien, 1901, pp. 146 ff.; William Ridgeway, The Early Age of
Greece, Cambridge, 1901, pp. 473 ff.
I, 13. ^unftgriff; cf. Herder,

252 ff. 19. frfjwcflcn btcS3Ubcr. Lessing assumes that the pic
tures were embossed. Homer does not describe the process, but sug
gests in lines 548, 562, 564, that the figures were inlaid; cf. Overbeck,
I.e., p. 52. 26. (Srfjilb be$ $ncn3; &neid, VIII, 626 ff.

119. 6. .(lofmnmu The description of the shield culminates in a

glorification of Augustus. 20. bcgofft, JC. ; Lessing s very language
iscontemptuous. 22. nee procid hinc,
ter iff, :c. for Virgil s illic,

hand procul inde, hie, hinc, etc. 26. a(3 tocld)er = ba Mefer, or

inbem er; cf. 76, 33. 31. (Sltfd, descendants. ^Eneas was the son
of Venus and Anchises, and the rulers of Rome were supposed to be
descended from Silvius, the son of JSneas and Lavinia.
120. i. (JJjemonu; i.e., Vulcan. 6. tt)ii?ig;
cf. 23, 26. 7. ottf
398 COMMENTARY

ftu^t; cf. 64,32. 20. bd clcgenfjdt be3 6toffc3; i.e., as being

germane to the subject; cf. j, 6.

XIX.
120. 27. Scaliger; cf. supra, p. li.
Perrault, Charles (1628-
1703), French Academician, author of the celebrated Parallele dcs
Ancicns et dcs Modernes, 4 vols., Paris, 1688-96. Terrasson, Jean
(1670-1750), likewise a member of the French Academy; he published
d Homere, Paris, 1715. 29. Andrj
Dissertations critiques sur Vlliade
Dacier 30, i) translated Aristotle s Poetics, Paris, 1692, and in
(cf.
the Commentary treated questions concerning the shield. Boivin de
Villeneuve, Jean (1649-1724), member of the French Academy, author
of an Apologie d Homcre et du bouclier d Achille, Paris, 1715. Pope,
Alexander, in his Observations on the Shield of Achilles, vol. 5, pp. 144 ff.

of his translation of Homer s Iliad, London, 1715 ff.

121. 2. ebcilfo unrirfjtig ?C. ; i.e., both incorrect and immaterial,

and one in the same degree as the other. 7. SBcmerfuttg

= s
^eob=
acfjtung. 8 ff. Modern views about the Homeric shield in general,
and the shield of Achilles in particular, are conjectural, and differ ac

cording to interpretations of the insufficient evidence. In respect

to essentials, however, there is something like a consensus of opinion.
Homer may or may not have been describing an actual shield; he cer
tainly did describe a type of shield that was familiar to himself and
to his hearers. form is uncertain. Some scholars (e.g.,
Its precise

Brunn) hold that it was round; others (e.g., Murray) think it was long,
with gouges in the sides, like a violin; others (especially Reichel) main
tain that it resembled the type found depicted in relics excavated at

Mycenae originally round, but drawn inward at the sides; so that

from the front it had the general appearance of a figure 8. Ancient
round shields for votive purposes, made of thin bronze, with concentric
rings and ornaments, though unknown in Lessing s time (cf. 121, 8),
have been found in Etruria and Umbria; cf. Helbig, Das Homer ische
Epos, pp. 312, 322. These and other relics suggest the probable ap
pearance of the shield of Achilles. As to construction, there seems
to be no doubt: the shield was in layers, the bottom one of ox-hide,
the others of metal; and these, each of smaller diameter than the one
upon which it lay, made with their edges a series of concentric rings
 COMMENTARY 399

about a central knob. On this knob and the surrounding rings the
pictures which Homer describes were made, probably by a process of
jnlaying, as was said above (Note to 118, 19). In the determination
of the number, position, and subject of the pictures, there are wide diver

gences of opinion, due to the method of Homer, correctly defined by

Lessing, of translating the language of "painting" into the language
of poetry, of enlargingupon a single scene, setting forth actions leading
up to it and resulting from it; so that we cannot tell precisely where
one picture leaves off and another begins. The whole was a kind of
panorama of the world. On the central knob one saw the earth, sea,
and sky; around the rim, the all-encircling ocean; in the interior rings,
the seasons, with their characteristic occupations of plowing, reaping,
herding; two cities, one at peace, with a wedding and a case at law
represented; the other at war; further, two groups of dancers, young
men and maidens. Reichel, believing there were but three rings about
the knob, regards verses 587-606 as spurious, and accordingly rejects
the groups of dancers along with another picture. This is a rather
violent procedure. Brunn, who seems to me to follow the poet most
closely, proposes the following diagram:
400 COMMENTARY

Murray s diagram differs chiefly in the order of the pictures, he assum

ing that the poet did not describe the rings in the order of their occur
rence, and arranging the choral dances next to the knob, then the sea
sons, then the cities (the city at peace in the upper semicircle, and
the city at war in the lower), and lastly the river of ocean around the
edge. This arrangement has the advantage of putting the groups of
dancers in the smaller circle, and gaining space for the more significant
and fuller pictures of the cities; but has no authority in the words of
the poet. That both schemes make well-balanced and artistic wholes
appears at a glance. 14. btc foufnuc ^larfjc. There is no sugges
tion in Homer that the inner side of the shield was covered with pictures.
This would be quite out of the question in a shield of the Mycenaean
type; and unnecessary in a shield of any type. 18. ^orftcQuitgett =

TarftfUiutflen ; cf. 42, 15. 29. "Her shield in which he carved, on the
convex side the battle of the amazons, and on the concave, the strife
of the gods and the giants." The shield in question is that of Athena
in the Parthenon.
122. i ff. "But the folk were gathered in the assembly place;
for there a was arisen, two men striving after the blood-price of
strife

a man slain; the one avowed that he had paid all, expounding to the
people, but the other denied that he had received aught; and each was
fain to obtain consummation on the word of his witness. And the folk
were cheering both, and they took part on either side. And heralds
kept order among the folk, while the elders on polished stones were
sitting in the sacred circle, and holding in their hands staves from the
loud-voiced heralds. Then before the people they rose up and gave
judgment each in turn. And in the midst lay two talents of gold."
15. $owurf; cf. 38, 18. 23. DormtS; cf. 87,4.
123. 2. bet = nalje, gtetd). 15. mit bcr @rf)ulc, in scholastic

terms. 16. actu, actually, explicitly. 17. virtute, virtually, implicitly.

1 8. bflS leMcre and means the things suggested
refers to virtute

by the visible picture from it. Lessing here sharply

and to be inferred

distinguishes a poetic picture from a picture on canvas; and clearly

explains what makes a moment fruitful or pregnant for the painter.
The painter s moment is made to contain the past, the present, and the
future. 26. cinmal, once for all. 27. Giltljciten, unities of action,

time, and place.

124. 2 f. "There wrought he; also he fashioned therein; further-
 COMMENTARY 401

more he set in the shield; also did the lame god devise." 3 fL Lessing
is somewhat pedantic in insisting that each
picture is indicated by
Homer s use of introductory words (this use has no other merit above
Virgil s cf. 119, 22 than that it marks stages in an action and does
not merely point to visible things) and he invalidates his own argument
;

by explaining away, in his note, the absence of these words before the
account of one picture, however good reason there may be for this
absence. The introductory words call attention rather to
the larger
subjects treated in the different fields than to the particular scenes of
these subjects; and Lessing s ten different pictures probably fall some
what short of the true number. 7. aI3 tucfd)C, this being a thing which ;
cf. 76, 33, 119, 26. 28. "Also he fashioned therein two cities."

XX.
124. 16. Wicbcr in mciltCU 28cfl. The passages following the
statement of fundamental principles in chapter XVI serve partly to
illustrate, partly to modify those principles. Lessing declares that time
and action furnish the proper subjects for poetry, and bodies in space

the proper subjects for painting; affirming that Homer paints nothing
but actions, and that if he has occasion to present an object, he con
trives to give a history instead of a description of it (chapter XVI).

Chapter XVII takes a negative turn: since the symbols of language

are conventional, poetry, using language, can express, describe, or rep
resent bodies; but it will choose to do so only when it has a didactic
purpose; for by successive description and enumeration of parts it

cannot give a vivid impression of coexistent totality. Chapter XVIII

concedes to the painter the possibility of including in his picture two
of seeing and pre
closely connected moments of time, and to the poet,
senting a body from two or three different sides at once, if the subject
of the one, and the skilful use of a favorably organized language by the

other, lend themselves to this artful encroachment upon

nature. But
this privilege granted, it appears that Homer remained true to his pref
erence for action even when he wished to describe such a well-defined
to take form before our eyes;
object as a shield; he caused the shield
whereas Virgil described a shield that was already a finished product.
Chapter XIX gives a detailed account of Homer s procedure in describ
ing the shield of Achilles. This chapter is a kind of excursus; but it
402 COMMENTARY

is a very significant illustration of the practice of that poet whom Lessing

regards as the model for poetic practice in general. These chapters

deal chiefly with poetic description of bodies as such. In chapter XX
the inquiry is directed towards the particular problem of the poetic

description of bodily beauty. 21. forperlidje 3(t)ouf)dt. Lessing

adopts Mendelssohn s definition; cf. supra, p. cxviii, 40, 8, 108, i ff.

125. 19. Ntpcvs, os KoAAioros avrjp VTTO "IXiov rjXOt, "Nireus,

the most beauteous man that came up under Ilios" (Iliad, II, 673).
21. 3rt)ilbcruitfl btefcr <5d)0ttf)etten ; cf. Herder, 267 ff. 24.
Manasses, Greek scholar the middle of the twelfth century, who
of
wrote in verse a chronicle of the world reaching down to the year 1081.
Lessing quotes from the Venetian edition, printed 1729-33. 30 ff.:
"She was a very beautiful woman, with lovely eyebrows and
complexion,
With beautiful cheeks and face, ox-eyes, snow-white skin;
Dark (or round) eyed, tender, a grove full of charms.
White armed, delicate breathing, beauty undisguised;
The complexion fair, the cheek rosy,
The countenance pleasing, the eye beautiful.
Inartificial loveliness undyed, natural;
A rose-colored fruit tinged her whiteness,
As if one should dye ivory with splendid purple.
Long-necked, dazzling white, whence she was often called
Swan-born lovely Helen."

Version of Sir R. Phillimore, who adds, seems like a bad translation

"It

of a Persian poem, or Chinese novel." Cf. Burke, supra, p. xcvi.

126. 17. polittfdjc Serfc, verses in popular measure; i.e., inde
pendent of the classical rules of quantity, and regulated by the mere

counting of syllables. 18. 91rtoft. Lodovico Ariosto (1474-1533) pub

lished his Orlando Furioso in 1516. It is a continuation of Boiardo s
Orlando (cf. Note to 48, 13), and is a very artful collection of romantic

narratives of adventure. 19. Alcina is a fairy. 21. fiiltftlirf); cf.

5,3i-
127. 33. 2Rctnf)arb, Johann Nikolaus (1727-1767), scholar, pop
ular philosopher, and translator. His work on the Italian poets ap

peared at Braunschweig in 1763-64. Cf. Herder, 230, 3.

128. 23. Milton, in Paradise Lost, I, 730 ff. 31. Dolce; cf.

supra, p. liii.

129. 5. ju Ija&cn fd)ctnt; cf. 27, 24. XUton; cf. 113, 20.
130. 26. bei bent 1)id)ter fefye id) nid)td; cf. iop, 19 ff.; and
Herder, 268, 21 ff., 270, 22 ff.
 COMMENTARY 403

131. i. pulcherrima Dido, most beautiful Dido; cf. ^Eneid, IV,

60. 4. jetter ottC Mnfttcr = Apelles; cf. Clemens Alexandrinus,

Padag.,11, 125 (Bliimner). 10. 9lttafreou, poet of

AvaKpeW, lyric
Teos; flourished about 550 B.C.; cf. 287, 25. 12. 23atf)t)rt, BaflvAAos,
Bathyllus, name of a boy. 27. "Enough! For I see her herself. Soon,
picture, thou wilt speak."

132. 9. fittciait, Aovxiavos, Lucian, Greek poet of the second cen

tury A.D., especially celebrated for his dialogues. His works were
edited by Reitz and printed at Amsterdam in 1743. Panthea was a
beautiful woman of Smyrna. 28. EIKOVCS, pictures; cf. ifonifcf),

32, 3-
XXI.
The preceding chapter having shown how bodily beauty is not to be
described in poetry, and pointing out at the end how three ancient
poets avoided the attempt to describe it, chapter XXI indicates two
methods by which the poet can treat bodily beauty: (i) by describing
its effects; and (2) by transforming it into grace.
133. 7 ff . blame is it that Trojans and well-greaved
"Small

Achaians for such a woman long time suffer hardships; marvellously

like is she to the immortal goddesses to look upon." Cf. Burke, supra,
xcvi. 1 8. Sappho, 2a7r<w, Lesbian poetess who nourished about
p.
500 B.C. Her unhappy love for the handsome youth Phaon is the sub
ject of a tragedy by Grillparzer. The poem to which Lessing refers
may be found in Bergk, Poela lyrici, No. 2. 17. (frblirfttltfl
= 2lnbticf;
cf.jtf, i. 25. SReij; cf. Spence (supra, p. Ixxxvii), and Mendelssohn
(supra, p. cxx). rtmaffc; cf. 38, 5, and Herder, p. 269.
29.
134. 20. beftrettct is a translation of combatte (1. 23). A more
natural word would be trciufett.

135. 4. 2Borttierftattb
= @inn be8 SBorteS. 6. Amoris digitulo

impressum, made by the delicate finger of Cupid, 7. $nntfltton =

t, flesh-color. 14. ju bcr obigcn 2lnmcrfung; cf. 123, 15.

XXII.

135. 17. Zeuxis, Zcvis, celebrated

Greek painter who flourished

about 400 B.C. bnS $erj; cf. 115, 19- 23- frflUbern gu fiwneit

fiifjtte; Latin construction, as above, 129, 5.

404 COMMENTARY

136. 2. Crotona, the home of Milo; cf. 14, 21. 13. ^crttefwtfl
= >intergrunb. 15. fitfjucr (affen, produce a bolder ejject; cf. 40, 21.
21. Turpe amor, love in old men is hideous; Ovid, Amores,
senilis

1, 9, 4. 29. Yet even so, though she be so goodly, let her go upon their
"

ships and not stay to vex us and our children after (Iliad, III, us"

159 f.). 32. Valerius Maximus 34,33.

;
cf.Dionysius; cf. 7/7,31.
137. 7. "Forthwith she veiled her face in shining linen, and hast
ened from her chamber" (Iliad, III, 141 f.). 18. feljcn, ttwS fie ill

CNtsiirfuufl fc<?t;
cf. 9, 12, gi, 2. brtinftifl mtflaffcn; strong lan
guage; cf. IIQ, 20. 26. 3ft friffeSf if this is the case. 27. He"lene

couverte; correctly translated 136, 5.

138. 4. SluSbrurf . . . Srfjiwtjcit; cf .
36, 9 ff . 8. ju empfinbcu
nitfjcrt; cf. 129, 5. 13. Tcnnort) finbct matt jc. This sentence
was the starting point Note to 77, 30).
of a violent polemic with Klotz (cf .

A reviewer of Klotz book on Gcschnittene Steine declared that Klotz

s

had therein convicted Lessing of an unpardonable error; namely, in

saying that the ancient artists appear not to have adopted many "pic

tures" from Homer. Realizing that the reviewer was serving merely
as the mouthpiece of Klotz, Lessing defended himself in a series of
letters, half a dozen of which were printed in Hamburg newspapers.
The whole series, to the number of fifty-seven letters, subsequently

appeared as the Bricfe antiqnarischcn Inhalls, two volumes, Berlin,

1768, 1769. As usual, Klotz distorted Lessing s words and reproved
him for something that he had not said. Lessing maintained that the
ancient artists did not imitate (cf. 63, 26) Homer as Caylus recom
mended modern artists to do; but either treated independently subjects
that Homer also treated, or Homer to treat his subjects
were inspired by
or use his motifs after the rules of their own art. Lessing said 3f)re :

(Semd fbe toaren omerifd)e emalbe, ujetl fte ben @toff ba$u au8 bent
Corner entlelwten, ben fte nad) ben SBebiirfniffen ifyrer elgnen $unft,
nicfyt nad) bem Seityiele einer fremben befyanbelten: aber eS itmren
feine emalbe jum Corner. >ingegen
bie enttilbe, melrfje (EatjluS

ttorfdjlagt, ftnb ntefyr emalbe gum Corner at8 >omertfd}e emtilbe,

af (9emalbe in bem eifle beg Corner nnb fo angegeben, rt)te fte Bonier
fetbft ftiirbe an^gefii^rt ^aben, n?enn er cutftatt ntit Shorten, mit bem
^tttfet gemalt tjcitte (Erster Brief; L-M X, p. 235). And again: 3(^
Ijabe an iBeifpielen getutefen, rtJie fte [bie ^iinflter] c anftngen, in ben
namlidjen SJormiirfen mit i^m [Corner] gu roetteifcrn, nnb mit tt)m 311
 COMMENTARY 405

bent nomtid)en it\e ber auf cincm

tiufcf)img gang uerfdjiebeuen
SBege ju gclangcn (Zweiter Brief; L-M X, p. 237). Young, in his
Conjectures on Original Composition (cf. Note to 63, 26), had given
advice of similar purport to the poet: "He that imitates the divine
Iliad does not imitate Homer, but he who takes the same method which
Homer took for arriving at a capacity of accomplishing a work so great.
Tread in his steps to the sole fountain of immortality, drink where he
drank, at the true Helicon, that is, at the breast of Nature. Imitate,
but imitate not the composition, but the man. For may not this para
dox pass into a maxim? The less we copy the renowned ancients,
we shall resemble them the more" (Second edition, London, 1759, p. 21).
-19. be3 SlpcflcS iana; cf. Pliny, XXXV, 36. 23. bcr nlten
9lrttftcn iljr (iiefrfjmarf; double possessive, familiar in all colloquial
speech, and frequent in Lessing; cf. 283, 7, and be8 2ftajor fehteit

(Minna von Barnhelm, IV, 5). 26. bnfitr, to make up for this, instead,
on the other hand; cf 45, 7. .
29. ^llibriirfe, counterparts, like the im

pression of a die in wax, and with the suggestion of difference correspond

ing to the difference of material which gives the word a very different
connotation from $0pie. 32. Lessing adduces the Bibliotheca Gmca
(Hamburg, 1705-1718) Johann Albert Fabricius (1668-1736), a cele
of
brated philologist, rector of the Johanneum in Hamburg.
13O. 2. The other traits have in each person or work only one
property in common; namely, the fact that they harmonize with the
trait in which the two persons or works resemble each other. 7. eljer
= friifyer. 8. Phidias, ^eiSuxs, renowned Athenian sculptor of the
fifth century B.C. 14 ff. "Kronion spake, and nodded his dark brow,
and the ambrosial locks waved from the king s immortal head; and
he made great Olympus quake." 17. Jupiter, the famous statue in
the temple of Zeus at Olympia, made chiefly of ivory and gold, enthroned,
reposeful, and majestic. Little is known of the details; cf. Murray,
Greek Sculpture, II, pp. 98 ff., 123 ff.; Overbeck, Griechische Plastik,
1 8. propemodum etc., almost got from heaven itself.
pp. 344 ff., 356 ff.
he who thinks this means
19. SaScm biefeS nid)t3 mefyr flefagt fyetfet,
27. quanta pars animi, how much expression of
the soul.
nothing more.
ba3 $aar. In the free and expressive treatment of the hair
29.
Phidias was distinguished from all his predecessors.
Chapter XXI treats the question of bodily beauty in poetry; chapter
XXII the same question with respect to painting, particularly as to
406 COMMENTARY

the manner in which ancient artists discovered in Homer beautiful

figures which he did not describe, but of which he gave impressions
vivid enough to inspire them to the creation of beautiful forms in their
art. The succeeding chapters, leaving the question of beauty, take
up the question of ugliness (of form; cf. 144, 12) in poetry (chapter
XXIII) and in painting (chapter XXIV); and the question how far
the disgusting is available in either poetry or painting (chapter XXV).

XXIII.
14O. 7. btetibcreinftimmcnbe SBirfuttfl ; cf. 124, 21. 9. Bud)
bit ttfjltd)fdt. Ugliness, like beauty a quality of form or appear
ance, is also, like beauty, a state or condition, for the depiction of
which the means of poetry, being successive, are not well adapted.
15. XtferftteS, epo-tr^. In the Iliad (II, 211 ff.) Thersites, "ill-

favored beyond allmen that came to Ilios," and the object of universal
contempt among the Greeks, reviles Agamemnon and attempts to stir
up insurrection, with the object of persuading the Greeks to abandon
the siege of Troy and return home. He is promptly rebuked and chas
tised by Odysseus; and from first to last the Greeks laugh at him.

gcf rfjilbcrt cf. Iliad, I, 217 ff.: "Bandy-legged was he and lame of
;

one foot,and his two shoulders rounded, arched down upon his chest;
and over them his head was warped, and a scanty stubble sprouted
on 25. toon ber
it."
cite, with respect to; cf. 102, 10. 27. ftir

ftcfy fel&fr, for its own sake. 28. &ermifrf)te C*mpftnbunflen. The
purpose of the arts is to give pleasure by means of beauty; and the
perception of beauty is an unalloyed pleasure. As to the subjective
effects of beauty, whether in nature or in art, Lessing adds little to the
theoriespropounded by Mendelssohn (supra, p. cxix), though the cor
respondence of the two men shows that Lessing was quite capable of
independent thinking on these subjects. In Laokoon, however, the
psychology of esthetics, so far as Lessing treats it, is frankly credited
to Mendelssohn. In the Briefe iibcr die Empfindungen, and especially
in the Rhapsodic, Mendelssohn points out that feelings need not be all

pleasurable to give, in a complex, a pervading sensation of pleasure.

Pity, for example (Rhapsodic, p. 248), ift einc toermifdjte Gmpfinbuiifl,
bie au ber SHebe ju einem egenftaube, imb au ber Untuft liber beffeu

ilnglitcf jufammengefejst ijt ; and yet pity is the very object of dramatic
 COMMENTARY 407

art in tragedy (cf. Note to jj, 3), and people witness tragedies for the

purpose of experiencing esthetic pleasure. SBeinen ift cine t)cv= >a$

mtjdjte (gmpfinbung Don ?ufl unb Unlufl inib entering! au ber anfd)aueu=
ben @rfenntni$ be $ontraft8 jtwfdjen ciner SSoflfontmenljeit unb llnootU
fomnienfjeit, bie un3 beibc fefyr natje gefyen. 2)al)er tteinen mir, roenn twr
3)iit(eiben fiiljfen ;
benn ba 2KitIeiben felbft griinbet fid) anf ben tontraft
jroifdjen ben moralifdjen StaKfonimenljeiten unb pl)t)fifd)en Unuottfommen-
tjeiten einer sJJerfon. $)al)er roeinen tt)ir, enn ti)ir je^t g(iicflid) ftnb uub
un an nnfer uorigeg Ungtiicf lebljaft eriunern; unb btefeS fiub greuben=
trcinen . . .
53rand)t e8 me^r, urn 311 beioeifen, bafc ba SBeinen eine au8
fuft unb Untitft uerinifdjte (Snipfinbnng fei, nub bafc man aldbann nidjt atte=
mat nngliidlid) ift, luenn man e faun
(Sbenfo 511 Straiten fomnten lafjen?
tuenig bac i adjen etn nntruglid)e tfennjeidjen be8
ift IticfeS. (S8 grunbet

ftd^ uiehne^r, jott)ot)( al ba8 2Beinen, auf einen ^ontraft gmifdjen einer
2>oflfoimnenf)eit unb UnuoUfonnnentjeit. ^hir ba biejer Ifoutrafl toon feiner
2Sid)tigfett fein unb 11118 nic^t fet)r na^e angeljen mn^, tDenn er ItidjerUd)
jein foil (ibid., p. 256). Lessing s reference on p. 741 is to this passage.

141. 4. ba i!ari)crlirf)c. In the years 1755-57, Lessing had in

mind to write an essay on the Ridiculous, and made many references
to his plan in letters to Mendelssohn; cf. L-M XIV, p. 204; XVII,
p. 1 20. 12. Opposita, contrasting elements; cf. (Sfeflenftettuitfl,

4, 21. 15. 5tfo|> represented as a cripple in an admirably character

is

istic statue now in the Villa Albani at Rome; cf. Ziehen, Anschauungs-

tnaterial, p. 18. 17. TOud)fra^e, monkish whimsy. TeXoiov,

comicality. 28. SUJitlctb. So Mendelssohn says also.
142. i. Wycherley, William (1640-1715), English playwright
8. Ov <j>6u.pTiKov,
harmless. Aristotle said, "For the ludicrous is

or
merely a subdivision of the ugly. It may be denned as a defect
10. mctn ^rcmtb,
ugliness which is not painful or destructive."
Mendelssohn. fommcn; cf. 20. J8cr-
14. teurcr 511 ftdjen 88, 19.

^eljunflen
= 2luff)efcungen. 28. fdjobUdje Jpapctyfett ;
cf. Herder,

273, i7-

XXIV.
144. 12. $ttpd>fett
bcr ftormen, Lessing speaks, as he says,
just as is in his defini
only of the ugliness of form (cf. 35, 9) beauty
and he has regard only to esthetic values,
tion (40, 8) a quality of form
not postulating any necessary relation between ugliness of form and
408 COMMENTARY

ugliness in the moral sphere, or evil. As between Thersites, Edmund,

and Gloucester, there is no moral difference; but Edmund is not es-

thetically ugly. The idea of harm does indeed belong in the domain
of morals, and the distinction between the ludicrous and the terrible
isbased upon moral grounds; but, Lessing says, the poet may make
use of both the ludicrous and the terrible, if he wishes to arouse mixed
feelings. The question now turns to the painter. 16. $11$ jcncr
flcliiiren ifjr
= iljr altfnadjafymeuber ^ertigfeit fldjbren. 17. fcfyltefit fie

ftd) . . . em = fdjranft fte ftd) ein, or bejdjrantt fie ftd). 20. tiunftridfter
is Mendelssohn; cf. Schriften, IV, ii, pp. n ff. 25. fttnftlicfyer We
trufl ;
cf. 23, 5.

145. 17. abftraljtcrcn = abfefyen cf. 5, 25;

; 36, iS.
14<>. 8. HiuUfllid)fcit
= NnjieffiuiflStraft. 16. in ber SJWcrct.
So long as "painting" has for its goal the representation of beauty,
and especially beauty of the human body, it is clear that ugliness can
be admissible only in slight measure and for special purposes such as
Lessing has indicated. At this point, however, the danger of reason
ing about such a collective idea as that expressed in Lessing s word
IDialeret becomes manifest. Here we must distinguish between paint
ing and the various forms of plastic art. Nobcxly needs to be reminded
that Murillo s street urchins Ziehen, p. 53) are far from beautiful
(cf.
and would be absurd if carved in marble; but few would deny the
charm which surrounds these homely figures on the master s canvas.
The possibilities of painting, strictly so called, are by no means limited
to the range of the beauties of the human body. Instead of having
for its subject bodies in space (/o/, 14), painting treats space in which
there are bodies these bodies may onlybe beautiful or not. We have
to consider how
the painter fills his canvas with lights, shades, and
colors, to appreciate the difference between a picture and a relief
in which there is at least a background and still more between a pic
ture and a statue, which stands alone and apart, exalted upon its pedestal
into the freedom of the air. Those who speak of the "poetry of paint

ing" are much more just to this art than Lessing was, whose principal
interest, after all, was in poetry and not in painting. Cf. the very

suggestive chapter (VII), Ubcnvindung dcr Korpcr-Schonhcit und

-Hasslichkeit in dcr Kfalcrci, in Schmarsow s Erlauterungcn, pp. 64 ff.;
Adolf Ilildebrand, Das Problem dcr Form, Strassburg, 1908; and L.
Volkmann, Grenzen dcr Ktinste. i<). ladjerUd) blctbcn ;
cf. 38, 3 ff.
 COMMENTARY 40y

-29. tin (Me^rtcr; Klotz; cf. 138, 13. Klotz s Epistolas Homeric*
were published at Altenburg, 1764. 30. eutf cincn anbcrn Drt; cf.
the fifty-first of the A ntiquarische Briefe.

XXV.
147. i. bcr angefiityrte ftunftridjter,
Mendelssohn, Schriften, IV, ii,

p. 12: unangenehmen S?eibenfd)aften ber @eele fyaben aber nod) einen

ie

britten ^orjng nor bem (Sfel unb anbern tmbrigen (Smpfinbungen bed
flbrpers, babnrd) ftc anfeer bcr ftadjaljwung, in ber 9totwr felbft, bem e-
nmte bfter fdjmeidjelii. 2)iejer ift, bap fie niemals reine Unluft erregeu,
jonbeni ifore Sttterfeit at(e$eit mil SBotlnft
oermifc^eH. Unfere ftnrd)t jc.
21. baburd) = tuobnrd).
148. 2. i^m = bem (Sfet. 13. L.c., p. n. 25. gejrfetfdjte =
plattgebriicftf. 29. bem (Hel; cf.
Herder, 276, 24 ff.
149. 23. al^ etn ^nflrebien^. 2Ser beijanptet, ba(i ber C?fel ol fo[=
S
d^er in feiner i)itfd)iiug mbglidjeruieije itic^t^ )lngenel)nie8 fjabe (?ef(ing
^aofoon), fennt bie Watnr biefer Gmpfinbnng nic^t (Grillparzer, Werke,
ed. Sauer, XVIII, p. 43).
150. 4- tfenner, The Connoisseur. Chesterfield, Philip Dormer
Stanhope, Earl of (1694-1773). 19. ^$f)U0ftet; cf. 28, 4, 42, 5 ff.

28 ff.
NF.OPTOLEMUS. I see no trace of human creature here.
ODYSSEUS. Nor food, nor household implements to cook it.

NEOPT. A mass of leaves heaped up to form a couch.

OD. All bare besides. Naught else beneath the roof.
NEOPT. A bowl made all of wood, the workmanship
Of some rude hand; see too some firewood.
OD. And this is all the treasure that he hath.
NEOPT. Alas! Alas! these reeking raps behold,
The solace of his wounds, laid here to dry.
Transl. Sir R. PHILLIMORE.

151. 9. "Beard befouled and hair filled with clotted blood."

13. Marsyas, Mapo-ua?. According to the Greek legend, Marsyas took

up the flute which Athena had invented and discarded because the
playing of it distorted the face, and challenged Apollo to a contest in
music. The Muses as judges were about to award the prize to Mar
syas when Apollo sang to his lyre, and won it. To punish Marsyas for
his presumption, Apollo flayed him alive. 14 ff. "The skin is torn
from all the limbs of the wailing man; his whole body has become one
410 COMMENTARY

raw wound; blood flows at every point; the nerves are exposed to
view; the throbbing veins beat uncovered; you may count the pro
truding entrails and the gleaming fibres of the breast."
152. 2. <SJefttf)l; namely, disgust. 6. ouS bcr Sld)t ft^Iagen;
stronger expression than the more usual
9 ff.: aufjer 5td)t laffen.
she sees her (hunger) from a distance ... she delivers tho
"When

mandate of the goddess; and having tarried a while, although she

stood at a distance and had hardly arrived there, she seemed even to
feel hunger 18. Ohrcftd)tl)0n,
herself."
Epvo-i x&m/, Erysichthon, sor
of Triopas, King of Thessaly, offended Ceres by felling trees in a grove
sacred to her. Thereupon the goddess commissioned an oread to gc
to Hunger and beg her to enter the entrails of Erysichthon. The story
is related by Ovid in the
Metamorphoses, VIII, 809 ff., and by Calli-
machus, KoAAi/xu^os (a grammarian and poet of Cyrene and Alexan
dria; third century B.C.), in his hymn Et? ArJ/xr/T/aa, To Demctcr. Cf.
Callimachi Hymni et Epigrammata, ilcrumed. Ulr. de Wilamowitz-Moel-
lendorff, Berlin, 1897, P- 53- 29- Apollonius; cf. 96, n. Phineus,
Qivtwi, a king in Thrace, in order to please his second wife blinded his
sons by his first marriage. To punish him, the gods sent harpies, who
took his food before his eyes, and defiled it. The Harpies,
away from
"ApTruuu,
were monsters with the heads of maidens, human arms, but
huge claws. They were driven away from Phineus by the Argonauts.
1 53. i ff
"

If it happens that they leave a little of the food behind,

.

it emits a foul and intolerable stench. No human being could bear to

be near it an instant, even though he had a heart of adamant. But
bitter need and hunger compel me to remain and give remnants to my
wretched SBctm SBtrflU
stomach." namely, AZneid, III, 212 ff.
8. ;

In his wanderings, /Eneas comes to the Strophadian Islands, whither

the harpies have gone after being driven from the house of Phineus.
The harpies disturb /Eneas and his companions at their meal, a battle
ensues, and /Eneas overcomes Celaeno, one of the monsters. She pre
dicts,however (1. 225), that the Trojan fugitives shall never found a
city in Latium until, compelled by dire hunger, they eat even the
tables upon which their food is set. Arrived in Italy, the fugitives
make dishes of bread, and fulfil the prophecy by eating these. 12.
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321); bercitet
= bereitet nor. 13. Ugolino.
In the first part of the Divine Comedy (Inferno, XXXII, 124 ff.),

Dante depicts Count Ugolino in the act of eating the back of the head
 COMMENTARY 4U
of his enemy, the archbishop Ruggieri; and in the following canto
Ugolino relates how the archbishop had betrayed him and confined
him with his sons in a dungeon. As they were left to starve, Ugclino
bit his hands for woe; whereupon his sons offered him their own flesh
to eat. The German poet Heinrich Wilhelm von Gerstenberg (1737-
1823) treated this subject in dramatic form: UgoKno, eine Tragodie,
1768. 24. Pordenone, Italian painter (1483-1540), so called from
the place of his birth. 28. ^aulttttfl
154. 15. frub ;
cf. 24, 30.

Krittfcfye tDalber.

(Erftcs ID a I 6d? en.

Cttcl.

The title-page of the Erstes Waldchen, reproduced in this volume,

is similar in general appearance to the title-page of Laokoon, and the
excellent vignette of Socrates with which it is adorned is a suggestion
both of critical independence and of sympathetic fellowship with the
circle of Lessing whose trade-mark, so to speak,
s friends in Berlin,
in the Literaturbriefeand the Allgemeine deulsche Bibliothek was a head
of Homer. The choice of a motto from Logau was a personal com
pliment to Lessing, the editor of Logau (cf. supra, p. xviii). Before
the end of the year 1769, however, the Erstes Waldchen was sold with
another title-page, on which, instead of the head of Socrates and the
motto from Logau, there appeared these words adapted from Quin-
tilian (X, 3, 17): Qui primo dccurrere per matcriam volunt et scqucntes
color em atque impel um ex tempore scribunt, sylvas vacant; i.e., "those

who wish first to run through their matter and, according to zeal and

impulse, write on the spur of the moment they call these writings
The
forests." concluding words of Herder s Erstes Waldchen, which
we have omitted from the text, still further explain the fanciful title:
3n mefyr a(8 eincr pracfye Ijat baS SBort Salber ben 53egriff Don gefam*
tnelten 2Jteterien ofyte $tan nnb Orbmtng ; id) njftnfdjte mtr, bafe meine
j$fabe biefes erftcn Setts iibev
s
ejer bic etn>a trocfncn unb oerfdjfoffenen
feljeu mod)ten, um ^inter benfelben 511 freieru 2faeftd)ten 311 getaugen. As
Gustav Kettner points out (Herders Erstes kritisches Waldchen, Naum-
412 COMMENTARY

burg, 1887, P- 16), Quintilian meant a first draft, Herder a collection

of materials corresponding to Lessing s collectanea; cf. 25, 25.

I.

1G1. $emo!rttu3 cf. 38, 3. Referring to Tlutarch (Vit.

6. ;

I), Winckclmann had said (Erlauterung der Gedanken von der Nachah-

mung, Werke, I, p. 147), 9tod) be$ 3)emotritu8 iHorgeben fallen uur bie
otter bitten, ,,bafj uu nitr gliicttidje i!3ilber uorfoimnen," nnb

d)en SMlber ftnb ber Mteit il)re. 8. iBUbfaule

= tatiie. 10. e

fecit, lie made it; signature implying completion of a work. n.

biefe 3prnd)C ; i.e., the characterization of one art in terms of another.
12. Mctbcn ;
st. 511 eigen. 17. @mtntf)eud, 2/xiv0cv9, killer of mice,
from 07x1 v0os, mouse;
cf. Iliad, I, 39.
1 C>2. 6. Icbt nnb twcbt, common rhyming doublet, lives and moves
and has his being. 7. Wie er fclbft fdjreibt, letter to Hagedorn
dated Florence, Jan. 13, 1759 (Werkc, I, p. 276): 3d) fyobe bie cilteften
flriedjifdjeii 2)id)ter nnb ^Sfribenten bei biefer Arbeit uon neuent gelefeu.
Momenta folgt nod) immer
mir nad) bem 9J^orgenfegen.
bei 14. Ilissus,

lAur<ro?, a river of Attica flowing from Mt. Hymettus. Near it were

a grove sacred to Apollo, and the lyceum of Aristotle and the peripatetic
philosophers. 20. gCQClt, in comparison with. 22. iPurUinrf; cf. j/,

25. 29. Acta Litteraria, a magazine edited by Klotz; cf. 138, 13. 30.
,<pltd) f
Ernst Ludwig Daniel, professor at the gymnasium in Zerbst,
where the essay referred to was published in 1767.
4. Ulysses;
1<5J$. cf. Odyssey, XII, 165 ff. Not a very happy
simile; Odysseus stopped up the ears of his companions only. 6.

flemifi, ol$ bnfe; cf. Note to 32, 15. 8. $or uitb Ijiutcr bcm-
fclbcn; chapter of Laokoon, and the appended chapters
i.e., the first

XXVI-XXIX, which we have omitted. 2Ba3 refers to the polemical

matter in those chapters, and is the subject of ftnb. The German
idiom makes the verb plural if the predicate nominative is plural;
t.g., bie
gan^e SieifegeU lUdiaft finb Gngtnnber. 9. Parerga, plural of

Trdpepyov, subordinate matter. 16. finb j plural because the subject

is though not grammatically, plural.
logically, 29. ftiutftrirfjter
be3 Herder is justified in thus emphasizing Lessing s
$irf)ter3.
greater competence in poetry than in the formative arts, especially
when Lessing is compared with Winckelmann. And though Lessing
 COMMENTARY 413

undertook to define the limits of both painting and poetry, he actually

gives more attention to poetry. 32. toorgrctfett, Dorarbetten, an
ticipate, get in the way of, precipitately undertake the work of.
164. 6. fjiftorifdje 9)Jetnpl)t)ftf bc3 Srfjotteu; i.e., a philoso
phy of the beautiful as it may be built up upon a foundation of
historicalknowledge of the arts. In the short essays to which we have
referred above (p. cxxxiii) Winckelmann treated esthetic questions in
philosophical form; and in his History of Art, he included many theo
retical considerations, but generally apropos of particular examples.

His Gcschichtc was both historical and expository; he recorded the

objective facts, and sought at the same time to determine the causes
that had contributed to produce them; he demonstrated the beauty of an
individual statue, and also investigated the general laws of beauty.
In chapter 24 of the Erstes Wdldchcn (here omitted) Herder speaks
of having made many notes and queries in connection with his seven
perusals of Winckelmann s great work. These have to do especially
with the distinction between @ejd)id)te and el)rgebaube, with the
conditions favoring the development of an artistic sense among the
Greeks, and with the influence of national character in the arts. Part
of this material Herder prepared for the second edition of the second
series of Fragmcntc, reprinted from the MS. in Wcrkc, II, pp. 109 ff.
The more important passages in the first five chapters of the rest are
reprinted in Wcrke, IV, pp. 201 ff. 20. ftuitftlUCrf ;
cf. the distinc
tion between Serf and Gnergie, 265, 5.

165. 12. TTery/xeVoi>, perfect passive participle of Tacr(ra>,

ar

range. 13. OHufpriutgc, excursuses.

This characterization of the style of Winckelmann and Lessing is
justly admired. Cf. the obituary notice on Lessing that Herder con
tributed to Wieland s Tcutschcr Mcrkur in October, 1781 (Wcrkc, XV,
number
pp. 51, 486), the Andcnkcn an Winckelmann in the September
of the same magazine (Wcrkc, XV, pp. 36 ff.), and the Denkmal Johann
Winckdimnns (1778 Werke, VIII, pp. 437 ff-)-

II.

166. i. 9Bic $erjd)iebetu>iten,

bic im Corner
afcttictffdttb. >te

im bie Sebeutung rote in

jelbft tiorfommeii, fyaben fiir nid)t
meljr
bo ttrir barin beu Mieberfdtfag berfdjiebener Uber*
Berbers agen,
414 COMMENTARY

avbeitmtgeu erfennen. Vgl. O. Immisch, Die innere Entwicklung des

griechischen Epos, Leipzig, 1904 (Schmarsow, Erlduterungen, p. 86).
7. <3el)r fcltcii. Quite right. Lessing cites no passage in which a
Greek warrior falls with a cry; and, indeed, the only Homeric heroes

who arc Trojans (Bliimner, pp. 489 f.). Herder is right, further
so fall

more, in attributing to individual character the behavior of Venus,

Mars, Phereklos (<J>/3KA.os), and the others who cry out when wounded.
17. ciu fcigcr ftliirfjtling; a fugitive, but not said by Homer
to be cowardly. He receives a painful wound in the back. 24. ^ri)or,
blood of the gods.
LX<*>P,
29. IfiJare bie3, // this were the case; cf.
/J7, 26.
1(>7. io. unge VUCtfeItcr = un3Rieifelf)aftev, geroiffer, ftdjeuer. Mod
(

ern usage hesitates to put a past participle in the comparative

degree. 27. cine Ctgue s

j)ieitfdjcitfce(c. Thus early we come across
Herder s characteristic philosophy of individualism, his insistence upon
the sanctions of individual peculiarity.
1<>8. i. Hannibal (246-180 B.C.), Carthaginian leader, implacable
r
enemy of Rome. As to his laugh, cf Livy, 30, 44. .
29. $ft S f is it the

case; cf. 166, 29.

1G9. 6. gctroffcn tticrbcn = getroffen ju iverben. Herder was
fond of making a substantive of an infinitive. 13. 9fcur bic ftcigeit.
This is an overstatement of Herder s case. The particular circumstance
is not always cowardice. 28. 2lu3frf)WCtfuHg; cf. 26, 8. 33. W0
=
line, as often in North German colloquial speech.
At the beginning of this discussion, Herder accepts Lessing s propo
sition, djreion ifl ber imtiirUdje 2lu$brucf be? forperlidjen >d)merje8

(28, 13). shows that Lessing s illustrations from Homer do not

He
Obviously, Venus and Mars are treated by Homer in rather
illustrate.

a humorous vein, so far as these matters are concerned; cf. Iliad, V,

419, 429, 888, ff. Herder corrects Lessing s hasty and ill-founded gen
by destroying the force of the illustration, he invalidates
eralization and,
the authority drawn from Homer for Lessing s assertion bafc ba8
djreien bet (ginpfinbung forperltdjen ^djmeqeS ... gar toofjl mit
etner grofeen @eele beftefyen !ann (ji, 8). The following chapter
shows, however, that, although the Greeks did not cry out, they were
not callous, but were people of sensitive feeling, not ashamed of tears
when their hearts were touched. With true romantic ardor, Herder
also demonstrates the same capacity for feeling in other nations than

the Greek.
 COMMENTARY 415

III.

170. 10. bitfftc, need, as often in Herder; cf. Lessing, 40, 19.
171. 10. Priam s son is, of 13. 1 npplnubcr.
course, Paris.
In the latter half of the eighteenth century the Germans and the Eng
lish developed a sentimental interest in the popular
poetry of Lapland.
The source of their very imperfect information about the subject was
Johan Scheffer s Lapponia, Frankfurt, 1673. In his Volkslieder (1778,
1779, Werke, XXV, pp. 92 f.) Herder included translations of two
putative Lapland songs, Ans Renntier and Die Fahrt zur Geliebten.
Cf. F. E. Farley, Three "Lapland Songs" in the Publ. of the Mod.
Lang. Assn., XXI, pp. i ff. ctytljett are well known from Goethe s

Iphigcnie. 17. 9lUcflOric; the interpretation of the passage as

i.e.,

having a meaning for which the story furnishes but the forms of ex
pression. As to the question at issue, it is evident that Lessing reads
into Homer an interpretation that suits the purpose of his argument,
to establish a difference between the Greeks and the Trojans. He
thereby does considerable violence to Homer s words: Priam did not
forbid the Trojans to weep, he forbade them to wall aloud; meaning,

according to modern views, such a ceremonial wailing for the dead as

is familiar among oriental and some occidental peoples. For such
wailing there was no time; and Herder, reading the meaning rather
out of the situation than into it, shows that there were other reasons

also why the Trojans should not have indulged in wailing. Here, again,
Lessing s illustration does not justify the sweeping generalization that
the Trojans were barbarians. But his main contention, that the Greeks
were better disciplined, and that discipline among the Greeks did not
mean stoicism, is s criticism, and must remain un
unshaken by Herder
shaken; for Herder is same opinion, as he goes on to say
himself of the

(1. 20). 24. clCfltfdjC ^ocfte. The Greek eVeyos was a song of
mourning, a lament, without reference to form. But since distichs
were most commonly used in these songs, cAeyos got to mean a song of
mourning in distichs. A distich consisting of a hexameter and a penta
meter was called eAeyeTov, and the plural of this word, cAeyeta, came
into use with the meaning elegiac poem, but only with reference to
the meter. The Greeks had elegies on war and politics, as well as ele
giac laments. the Romans, Ennius used the elegiac distich
Among
and Ovid used it in plaintive and amatory poetry.
in epigrams; Catullus
In Germany the elegiac distich was imitated by Gottsched, Ewald
416 COMMENTARY

von Kleist, Uz, Ramlcr, Klopstock, and many others, including Goethe
(Alexis und Dora), and Schiller (Der Spazicrgang). Elegies were, how
ever, also written in hexameters and rhymed couplets, e.g., by Bodmer,
Haller, J. A. Schlegel, and Holty. Herder derides the attempts of con
temporary poetasters to imitate the classical forms, and speaks of the
elegy as a kind of poetry treating a special set of subjects. In the
third series of his Fragmcntc (\Vcrke, I, pp. 477 ff.) he had printed a

running commentary on Abbt s essay, Von Nachahmung dcr lutcinischcn

Elegicn. Referring to Mendelssohn, Abbt had defined elegy as follows:
lUan fonnte fie ubevfjaupt evflaren old tie ftnnlid) oollf out incite 3?e
fdjretbung mifcrer Dermifd)ten (Sinpftnbungen. Herder said [^etradjtnng
unier$ eigneu ,3nftanbe], bied ift bie diefibcn; ber(Slegie, unb allctf $>orige,
. . . fofern e8 (id) nnferm elbft nafyert, fofern unr 3lnteil barau neljmcn.
^etjlt btefe 93e$iel)itng auf uu felbft, jo faun bie Glegie em fd)bne Exerci-
tium stili luerbeit, aber nie etn SDieifterftiirf (Werkc, I, p. 486). Abbt
having died in November, Herder printed in 1 768 the Torso von
1 766,
einern Dcnkmal referred to above (p. clvi); and in the summer of

1768 he wrote, but never published, a second essay, Ubcr Thomas Abbts
Schriftcn (Wcrke, II, pp. 295 ff.). In this second essay the second
chapter, Ubcr die Elegicn, is a working over of the running commentary
above mentioned. Taking up Ab5t s definition, Herder queries, 5Ibcr
ber Derm if d) ten Gnipfinbuugen? 2Bie, roenn ba8 5 ro e un ^ ^ a ^ ^ c ^^ ^)

briugeube gtetd) Dennijdjt, lueun gar ba8 ^ro^e uberflief^eub luaveV Wod)
immer uermijd)te (Snipfiiibungen; aber itod) iuimer (Slegie? 9ietu!
unb fo ftreid)e id) and) biejeS pl)itofopl)ierenbe 3Bort tvcg unb fage: Glcgie

ift bte rmn(i(^ DoUfonuuene genulberter trauriger (Smpfiubniigcn

<2>prarf)e

(Wcrkc, II, p. 303). After further discussion, Herder sums up (p. 307):
3u bcr Clegie I)frrfd)e nid)t ^renbe, )ii ber ftd) nur etuiqe Xranriflfeit inifdjt,

fonbern tinvfltd)e Xranrigfett; nid)t Xraurigfett, bte bitvd) eine 511 nal)e

egentDart ttrirfltd) tnirb; jonfl iiberntaunt fte bag 3>ergmigeu; fonberu

eine etiua eutferntere S3etrubui: nic^t aber fo entferut, ba^ id) blo^ bnrd)
3flufton Xeil tteljme; ober fo ^efttg, ba blo^ bie 33orftelliing ber SUufton
ba8 tuirflic^ llttattgene^tne ert)iubern fantt; fonbern gar letue 3(luftou,
meine 33etritbnt?. Uttb nun glanbe ic^ ; ifl ber egenftaitb beftitnmt:
metue (unb ^mar of)ue 3flufton meine) S3etriibni (btes fd)Uefjt jd)ou
alleS ^efttge an?) g e in 1 1 b e r t (aber uneber ntd)t burd) bie 3Unfton, fonbern
iDtvftid)) gemilbert, bnrd) bte Sntfernnng; euttneber alfo ber ler*

gangenen 3>eit, ba^ nur eine fattfte Xra ne be8 5lnbenfen8 iibrig gcblieben,
 COMMENTARY 41 7

ober ber 3
u ^ u "f^ &ofe eine pro^etifdje 33angigleit
ctnigc entfernte, ober
bunfel entfernte Untnft erblicfe, ober ber jejjigen 3eit, nnr bafj
Ungettujfteit,
ipoffnung, ober benn enb(td) Untroftloftgfeit (id) tveifc mrf)t, une id) ben ,Bn=
ftanb ber @eete nennen foil, ber bo- fiitjlt, ba$ er nid)t tterjtttetfetn ruerbe)
bie llnlujl eutferitt $eige: ba finb bie (Smpfwbitngen ber (Slegie. It is

Herder dwells upon the emotional content of elegiac

characteristic that

poetry and has nothing to say about its form except that it is not a mere
matter of form. Most of Lessing s distinctions, on the contrary, are
based precisely upon considerations of form. Herder s criticisms are
therefore here and elsewhere mostly supplementary observations made
from a different point of view. 28. Cf. Ars Poetica, 75 f.:

impariter junctis querimonia primum,

"Versibus

Post etiam inclusa voti sententia compos."

"In alternating dissimilar verses [i.e., hexameters and pentameters]

lamentation was first expressed, and afterwards the feeling of desire
attained." 32. Iliad, VIII, 57: "Of forceful need, for their children s
"

sake and their wives .

172. 9. bci fonft flrofeett $td)tertt, even though it has poets great
in other things. a mythical Danish king, whose
15. SJcfltlcr Siobbrofl,

death-song is contained in the Krakumal, a Norse poem of the late

twelfth century (ed. Rafn, Copenhagen, 1826). Herder became ac
with this song in D. Schiitze s translation of P. H. Mallet s
quainted
(French) History of Denmark (1765), which he reviewed in a Konigs-
berg newspaper in August of that year; cf. Werke, I, pp. 73
ff. On
Regner see Saxo Grammaticus, Gcsta Danorum, lib. IX, ed. A. Holder,
Strassburg, 1886, and J. Jonsson in the Arkiv for Nordisk Filologi,
N. F. XIX, pp. 264 ff. (1907). 19. Dbim Following the Scandinavian
tradition, Mallet makes of the god Odin (Woden)
a semi-mythical king
who came from the East and established his dynasty in Scandinavia;
cf. Herder, Wcrkc, I, p. 264. 30. (fln, king in England who defeated
Regner.
173. 5. ittimten f valkyries, the maidens of Odin who selected
the heroes that should fall in battle and thereby gain admission to
Walhalla (feinen ^otafl). 9- fieffingS 23cmerfwtfl ;
cf. 2 g 8. u. t

(gt^riftcn. The author was Gerstenberg; cf. Note to 153, 13. In

the eighth letter he speaks slightingly of Macpherson s Ossian (cf
Note. .

to 259, 21) and enthusiastically of Percy s Reliques,

and then calls
attention to several Danish folk-songs, one of
which is that referred
418 COMMENTARY

to here. In the Volkslicdcr (I, 3, C) Herder had printed the song of

Asbiorn Prude after Bartolinus (cf. 29, 30) and the modernized Danish
version of a collection entitled Kiampc-Viiser, Copenhagen, 1739.
15. mrimiltrt) cf. 7/2,5. 17. cf. 29, 15.
:
SHcfciftein;
174. 4. Xotcn GmpfhiDuuflcu ; cf. 28, 25.
. . . 7. Scmoncit,

scnwncs, demigods. Herder adopts the etymology of Martianus Capclla

(first half of the fifth century A.D.): semis as if from scmidci. The Se-
mones were Italic deities of doubtful origin. One of them, Semo Sancus
Dius Fidius, who had a temple on the Quirinal, was by some identified
with Hercules. 9. in bicfcm Stiirf ;
cf. 24,11. 17. 993o bte3 nirfjt tft;

cf. 166, 29.

175. 2. (r tiufjertc fctnc Srfjmcrjcn. Herder illustrates this

proposition by citing several scenes in Ossian. His enthusiasm for

Ossian also found expression in a review of a translation into German
hexameters by M. Denis (1768); cf. Werke, IV, pp. 320 ff.; and in the
Auszug aiis cincm Briefivcchscl iibcr Ossian, the first article in the vol
ume Von dcutscher Art und Kunst (1773); cf. supra, p. clx, Note i.

IV.

175. 21. $ ntr riant) cf. Herder s patriotic pamphlet, Haben wir
;

noch jctztdas Publikiim und Vaterland dcr Alien? Riga, 1765 (Werke, I,
pp. 13 ff.). 23 ff. Inexact quotation from Klopstock s Ode ant Fcsle dcr
Souverdncldt in Ddnemark (1771), later entitled Das ncue Jahrhundert.
1 76. 10 f. These songs are a national treasure, and the feeling
that they celebrate and arouse is a national feeling, patriotism. 14.

nndjbcm = \t nadjbem ; cf. 25, 8. 16. iHcifpiel ; in the sense of

the fortitude traditionally attributed to Odin. 23. ONtfermwo,, sense

of separation from. 28. Ovid. The reference is to the poems written
during his banishment in Pontus: Tristia ex Ponto. Bussy-Rabutin,
Roger comte de (1618-1693), a cousin of Mme. de Sevigne, having
incurred the enmity of Louis XIV, was imprisoned for a year in the
Bastille, and then banished from the court for sixteen years more.
He wrote a Discours du bon usage des afflictions et dcs adver sites.
177. 12. ^riumuS ;
cf. Iliad, XXII, 405 ff., XXIV, 161 15. $cf=
tor; cf. Iliad, VI, 466 ff. and poem, Hektors Abschied von
Schiller s
Andromache. 16. (Sleftru, in the tragedy of the same name by
Sophocles. 17. ju iljren 93eitcrn ;
cf. Judges, 2, 10.
 COMMENTARY 419

178. i. lUtjffeS; cf. Odyssey, I. 2.

flbeitteuerltrf), say extrava
gant, as befitting the hero of a romance of adventure. 5. $aflcr
(supra, pp. xlv. Trauerrede beim Absterben seiner geliebten Marram
ff.),

(i73 )- $I0pftorf, Hintcrlassne Schriften von Margareta Klopstock

(1759); Herder, Wcrkc, I, p. 477, Anm. 2.
cf.
GrtttilJ (supra, p. xliii),
Klagode den Tod seiner erstcn Gemahlin (1695).
tibcr
Deber, Georg
Wilhelm (died about 1750), a poet about whom little is known.
Lessing
mentioned him in a review published in the Vossische Zeitung,
July
16, 1 754, as a strong poet, the translator of one of Young s Night Thoughts;
cf. L-M V, p. 419. 22. 3ofalt3, loAaos; c f. Hesiod, Theogony, 317.
23. Achates, the fidus A chatcs of the&neid; e.g., I, 188. Oreftegi nnb
^I)fabc3; cf. Goethe s I phi genie and 77, 17. 24. Pirithous, -
Iletpt
$oos, Ilepiifloos; cf. Sophocles, Oedipus Coloneus, 1594. Jonathan; cf.
i Sam. 18 ff. 29. qgatrofluS; cf. 184, 13. 30. David; cf. 2 Sam. i,
n, 17. 31. btC 933dt ; i.e., the conditions of life, or society.
179. bb otifdjer tepos Ao^os, a Boeotian sacred band; cf.
6. etlt

Dinarchus, Act i/up^o?, ed. F. Blass, Leipzig, 1888, Oration I, 73, p. 32.
24. ^oltjpljcm, IIoAu Polyphemus, a cyclops, whose eye Odysseus
</>77/AOs,

bores out; cf. Odyssey, I, 70. Theocritus, CO K/HTO? (third century

B.C.), represents in his eleventh idyllPolyphemus singing a love-song

to Galatea, of whom he was enamored. -25. Chateaubrun; cf. 45,
2. 31. ^ie f(f)OtHfei)Cn $clben are the heroes of Ossian.
180. 2. fciucnt | apparently a slip for il)rent. 3. flfo contrasts with

fyhtcinand equally with it, modifies fleratcn. 5. llltb tllfo ; sc. iff.

22. S3ficfe. Herder may have had in mind two volumes of letters
between Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim and Johann Georg Jacobi,
published in Berlin in 1768. This was, however, an age of sentimental
letter-writing, as may be seen, for example, in the letters of Winckel-
mann. 25. fab, French fade, insipid. 26. gotifrf) ;
cf. 92, 16.

nu3 ben mittlcrn 3citeu=aus bent Sftittetalter. 28.

Parenthyrsus,
Bacchic frenzy in the
jraptvOvpvos, false sentiment, a/ectation of style,
wrong place. Cf Longinus, III, and Winckelmann, Gedanken,
. DLD 20,

P- 25-
181. 10. trcffettbcr an ba3 ^>crj;
a condensed and vivid expres

sion, illustrating fondness for the participle; cf. 167, 10. The
Herder s

more regular idiom would be trafen mefyr an ba eq. 32. fcci Corner ;
cf. Iliad, IV, 473: "Next Telamonian Aias smote Anthemion s son,
420 COMMENTARY

the lusty stripling Simoeisios" . 482 ff.: "And he fell to the ground
. .

in the dust like a poplar tree, that hath grown up smooth in the low
land of a great marsh, and its branches grow upon the top thereof."
182. 6. 93r0tefiltw3, Hpureo-iAaos, cf. Iliad, II, 698 ff.: "Of all

these was warlike Protesilaos leader while yet he lived; but now ere
this the black earth held him fast. His wife with marred visage was
left alone in Phylake, yea, and his bridal chamber half builded." 9.

$iatta; cf. Iliad, V, 49 ff. 21. fc^c = Derive. 25. ba nurt)

=
ba tft and); cf. 176, 10. 27. The
repetition of ^luifrfjcit is superfluous,
but not uncommon even now-a-days; a similar repetition of between
occurs in the English Bible, e.g., Ezek. 34, 20. 31. eful)(. Herder
vindicates for the Greeks of Homer
perfect naturalness in the having
and the uttering of feelings; he gives little heed to the question which
occupied Lessing s attention, namely, the form of utterance, and the
modification of form in the interest of beauty. That other peoples
were like the Greeks in this respect is in itself important, but not im

portant for the present inquiry. Herder s excursus was, to be sure,

occasioned by Lessing s contrast between Greek and barbarian, between
ancient and modern. Herder speaks as an ethnologist and psycholo
gist; Lessing, as a practical critic of the means of esthetic expression.
So far as the subject of Laokoon is concerned, there is no quarrel between
them at this point.

183. 3. bicfcr is the subject of the sentence. 12. fo fofflt,

bflfj.Herder undertakes to reduce Lessing s argument to an absurdity,

but what he says himself is absurd. Physical pain is no keener now than
it was in the if we feel it seven times as
days of Agamemnon; keenly,
we same degree effeminate; and yelling seven times as loud
are in the
as he, would be a sign of our effeminacy, not an evidence of our natural
ness. On the other hand, if we are effeminate, we do well to conceal
the fact by cultivating the habit of self-control; and those of us who
are not effeminate may cultivate self-control from motives of decorum.

Lessing maintained that among the Greeks there was no such ideal of
decorum as forbade the utterance of feeling even when the feeling was
mere physical pain: the Greeks wept, and they cried out. His illustra
tions from Homer are not well chosen; but his principal illustration,

Philoctetes, though challenged by Herder in a chapter that we have

omitted, proves his point. In the case of Philoctetes, however, Lessing
was careful to point out that physical pain is only one of many causes
 COMMENTARY 421

of suffering; and since the same is true of the suffering Laocoon, Les-
sing s main argument remains unaffected by Herder s assault. Herder
is right, nevertheless, in making a distinction between
physical pain
and sorrow for dear ones; and in demolishing the distinction made by
Lessing between Greek and barbarian. Herder s own ethnological
feeling was more instinctive than historical, and he had no critical
doubts about the genuineness of Ossian. But his recognition of the fact
that the Homeric poems represent a stage of civilization paralleled
in the literature of other nations is a valuable contribution to the cor
rect interpretation of Homer; and his definition of what may be called
the elegiac state of mind is equally noteworthy. 15. ti)ir feincrn ,r

(furopfter"; cf. 28, 28 ff. The words imb un uerfagt fyabeu . . .

are not in Lessing. 20. nm fct

= tua e nut immer fei. 21. bariifier;
cf. 24, 14. 10. fcinc nUjmliebenben Xranen i.e., the tears of this
;

man who was concerned about his reputation as clearly appears from
the passages of the Iliad referred to.

V.

185. 3. auptflefe<j ;
cf. 33, 25. 5. bic crftc duefle. In the
notes and queries referred to above (Note to 164, 6} Herder expressed
the opinion that Winckelmann had overestimated the importance of
climate in the development of racial beauty (and, accordingly, of the
sense of beauty) among the Greeks; and took the ground that the real
secret of Greek beauty might be formulated in the single word generation.
That to say, the Greeks maintained their blood pure, and perpetuated
is

a race coming from a stock so sound and comely that they themselves
derived it from the gods. Conscious and proud of their origin, they
unrelentingly strove to make everything that they
created worthy
of the national ideal of beauty. Climate was the medium in which
the Greeks developed; but the source of their distinction was an innate
and well directed energy. Cf. Werkc, IV, pp. 203 ff. 14. @rinne=
those of Klotz in his review printed in
tungcu, animadversions; especially
the Ada Litteraria, III, pp. 283 ff.; in his Beitrag zur Geschichte des
Geschmacks and dcr Kunst aus Miinzen, Altenburg, 1767; and in his
treatise on the Gcschnittene Stcine, ibid., 1768. Replying to Klotz in
the first of the Antiquarische Bricfe, Lessing said, Hub UW faint id)

9hir baS: baft er mid) utdjt uerftanbcn bafe er

biefem autiuorten? f)at;

mid) etiuas fageu lajjt, luovan id) ntdjt gebad)t tjabc (L-M X, p. 233).
422 COMMENTARY

186. 4. bad; viz., bffentltcfye 3)enfmaler. 5. ftnorbmingeti = SSer

orbnuugcn. 12. fo totel obcr fo toenig. Herder s "confession" is not

altogether to the point. The very determination of a prevailing taste
implies the exercise of subjective judgment. 15. KaKO^T/Xta, imita
tion of bad models. Lessing uses the word in the sixteenth of the An-
tiquarischc Bricfe (L-M X, p. 280). 17. be^tuegen = barum, for all

that. 22. tooljer, where does one get the authority for saying? 24. too
bci bcr lefetcn, in answering the last of which. SSMnrfdmann cf. ;

Notes to 164, 6, 185, 5. 30. eis TO xetpov, making worse; cf. Note
to 32, 20.
187. 3. nrietoeit = fo iucit. 15. tyabe goes with both fjaben Un
nen and nnneljmcn miiffcn: how the creation of the beautiful had the

power to make deeper impressions, and must have had itself to be the
more ajjected by the causes mentioned. 18. Graeculis, little Greeks;
diminutive of contempt; equivalent to ^icugrtcdjcn (1. 25). 28.

Serjmunflcn ;
cf. 34,3. 29. ^etyne, Christian Gottlob (1729-1812),
one of the first of the great classical philologists in Germany, professor
at Gottingen. De Caussis etc., On the physical causes of fables or

myths, Gottingen, 1764. 31. Banier; cf. 77, 15.

188. Sd)dnf>eit; dat., in the interest of beauty.
9. bcr 15. tote
=
a(S, introducing a statement in apposition. 2Bte is used because of alS,

than, in the next line. 17. toeldfCd

= Wa8. 20. toon td)tern. The
derivation of mythology from the poetic consciousness of a people is
a subject to which Herder gives attention later. Cf. 204, 6 ff. 23.
fLeiAt xto?, gentle, gracious; frequent as an epithet of Zeus. 25. i miner;
cf. 197, 19 ff.

189. 5.83ton, BiW (third century B.C.), author of idylls, in

the first of which, ASuwSos, the complaint referred to
ETrtTa^io?
occurs. The poems of Theocritus, Bion, and Moschus (second century

B.C.) were translated into German verse by J. H. Voss, Tubingen, 1808.

13. jur Silbitng (= Ibbilbung) erfdjeinen

= fifeen. 15. immer = im*
inerl)in; cf. 82, 28. 17. Medusa, Me Sovo-a, the most important of
the Gorgons, daughters of the sea-monsters Phorcyas and Ceto. Medusa
is first mentioned by Hesiod
(Thcog., 276). She was of horrible aspect,
and the sight of her turned all observers to stone. The head of Medusa
was often used as an amulet; hence its presence in the shield of Pallas
Athena (and also the gorgon in the shield of Agamemnon, Iliad, XI, 36).
Pindar (lltvSapas, 522-448 B.C.) first sang of Medusa as a beautiful
 COMMENTARY 42 3

creature. In later Greek art her head is

represented with a beautiful
but surrounded by snakes. The best
face, example of such a head is the
Medusa Rondarini in Munich. Cf. W. H. Roscher, Die
Gorgonen und
Verwandtes, Leipzig, 1879. ~ S3acd)anten, bacchantes or mcenads, priest
esses or votaries of Bacchus.
6Uenen, say fauns, satyr-like attendants
of Bacchus. 22. %d) rtJCtfe ntd)t, Umrum, say what do you call it?
24. aWcbufcn; dat. ffietjenbe
= SMebreijenbe.
19O. 7. Gfjarafiersua ;
cf. 79 ff. 10. c$recfUe$ ;
cf. 141,5.
17. fturien; cf. 34, n. bic e^noUrbiflCM, 2e/W; the more familiar
euphemism is Etyxei/iSes, Eumenides.
192. 4. aUtinaben; cf. Note to 189, 17. 10. Perseus, the son
ofZeus and Danae, cut off the head of Medusa and gave it to
Athena,
who put it in the middle of her shield. Cf. E. S. Hartland, The Legend
of Perseus, London, 1894-96. JBulfamiS ;
cf. Iliad, I, 599 f. n.
Cerberus, Kfp/3cpos, the monstrous dog that guarded the gates of
the lower world. 12. Pluto, XIAoi/rco?, brother of Zeus and
king of
the lower world. 1 8.
eroen, demigods, according to the late Greek
use of the term rjpojs.
The principal purpose of this chapter, so far as it touches points
raised by Lessing at all, is to determine for that beauty which Herder
as well as Winckelmann or Lessing saw represented in Greek art, a
more fruitful source than either of Herder s predecessors had found.
According to Herder, Winckelmann had laid too much stress on the
physical conditions of life among the Greeks, and too little on the active
formative principle of life itself; and Lessing contented himself with
observations so superficial as to seem almost mechanical or technical.
Herder, on the contrary, sought to show that beauty was to the Greeks
a vital thing which gave form to their personal lives and could not but
find expression also in their religion and mythology. If their gods were

essentially beautiful,no artist could represent their essential character

in forms of ugliness, and no artist would treat a subject in which this
essential character did not manifest itself. Practically, it makes no
difference whether an artist refuses to paint an angry Jupiter because

anger is not the god s permanent and most characteristic state of feel

ing, orbecause the figure of an angry god is not beautiful; and Lessing
was debating a practical question a question, moreover, which could not
help becoming technical in a comparison of the methods of two arts.
Herder contributes to a fuller understanding of the conditions ante
cedent to the problem, but not to the solution of the problem itself.
424 COMMENTARY

VI.

193. 10. bleibt = bauert. 20.

ttcnn^cicfjcn, distinguishing mark;
i.e., the element of time, momentariness in the formative arts, succes
sion of moments in poetry. 23. ift flibt e8.
=
29. metapfytyftfd).
It is needless to say that Lessing did not speak metaphysically, and did
not intend to.

194. 32. Myron, MV/DCDV of Eleutherae, a celebrated sculptor of

the fifth century B.C. One of his most famous works was the extremely
life-like heifer of bronze here referred to; cf. Pliny, 34, 38. Goethe
wrote two articles on this work; cf. Uber Kunst und Altertuni, II
(1818) and VI (1828), W. A. XLIX, ii, pp. 3 ff.

195. 7. Huysum; cf. no, 21. 17. in etn Okfetj fefyfaflcn

= flum
fjejj niadjeu. 21. bit llrfadje. Lessing s reason was primarily
that the climax of emotion is not so "fruitful" for the imagination

as a lower stage. Such a climax is indeed transitory; and Herder

objects to Lessing s restriction only on this secondary ground. 22.

au# biefer llrfadje. Not quite fair to Lessing. Herder combines

two things which may or may not coincide, and for the avoidance of
which Lessing gave two different reasons: (i) climax of emotion to
be avoided because it oppresses the imagination by leaving nothing
higher to be imagined; and (2) transitory state or action to be avoided
because fixity in a statue unduly prolongs a state or action that has no

permanence. 27. ber mittlern vjeit; cf. 180, 26.

19C*. ii. fitr ben erfteu Wnblirf; the point is well taken (cf. 5,

n); but Mofj fur ben evften ?(nblicf is a far too sweeping assertion.
Permanent power to please is the very test of the highest excellence.
Cf. Winckelmann. Note to 37, 5. 12. La Mettrie. Herder over
looks the consideration of causelessness (cf Note to 38, 6) probably . :

every laughing face appears silly, even at the first glance, unless we
can see what the person is laughing at. If Lessing was wrong in his
reason, he was right in his opinion; and Herder s suggestion (1. 17)
that the philosopher designed his portrait with respect to the effect
of a first glance only, is inconsistent with the fundamental motive of
all portrait painting, which is perpetuation (cf. Notes to jj, i, 3).

31. Sutler; cf. supra, p. xv. His Sammlung vermischter Schriften zn

Beforderung der schoncn Wissenschaften und der freicn Kiinste appeared
in sixvolumes in Berlin from 1759 to 1763.
 COMMENTARY 42 5

197. ii. crfule3. There seems to be some confusion in Herder s

reference. The myths about Heracles are
themselves considerably
confused; but the common story relates how the hero, in his quest
for the golden apples of the Hesperides, held up the heavens
for Atlas,
while Atlas went to fetch the apples. On the same expedition He
racles overcame Antaeus by holding him aloft and preventing him
from multiplying his strength by contact with the earth. This scene
is perhaps what Herder had in mind. On the myths of Heracles
cf. Paul Friedlander, Herakles. Sagcngeschichtliche Untersuchungen,
Berlin, 1907. 15. ba3 SBefcn ber $MUft. Herder argues, since in
nature everything is transitory, and art represents things of nature,
art must represent transitory things, in spite of the fact that the forms
of art are permanent; and he declares that Lessing s exclusion of the
transitory not only takes away the life of art, but makes art virtually
impossible. Secondly, he maintains that the climax of emotion is
offensive only when the taste is surfeited with it, or repeated contem
plation makes it stale. As to the first point, Herder is right: the transi
tory as such depictable, quiescence suggests lifelessness, and expres
is

sion is always more or less fleeting. Furthermore, the highest degree

of transi tori ness is, under appropriate circumstances, within the power
of the painter. On the second point also Herder s view conforms to
common human experience: highly emotional works drop in the scale
of values, and the less emotional rise, with use and wont. Objection
to the highly emotional cannot therefore be made on the ground of
inherent and original ineffectiveness, on the ground of the degree of
emotion, but, if made, must be based upon the quality of the emotion,
as was said above (Note to j/, 14). Hence we must agree that Lessing
cannot on principle exclude the transitory or the highly emotional
from the formative arts; and we perceive that in excluding them he
sought too sharp a distinction between painting and poetry. 20. Slri

ftolded ; cf. supra, p. xcii. The distinction between 293cr! (epyov) and
Chterflie (cvcpyeux) was suggested to Herder by James Harris (cf. 264).
Aristotle does not apply it to painting and poetry and as a basis
;

for classification it is open to stillgraver objections than Lessing s

"bodies" and "actions"; for a poem does not any more work
through energy than a picture, and a picture is no more a work
" "

than a poem. A picture is not a mere subject of perception. By just

so much as it expresses something, it stimulates the imagination; and
426 COMMENTARY

this stimulation is the energy of the picture; cf. 59, 14. Moreover,
although the picture is indeed once for all there in its totality, it can
rarely produce its full effect as a unit upon the imagination: the first
vague impression needs to be supplemented by successive experience
of the energy of the component parts. On the other hand, a poem is a
work: it a finished product which the reader is invited by the
too is

writer to re-create in accordance with the terms of its first conception;

and this re-creation furnishes the esthetic pleasure of poetry. Poetry
as well as painting expression in pictures; pictures as well as poetry
is

are charged with energy. 32. bnruni ,for all that; cf. 186, 17.
198. i.mir eilt 9lnbltcf. Herder may say that a single inspec
tion is that which complete perception of what is represented,
results in
whether one glance suffices or a hundred are necessary; but such a
definition hardly accords with the ordinary use of language or with the
facts of the psychology of vision (cf. Note to 108, i). "What I

have already seen," he adds, do not need to look at a second time

"I

(?); and if anything is repulsive to me not because of the completeness

of perception but merely because of the return to the perception, the

repetition of it this is due not to any fault of art, but to the limits

of my capacity to enjoy." Therefore emotion of high degree which,

though transitory, is proper for painting, and though perhaps hazard
ous, is agreeable to some observers, is not to be condemned because
repetition of view makes it disagreeable to others. Repetition of view
is unnecessary the effect of unnecessary repetition cannot give a valid
basis upon which to establish a principle of art. This reasoning is
sound, and puts Lessing in the wrong on the abstract question of the
transitory and the emotional in painting. But we are again reminded
of the unprofitableness of abstract considerations in these matters by

observing that Herder agrees with Lessing (1. n) in the practical con
clusion drawn. 17. bfl$ Ulteitblidjc, JC. A reference to Aliquid etc.

(I. 26). 22. 9lbgnittb, profundity. i.e., Mendels 24. ^l)ilofopl),

sohn; cf. Schriften, IV, Herder does not quote Mendels

i, p. 579.
sohn exactly, but cites the substance of his proposition that the forma
tive arts seek to represent pure ideal beauty, whereas poetry ought to

mingle good and bad, beauty and ugliness. Mendelssohn s reason is

that in poetry a perfectly ideal character is easier to conceive and

represent, and is less significant when

represented, than a character
with real human traits: for example, Sir Charles Grandison on the
 COMMENTARY
one hand, and Othello on the other. In
sculpture, however, the ideal
is harder to achieve, and the
type is more excellent, than the character.
Dryden (supra, p. Iv) held similar views, and Lessing (84, 16) made the
same point; cf. 35, 20 ff., 40, 5 ff., 295, 14.
199. i ff. Here, again, Herder is entirely at one with Lessing as
to the fact of the "fruitful moment" in the formative arts, and the fact
of succession of moments in poetry. Quite apart from considerations
of "work" and "energy," it is clear that the art which has but one mo
ment at its disposal must make the most of that, whereas the art whose
element is succession will seek
advantage in effectiveness of sucits

cession, and not in effectiveness of single moments. 1 7 ff This is in .

consistent with 196, 2 ff., and is correct, as was said in the Note to
196,
ii. The rest of the paragraph is in full accord with Lessing.
200. i. bttS fttUe 9JZccr; a reminiscence of Winckelmann; cf.
26, 20. 9. belt Gtatttb. Herder s reason is no more cogent than Les-

sing s, but is based upon a different and less convenient classification.

The description of statuesque beauty which follows is illuminating with
out being novel; its chief merit is its mediation between Winckel
mann and Lessing. In the statue of Laocoon Winckelmann saw, above
all,the expression of greatness of soul; Lessing, by no means denying
this expression, more strongly emphasized beauty of bodily form.
Herder refuses to separate soul and body; and so do we.
20 1. 4. erflfirt. In chapter 8 (omitted here) Herder set forth
the opinion that in the story of Laocoon Virgil imitated a passage in
the Iliad (II, 308-320), and said, baft iUrgUS @d)tlbenmg mefjr ba
Cfjr f itC(t, a!3 bie <3ee(e. The question as to Virgil s merit in this narra
tive is therefore not answered when we say that the mental picture
of a man
crying out (a kind of auditory image, lacking the distinctness
we get in a visual image) is sublime; the poet must have
of outline that
intended through the energy of this trait to induce in the hearer such
an imaginative identification of himself with the situation as to arouse
emotional sympathy with the sufferer, in spite of the fact that the situ
ation depicted is not in itself beautiful. Lessing would not have quar
relled with this view of the poet s intention. He did not pretend to

explain the intention, but only to call attention to the difference between
Virgil s picture and the statue. 28. JfiHltrfelmaitU geretfjtfertigt.

Winckelmann needed no for Lessing did not attack his

justification;

interpretation of the statue. Lessing found a reason for the difference

428 COMMENTARY

which Winckelmann had observed between the Laocoon of the sculp

tors and the Laocoon of the Roman poet. Herder notes the same dif
ference and accounts for it in other terms, but not essentially with
other logic than Lcssing s. We cannot say amen to the pious wish
with which he closes the chapter.

VII.
202. ii. 9)iniicrn Don Xroja ;
cf. Horace, Epistles, I, 2, 16:

"Iliacos intra muros pcccatur ct extra."

2 7- S^flHr . . .
$attb(uitfl. Herder here gives a valuable supplement
and correction to the doctrine of Lcssing. It is a bold statement that
to the artist gods and spiritual beings are "nothing but personified
abstractions." It is a crude form of art in which Venus is no more
than love personified. In any work of art worthy the name she is a
woman, a person, the representation of an ideal which has a history
and a mythological individuality as real as, let us say, the history and
the individuality of St. Cecilia or St. Barbara. There are "portraits"
of Venus; and in these she must be recognizable by having an attri

bute, such as her diadem, or by conforming to the type which gradually

became established, just as St. Cecilia is recognizable from her organ,
or St. Barbara from her tower. So soon, however, as Venus is made to
participate in an action, the emblematic (symbolical, allegorical) char
acter becomes less important; for the action (cf. 72, 23), taken from a

mythological source already familiar to the spectator, is that of a person

known to be Venus and recognizable without attributes.
203. 13.
s
,HiK-i>d|ininfl. In fact, Lessing unduly stretched his dis
tinction. Even an angry Venus would be recognizable in a familiar
scene. 23. toon $itl)tcnt; more properly by artists working in ac
cordance with a tradition in which, indeed, poets played a prominent
part, but which was a national, not merely a poetic product. 28.

vypov, swimming, melting, languishing look. In statues of Venus the

lower eyelid is drawn up slightly over the eye.
204. 6. $trf)tcr. True, but in no restricted sense. Mythology is
folklore; and though individuals add to it, and modify it, its origin and
development are as communal as ballads or fairy-tales. 19 ff. Lessing s
opinion that in the case of gods the typical quality is the primary one
and individual traits are secondary, is much better founded than the
 COMMENTARY 429

converse of this proposition which, in the interest of his

conception of
mythology as poetry, Herder here affirms. It is not to be supposed
that to the Greeks Aphrodite was a mere
abstraction, as Venus was to
the men of the middle ages; but it is incredible that the
Greeks should
first have developed the conception of a woman whom
they called
Aphrodite, to whom they ascribed various qualities and feelings, and
whom they thought of as participating in a series of
adventures, only
later to deduce from these qualities, feelings, and adventures the
notion
that this woman was a personification of love. On the the contrary,
impulse to symbolize and deify the universal passion was father to the
thought of Aphrodite, and the conception became more definite and
concrete as it developed. 26. ber aHflcmctne = ber Gljarnftcr
l)pu. Similarly (205, i, 10) 30 ff. As
d)arafteriftifd)
= ttjpifrf).
a conclusion, this passage lacks cogency in the same degree as the
pre
vious one from which it is derived; but as an observation it nevertheless
contains important elements of truth. It is true that idjter bod)
bte itrfpritngUdjen <5tifter unb SSciter ber 2Jtytl)ofoflie geiuefen, in the
sense that mythology is a poetic embodiment of religion and the philos
ophy of life, and that mythological figures are products of the creative

imagination of the nation. It is further true that the formative arts,

in the vast majority of cases, are handmaidens of mythology, just as
the Christian art of the middle ages and later times was content to be
the servant of religion. Painting and sculpture take subjects and
scenes from mythology and religion, and seek to interpret and vivify
persons and actions. But in doing this, painter or sculptor is as fully

entitled to the name poet as the writer of a hymn or an epic; he stands

in thesame relation to the national consciousness, which is the ulti

mate source of mythological or religious inspiration; and the types

which in time become current representations of gods and spiritual

beings are due quite as much to the artist as to the poet. The forma
tive arts, therefore, though theybe described as handmaidens of
may
but re
mythology or religion, are not servants of poets or of poetry;
main entitled to their traditional name of sisters of poetry.

2O5. 9. It may well be asked whether it be not after all ba Sefen

ber $itnf! rather than ber Sfftangel
or bie rertjjen (which are not one

and the same thing) that leads in sculpture to the preference for the
typical over the individual. Lessing,
who was very far from holding
a brief for SHIegorifterei in sculpture (cf. 25, 13), spoke of the need of
430 COMMENTARY

attributes in the formative arts (80 ff.) and the impropriety of their
use in poetry. With equal justice we might say privilege. Visible
attributes are the means
of expression in sculpture, and the use of them
is in accordance with the nature of that art. should not say that We
poetry is in need of words, but at most (with Herder; cf. 239, 29) that
words are the sine qua non of poetry. But the fact remains that when
the sculptor represents a person in action, the attributes in question
become to a greater or less degree superfluous, and may be as disturbing

as they are in poetry. It is ba8 SBejen bcr ^unjt to adapt its means
to its end.
206. 9. !8enu$ unb . . .
9lbont3; cf. 189, 5. The story is told

by Theocritus, Idyll XXX, by Bion, Idyll I. and by Ovid, Metam. X,

5 3-559- Herder (1. n ff.) translates from Bion, I, 2-5, 7-11. Adonis
was killed by a boar. 22. in 3Ka$tc ;
cf. 81, 26. 28. mtr tw3 Wot.
Here, again, it would be equally accurate to say auS freter 2Bal)I. It
is not important, however, to insist upon this distinction. Herder
dwells more upon the difference between a single figure and a group
of figures in action than Lessing could do in the first part of his treatise,
and recognizes, as Lessing did, a corresponding difference in the arts
of representation. Cupido . . .
Psyche. The story of Eros (Amor,
Cupid) and Psyche is a late Greek allegory. The subject has been
often treated in the arts,e.g., by Raphael s pupils (Villa Farnesina at

Rome) and by Canova (Louvre in Paris). Raphael follows the version

of the story by Apuleius (second century A.D.). Cf. Adolf Zinzow,

Psyche und Eros, Halle, 1881. 29. @aut)mcb, TawfjLrjSrjs, Gany

mede, a handsome boy carried off by the eagle of Zeus, or by Zeus him
self in the form of an eagle, and made his cup-bearer. The Vatican
has a small marble copy of an ancient bronze representation of this
subject; it has been treated by Correggio (Vienna), Rembrandt (Dres
den), and Thorwaldsen (Copenhagen). 30. Diana . . .
Endymion;
cf. Note to 72, 26. Venus; cf. 28, 15, 166, 21 ff.
20 7. 3. 2llle biefc SScfcn; i.e., these gods and goddesses as
typical representatives of mythological conceptions. The artist pre

fers to represent persons, and leaves abstract conceptions to the poet

it might be better to say to the preacher. 8. in tfym; i.e., in bcm

mt)tf)ifcf)en (EtjfluS. n. bcr neucrn 2Ht)tfyofofltficn. Herder here

and elsewhere assails the theory of Christian Jakob Damm (1699-
1778), the teacher of Mendelssohn and Winckelmann. Damm pub-
 COMMENTARY 431

lished an Einleitung in die Gotterlehre und Fabelgeschichte der (tltesten

griechischen und romischen Welt at Berlin in 1763. 28. auf bctt . . .

5flfl gcltcn=auf ben ftatt pajfen, fiir ben gait a,etten.

. .

2O8. 5 ff. Herder applies to the artist what Lessing affirmed

of the poet (81, 10 ff.), and shows that poet and artist are alike free
to dispense with attributes when the character of the person (no longer
a personified abstraction) is apparent from his or her action. 19. Utt=
tcrfcfjtcbe. The point is well taken. 21. Ctttfteljt iljr am ftctte=
= ftefyt tfyr am fentften, ftefyt am rtmteften
ften Don ifyr ab. 25. ein
^rama iljm ^igurcit. Cf. Dolce and du Fresnoy; supra, pp.
Ivi, xc. Since Lessing conceived action to be the domain of poetry,
and bodies the subject of painting, he could not consistently accord
the artist so much freedom as Herder at the end of this chapter suc
cessfully vindicates for him.

VIII.

21O. 6. ^erfoneubid)tuit(j = ^erfomfyierung. mtt etn

one of the principal traits.
ftrid),
n. @t)tyl) . . . @t)tyf)tbc, accord
ing to Paracelsus (1493-1541), masculine and feminine spirits of the
air. The words do not occur in either Greek or classical Latin in this
sense. Herder means that in Horace personified abstractions seem to
hover about like fairies. 12. Venus; cf. Od. I, 2, 33 f. 14. ^itrdjt
itnb (gorge; cf. Od. Ill, i, 37-40. 15. urn btc $ad)er; cf. Od. II,
16, ii ff. 16. ber Xob; cf. Od. I, 4, 13 f. It isperhaps not quite
superfluous to point out that there are decided limits to the effec
tiveness of such personifications. They are a favorite device of young

poets with more enthusiasm than power of objectivation, and opu

lence in them is no sign of wealth in the stanza of Die Ideale (1795) in
which Schiller apostrophizes his own youth:
2Bie letdjt toarb ev bafnn fletragen,
2Ba tear bent UicfUcfcen p fcf?toer !

2Bie tanjte fcor be3 eben 2Bagen

SDie lufttge 23efllettung tyer !

SDie Stebe "tit bem fcfybnften So^ine,

>a3 liicf mtt fetnem golbnen rattj.

2)er 9iu^m mtt fetner ternenfrone,

SDte 2Babr^ieit in ber Sonne @ranj !

26. Obc an$ liirf; cf. 82, 19 ff. Baxter, William (1650-1723),
432 COMMENTARY

eminent classical scholar. His Horace appeared in 1701, 1725, 1798;

revised by J. M. Gesner (cf. 26, 2) in 1752, 1772. 27. feme licbcn
Uogten. Herder ridicules Baxter s method of taking everything
in a symbolical sense.
AtXoyux is repetition or ambiguity. Baxter
frequently says this or that word or expression is used "dilogws";
and he prints under the titles of many of the poems interpretations
of the whole in an allegorical sense. Gesner often dissented from the
views of his predecessor. Under the title Ad Fortunam Baxter had
inserted, Post Varianam dadcm, qua excrcitus P. R. cum ipso duce
Qitintilio Vciro a Gcrmanis dclctus cst, ingcns Ronuv trcpidatio fuit,

adcoque ma gnus tumnltuum nidus, ut Augustus ipse furiuta mente idcnl-

id?m erdamavcrit, Quintili Vare, Icgioncs rcddc. Qua mala Pocta
in hue Ode impolcntiae Fortunes tribuit; qu .im tandem precatur, ut pra^
tcrita malafuturis successibus rcsarciat, After Varus s disaster, in which
"

the army of the Roman people with its commander Quintilius Varus
himself was destroyed by the Germans [led by Arminius in the Teu-
toburger Wald, 9 A.D.], there was great dismay at Rome and such fear
of uprisings that even Augustus kept calling out in madness, Varus,

give me back my legions! These evils the poet attributed in this Ode
to the caprice of Fortune, but prays her to make amends for past evils

by granting future successes." To

StAoyta Gesner rejoined,
this
Eliam here conjcdura vidctur non valde firma.
Nihil aliud, quam locum
de Fortuna tradat poda, "This conjecture does not however seem very
well founded. The poet is treating nothing but the subject of Fortune
itself." 30. Dfyne tiorflcfnfjtc
s
J0feinunfl. Herder insisted more than
once that a poet should be allowed to speak for himself, and said of
Horace 3MeUfid)t l)at fein Tidjter ntefyr nrie er burd) jciue 3tu*le(jrr unb
Jtantnttntatorcn fleltttni, fleuitfj uidjt aUetu burdi ^irter (Bricfe ubcrdas
Lesen dcs Horaz, in Adrasiea V, Werke, XXIV, p. 204).
21 1 . 4. fo
= bte; archaic relative. Antium, a summer resort
of the Romans, on the coast southwest of Rome; the modern Anzio,
which Herder calls Anzo (I. 7). 10. locus communis, commonplace.

15. crniebriflcn unb erfyityen; vv. 2-4. 20. ber afrifamfdje Jupiter,

Jupiter Ammon, with a temple and oracle in the desert of Libya,

s
where he was worshipped in the form of a ram. 21. .Vf abound in

0rctto. Loreto is a little town northeast of Rome, near Ancona

and the Adriatic. The cathedral contains the so-called casa santa,
the house in which, according to tradition, the Virgin Mary dwelt at
 COMMENTARY 433

Nazareth. Among other relics, there is here a small black image of

the Virgin and Child in cedar, attributed to St. Luke and richly adorned
with jewels. Cf. A. Kross, Zur Gcschiehte der Loretolegende in Zeit-
schriftfur katholische Theologie, XXX, 3. 21. SJlttbonna in 9$arma.
Herder presumably refers to the Assumption of the Virgin by Correggio,
a fresco in the cathedral at Parma. When he speak? of these Madonnas
he has in mind, however, the conception of the Virgin that inspires
the worshippers at Loreto and Parma rather than the visible repre
sentations in wood and colors. Fortuna is to him likewise an individ
ual, not a personified abstraction. 24 f. SRiltg^ Ultt U)r JBUb, JC.; vv.
5-8. 25. bc3 lorpnt!)tfd)Cn 9ttcer3, the Carpathian Sea; i.e., the
Mediterranean between Rhodes and Crete. 26. Baxter says, Notum
mathcmaticis Lunam essc K\rjpov TT;S rv^yrj<;, i.e. Sortem Fortunes,
qua dominatur marl, "It is known to mathematicians that the moon
is the lot, or die, of fortune which governs the sea." 27. Herder gives
a fair summary of Gesner s view. 30. Klotz; cf. 185, 30. The
V indicia Horatii, "Vindication of Horace," appeared in 1764. Herder
criticized this work severely in the third part of his Zweites Waldchen
(1769).
212. 7 ff. fimfjtct, :c.; cf. vv. 9-12.
<id) 14 ff. "Lest with
destructive foot thou overthrow the standing pillar, or the thronging

populace arouse the inactive to arms and destroy the state." 27.
Herder s interpretation is characteristic of him and probably correct.
He sees the thing itself where others grope blindly for its symbolical
significance.
213. 24 ff. Cl.82, 22ff. 29. Sanadon; cf. 2,30. 31. Addison s

Dialogues; cf. 68, 20.

214. 4. quod haec imago etc. "That this picture did not please
the good Sanadon forsooth, all I can say is, the man has a peculiar

taste, is fastidious, and dainty."

8. neque enim etc. "For he does

not seem to have perceived how divine the brazen hand and the unyield
ing clamp are." 9. 3rf), bcr tft.
The relative pronoun is of the
. . .

third person unless the personal pronoun of the first or second per
son is repeated after it. 15 ff. These ideas instruments of punish
ment or of construction were the interpretations of Baxter and Gesner
respectively. Modern scholars have
combined the two as equally
of Adolf Kiessling in his edition of Horace,
symbolical Fortune; e.g.,

Berlin, 1884. Herder agrees with Lessing: if these are symbols, they
434 COMMENTARY

are bad ones; and, whether they are symbols or not, the passage is
one of the frostiest in Horace. But, as often, Herder questions whether
Lessing has given the right reason for his opinion.
21O. 5. i!)r; i.e., ber Necessitas. What Herder says of the inade
quacy of Lessing s reason based u|>on
the difference between eye and
ear is true. Lessing* was led to this form of statement because he was
speaking of the difference between painting and poetry in the use of

symbolical attributes. The various implements described would mean

something on canvas, because they would suggest action. The mere
enumeration of them in an ode does not suggest action, or, if so, very

feebly, and Herder rightly exclaims, tell us what Necessity is going

to do with these things! At the bottom, however, Herder agrees with
Lessing: dead picture because there is no action
this passage is a cold,

in it; and action

the soul of poetry. is 13. (ttrnicilbc. The French
scholar, Denis Lambin, was, so far as I know, the first to suggest that
Horace was describing a picture; cf. his edition of Horace, Paris, 1579,
p. 90. Whether Herder knew seems doubtful. Mod
of this conjecture
ern critics for the most part reject Lambin
and Herder s interpreta s

tion. Kiessling ignores it. Lucian Miillcr in his Horace (St. Peters
burg and Leipzig, 1900, i, p. 125) writes, "Die von vielen angenommcne
Erklarung Lambins, dass Horaz den Inhalt dieser Strophe cincm Ge-
malde im Tempel dcr Fortuna zu Antium (andcre nehmcn cine Skulptur
an) entlehnt habe, kann ich so wenig billigen, als irgend cine Deutung
des Horaz, die auf Werken der Bildhauerkunst oder Malerei beruht.
Freilich ist mir aus der Literatur kein Bcispiel bekannt, wo die Necessi
tas so, wie hier gcschicht, mit dcr Fortuna verbunden und mit den
V. 18-20 geschilderten, freilich der Fortuna angehorigen Attributen
ausgestattet ware." On the Fortuna at Antium see Roscher, Lexikon,
I, 1546 ff. Winckelmann s opinion of such a picture is interesting:
$)ie tfunfl aber tft in ifyren 93ilbmt Dfrfdjifbni uon bev 1)tct)tfunft iinb foiut
bie fdjredlid) fcfybntn Sfltlber, bie bicjf malt, ntctjt mit ^ovteil
1)if routenbf 9Jotn>fiibtflfftt bc $ora^ roiirbr, aljo im SMlbe
unfer abftrnben, tine oou bem ftnblicfr fine* tm itrnbrn 3)?nifd)fit
fft(l)t

(Wcrke, IX, p. 63). 28 ff. A genuine application of the point of view

of $ulturg<fd)i(i)te.

217. 19. ttrie froftifl, rtic ttbcrflttffifl ;

cf. Note to 210, 16. 24.

pfytlt tjmbol without embodying the abstraction in some ob

; i.e.,

jective form that may symbolize it; as, for example, a female figure
 COMMENTARY 435

representing purity, beauty, virtue, patience, and the like. 32. bic
Hrbett bcr Sanaibcn. The daughters of King Danaos of
Argos were
condemned to atone for their sins by pouring water into a perforated
cask in the lower world. Hence iDcutaibenarbeit, toil. Cf. fruitless
Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, 627 ff.:

3a, fte ift cine Nafcnbc line bu,

Unb iwrft ibr aUc* in cm brcnncnb .ftau<J,

Unb f$ityft in* Icrfc ,>af?

bcr $anaibcn.

218. 30. Prometheus, llpo/AT/fleiN, a Titan, the inventor of many

working in metal and clay. He was said
arts, especially the arts of
to have made man from clay and to have furnished him with fire stolen
from Olympus. Herder insists, as might be expected, upon a real per
sonification of abstractions by the epic poet, and finds real persons in
the epic machinery of Homer. Headds, accordingly, to the summary
treatment of this matter by Lessing a certain emphasis upon poetic
and artist. Lessing
qualities instead of a further differentiation of poet
appeared too ready to recognize names and actions as sufficient for the
poet (80, 25), while he regarded attributes of form and instrument as
indispensable means of expression for the artist. In other words,
Lessing emphasized the artistic side of the comparison, and Herder
the poetic side. Herder s discussion is therefore a welcome supplement
to Lessing s. That the artist and the epic poet are, however, so sharply
distinguishable as Herder suggests (2/7, 12 ff.) is hardly the case. It

must be in the interest of each to give to his figures as much personality

and individuality as possible. The epic poet, indeed, runs the greater
risk of artificiality and abstractncss. The artist, through his very
function of creating objective forms, isimpelled to give these forms
individual life; but the unskilful poet may be betrayed into the mere
naming of Truth, Fear, Discord, Faith, Hope, Charity, or Virtue, and
the mere manipulation of such soulless and incorporeal puppets of the
brain.

IX.

22O. 8.
^IjrafcSfprarfjC. Lessing docs not use this word, and
Herder uses it only in contempt of Lessing s too unpoetic definition of
Homer s cloud as a poctifdje fttebntflart a j>itoflie.
10. fiinftlidic

fttflurcn bcr (ttitfleibunfl, artificial figures of speech. 15. gradus ad

Parnassum ;
the conventional name for a guide to poetic composition.

29. /AV0os, myth, tradition, theology.

436 COMMENTARY

221. 3- (cine ^inertia; cf. //. V, 127 ff. 25. *mp!jt*oUe,

/3oAta, "the state of being attacked on both sides," ambiguity, double
meaning.
222. 7. XoiMduijotC ; because he was fighting "wind-mills,"

imaginary foes. (eruantifdj ;

because like Cervantes (1547-1616) he
made his hero ridiculous. 8-25. This paragraph is a complete refu
tation of Lessing s propositions that Homer s cloud or mist is a "poetic

figure of speech for making invisible" and that "making invisible"

consisted simply in "hurriedly snatching away." As to poet and

painter, however, there is no real question at issue between Lessing and
Herder. A real cloud in a picture docs not serve the purpose of Homer s
cloud; hurried snatching away is all but impossible to represent on
canvas; and a cloak of invisibility is none, if the wearer is visible. At
the beginning of this chapter Herder wrote in a passage that we have
omitted, Sir,u foil Me 2$olfe bet beni Sidjter unb Staler? ur Stofjuk
lintfl. So fte alfo uicf)t uerfjittten fann, ba tft fte nid)t 59otfe meb.r, ba
bleibe fte meg. eo bei bent 2ftater. 17. crjcufjcn
= auffeufjen, fefyr tief

feufeen.
223. 13. ttbcrrafcfjcubcr Slnblief ; cf. Callimachus (752, 18), Hymn
V, Eis \ovTpa rijs HuAAaSos, On the Bathing of Athena, 51 ff.:

"Pelasgian! fly from harms,

Nor unpermiUed view Minerva s charms;
Lest, from your blind-struck eyes, she snatch away
The tow rs of Argos, and the golden day."

Also ioo ff.:

"For ev ry man, by Saturn s stern decree,
That, unpermitted, views the powers divine,
Still makes atonement with an ample fine."

Trans. H. W. TYTLER, I-ondon, 1793.

15. *|$attad The characterization is Herder s own, and is a good ex

ample of his vivid conception of ancient divinities. He tells the story
of Tiresias after Callimachus in the hymn referred to. 20.

shield (cf. Note to 189, 18) here used for

her garments. all
30.
Callimachus s Hymn to Diana makes no mention of her being surprised
while bathing, but speaks, at the end, of several mortals who had been
unfortunate enough to offend her: Agamemnon (v. 263) by hunting
in her grove; Otus and Orion (vv. 264 f.) by looking upon her with

eyes of love, only to be slain by her darts. To the last mentioned in

cident Horace refers in Od. Ill, 4, 70 ff. fttttyboru Herder s only
 COMMENTARY 43?

authority for this story is the pseudo Plutarch, De

Fluviis, XXII, 4,
in Moralia, ed. Bernadakis, VII, p. 322. The rock in question is Mt.
Calydon on the Acheloos in /Etolia. The familiar surprise of Diana
in the bath by Actaeon is related by Ovid, Metam. Ill, 131-252.
224. 2. Another dubious story, on the authority of
SMiter.
Plutarch, De Fluviis, i; ed. Bernadakis, VII, p. 312.
XVIII, Herder
gives no reference in connection with this story or the preceding. Of
themselves these apocryphal narratives prove nothing; but Herder s
opinion on the question of invisibility is correct. 6. btc Sdjtoefter
9fmor3 appears to be Aurora. The verses are quoted from the poem
Der M
or gen by J. P. Uz (cf. DLD 33, p. 27), the third stanza of which
runs as follows:
$a, too GtitfierenS ipad)e3;fltnb
$en Sdjlaf uom Bette f*eiictyet,
2)a raufd?t 3, lute tuann em TOor^entuinb
93etaute9 ii aub bm\1;ftrcict>ct.

a laufdiet meine s
l)hi[e nun,
SMe, toie bte 3Kab$en aUe tun,
Kerliebte gent be[cf>leidjet.

Gt)tf)Crais Venus (cf. 206, n); and by Gi)tf)CrCtt3 $inb we should

most naturally understand Cupid. Herder, however, evidently un
derstands Aurora (who was the daughter of Hyperion and Thia),
thereby making her Cupid s sister. 9. ^(utl)uluflic ;
cf. 32, 6.
ii ff. The entire epigram (ed. de Bosch, IT, p. 500) is literally trans
lated as follows: "Let the most faithful of men be my gate-keeper,
who can judge the proper time for entrance to the bath, lest any one
should in my waters see a naked Naiad or Venus with the fair-haired
Graces, even though it were with no intent to pry; the gods are stern
and dangerous to be seen in their real forms. For who would dis
pute the words of Homer?" 17. offcnbarcit 9lnbttd. The word
in the original is evapyas, plural of erapy?/? (from dpyos, shining, bright,
glistening), clear, in real form. 19. Stefle .00mer3 is the pas >te

sage (77. XX, 131) which Herder goes on to discuss. The word cvapyr/s
occurs in it.

225. 10 f. The gerunds may be conveniently translated by ad

jectives: liquid, vulnerable, visible. 18. Uw3 barf% what is the need;

cf. 170, 10. 21 ff. A free quotation from pj, 23 ff. 26 ff. A
lumbering sentence: it is true not only that he is by nature invisi
"if

ble to human eyes but also that these eyes must be miraculously strength-
438 COMMENTARY

ened to see him at all, how senseless it is, then, that he should neverthe
less be vulnerable by nature and conquerable by the hero."

226. 23. SHajime; cf. e.g., II. V, 407. 25. fragt em $elb ben
anbern; e.g., II. VI, 122.
227. i. entbeeft ftd) ber Qtott; e.g., II. XXII, 7 ff. 4. imffent=
lid) oflen ^>elben. Suphan inserts bei before alien elben and refers

uuffentlid), consciously, to ber 2)id)ter. Lambel takes Unffentlid) in the

sense of bennifjt, conscious, refers it to alien e(beu, and translates, be
cause the poet presumes that this hypothesis is in the minds of all the
heroes and combatants. This interpretation, to which I am inclined,
would be facilitated by an al8 before nriffent(id). 8. burfte
= mujjtf,
as often. 13. ^eljifulunt, vehicle, substance in this case, human form.
20. bie GJeftalt bctf ftfamag, AKa/m?, which Ares assumed; cf. //.

V, 462. 23. ber Gkftalt, sc. bet. 28. futnlirf). This paragraph gives
an admirable exposition of the sensuousness of Homer and the Greeks,
and contrasts instructively with what Lessing says (92 f.) about poe*
tifdje Sttebeuflarten. 30. Wleflortcn, lua3, allegories giving rise to the
question what. 31. perftfrf) : cf. Werke,IV, p. 215.
228. 29. (vptplianir, eVt^ai/cia, appearance, outward manifesta
tion. In the Christian calendar, Epiphany, the twelfth day after
Christmas, is the festival in celebration of the coming of the Magi
to worship the infant Christ, or of the appearance of the star that guided
them to Bethlehem. 30. Xfycopljamc, Otcxfrdvcui, visible aspect of
divinity. 32. bie fptttcren ^slatoniften, the Neo-Platonists, the last
great school of Greek philosophers, and the spiritual ancestors of medi
eval mysticism. The most important members of the school were
Plotinus (c. 204-270 A.D.), his pupils Porphyrius and lamblichus (died
about 330 A.D.), and Proclus (411-485). Neo-Platonism was a com
posite doctrine based upon Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics. It en
deavored to spiritualize and harmonize the universe. It conceived
divinity as a spiritual and transcendent being, and matter as the abode
of separate and individual spiritual existence. Between the two ex
tremes there were thought to be innumerable beings partaking of the
nature of spirit and matter: demons, gods, and creatures correspond
ing to abstract qualities. The goal of all Neo-Platonic activity was an
ecstatic state in which the absolute, transcendent, original unity of
spirit, mind, and matter could be attained and experienced, though
not denned or described. <J$t)tf)aa,oraer.
The Greek philosopher
 COMMENTARY 439

Pythagoras (sixth century B.C.) is said to have travelled to Italy and to

have established at Crotona (cf. Note to 14, 21) a kind of sect or society
for the cultivation of science, ethics, and politics. The sect grew,
branched out in various directions, and flourished for about two cen
turies. Pythagoras was an accomplished mathematician (cf. the
Pythagorean theorem on the right-angled triangle), and his philosophy
of the world was based upon the relations of numbers, and the har

mony of tones. His astronomical system with its harmony of the

spheres," the five elements of the universe (earth, water, air, fire, and

ether), the transmigration of souls, and mathematical conceptions of

incorporeal things (like the soul and abstract qualities) are the salient*
features of the Pythagorean philosophy to which Herder refers.
229. 2. lamblichus; cf. Note to 228, 32 and Goethe s Faust,
ed. J. Goebel, New York, 1907, Introduction and Notes, passim. 13.
(Spitur, ETTi/covpos, Epicurus, Greek philosopher (341-270 B.C.), con
structed his system upon the reliability of sensuous perceptions, the
reality and original differentiation of the atoms of matter, and the

principle of pleasure as the guide of conduct. He held that the soul

was a body of airy substance, and likewise that the gods were real per
sons with bodies of the finest atomic substance, who dwelt in the spaces
between worlds. Unb biefeS erlautert be (SpifuruS Sfteinung oou bcr
eftalt ber otter, benen er einett tforper, aber g leidjf a m
einen $6rpev,
unb 23tnt, aber g let cf) ja m 93ft (cf. 225, 8), gibt, roeldjeS (Sicero bunfel
uub imbegreiflid) gefagt ftnbet (De nat. deor. I, 18, 25). Winckelmann,
Gesch d. Kunst, V, i, 28; Werke, IV. p. 122.

X.

230. 3 9tteittfjarb; cf. 127, 33.

.
17. irf) ftttnlidjer fiefer. In
these words Herder gives the key to his literary character, and at the
same time to the difference between himself and Lessing. Herder was
a man of emotion and instinct. He entered heart and soul into every
subject that he investigated, knowledge was colored by the
and all his

warmth of his feeling. We can

Herder s instinct for the true and
trust
beautiful even when his reasons are unsound and his arguments specious.

Lessing, on the contrary, though a man of ardent temperament,

treated
like other objective facts, with the coolness of a
literary phenomena,
master,
Tier fetner .ftunft gettnjj ift iiberall,

2)em $ erj ni$t in bie anb tritt, nod& in3 2luge.

440 COMMENTARY

Thus the intellectual Lessing could speak of "poetic devices" in Homer,

the very idea of which was abhorrent to the sensuous Herder. 28. (Silt
anbereS . . . cm anbereS ; cf. 41, 22. Winckelmann s actual words
were, (5 gefyt mit bent Urteil iiber 2Berfe bcr nnft lute mit efnng ber
S3ud)er. 2)ton glanbt 511 uerftefyen, n>a8 man Iteft, unb man oerftefjt etf nidjt,
menu man e8 erttaren jolt. Gin anbereS ift, ben joiner lefen, etn anbereS
ift, if)it im iVfen jngleid) 511 iiberfefcen. 2J?tt efdjmacf bte SBerfe ber tfuiijl

anjefyen unb mit S>erftanbigfeit, ftub jive i tterfdjtebene Xinge, inib anS einent
allgemein rid)tigen @ebanfen iiber biefelben ifl nid)t anf bie ^enntntS jit

jd)tie^en (Werke, XII, p. xliii).

231. i ff. What Herder afiirms of the superiority of German to

French or English as the medium for a translation of Homer is true
from at least two points of view. In the first place, the grammatical
structure and the comparative wealth of inflectional endings make
German more like Greek, and enable a translator to produce a version
that shall be at once idiomatic and more similar to the original than
would be possible in languages whose nouns have lost most of their
cases and whose verbs are helpless without auxiliaries. In the second

place, German, a comparatively pure and autochthonous speech, is

distinguished for the sensuous quality that belongs to primitive peoples,
primitive poems, and poetic natures, like Herder. Germans can call
the most abstruse things by names derived from objects and actions
familiar to every child of the race. Their language has, therefore, a
vividness and immediacy impossible in tongues that have imported
so large a part of their vocabulary from Greece and Rome. Such a
term, for example, as $tnfd)aiitid)feit is intelligible and significant to
every one who knows what fdjanen and anfd;aiten mean; and that is

every German. The quality of being intuitively perceptible is not so

easy to conceive. On this general subject see J. G. Fichte, Red en an
die deutsche Nation (1808), 4. u. 5. Rede. As a matter of fact, few
peoples have such a library of translations from all languages as the
Germans. 15. Ctnc ttwfjrc cfemetl)obc, the true method of reading
Homer. 20. Popejcf. 120, 29. 29. SHoij; cf. 146,31. 30. 9fJiebeI,
Friedrich Just (1742-1785), Professor of philosophy in Erfurt, adhe
rent of Klotz.
232. 9. bicfe refers to
SBemerfnngen. 16. ^ertobc. This very
sentence a good example of the rhetorical period described. 31.
is

btefen SJortcil; cf. Note to 116, 27. 32. urfpriutfllid). As we have

 COMMENTARY 441

observed above (p. civ). Herder held that poetry preceded prose in
aboriginal languages like the Greek.
233. 5. tote in eiucr Uberfetjung is a question, how would it be
with a translation? Herder answers the question in the form of a con
clusion following the hypothesis with which the sentence 12.
begins.
jebcS anbere, everything else. 15. StyoUo; cf. 94, 24 ff. 31. $ltfc
fiir 3fiife
= @d)ritt fiir (gdjritt 32. ift
= entftef)t.
234. 5. $omma, phrase. 14. After wtb supply bie. 15. SSic=
berfommen. Lessing made a similar observation SBenu ^joiner ja :

cinen fdjonen obcr erljabenen egenftanb burd) bie 23efd)reibung feiuer

etnjetnen Xeitc nebeneinanber fdjttbert, fo bebient er fid) babel eine jetjr
merfuriirbigen ftunfigriffed ;
na mUd) ev fitgt fofort eiu letdjnis bet, in
tt)eld}em toir ben jergtieberteu egenftanb nrieber beifammen erblicfen,

tt)etd)erben erfangten benttic^en S?egriff mieber Dertnifdjt nnb bem egcn=

jlanbe nic^t ate cine ftnnlidje ^lartjeit Iat. SBetjpiel bie @d)tlbermig be

Agamemnon [//.], B, v. 478-81, ^ope ganj nnb gar nevborben f)at,

n>eld)e

tnbem er btefen ^nnftgrtff nid)t gefiil)It, unb bag @(eid)nt uoranmmmt

(L-M XIV, p. 337). The description translated runs as follows: Aga
"

memnon, his head and eyes like unto Zeus whose joy is in the thunder,
and his waist like unto Ares and his breast unto Poseidon. Even as a
bull standethout far foremost amid the herd, for he is pre-eminent
amid the pasturing kine, even such did Zeus make Atreides on that
day, pre-eminent among many and chief amid the heroes."
235. 3. e3 ttjar = e tua re gemejen ; cf. Note top5,g. 25. Eupolis,
EvTroXis, Athenian comedian of the fifth century B.C. His works have
been preserved only in fragments; cf. Theodor Kock, Comicorum Atti-
corum Fragmenta, Leipzig, 1880 ff., I,p. 281. Herder derived the
allusion from Pliny, Epist. I, no. xx; in the edition of C. F. W. Muller
(Leipzig, 1903), p. 23 f. In the translation of Melmoth revised by
F. C. T. Bosanquet (London, 1878) the lines of Eupolis quoted by
Pliny read (p. 31):
"On his lips Persuasion hung
And powerful Reason ruled his tongue:
Thus he alone could boast the art
To charm at once and pierce the heart."

After some general observations on style, Pliny goes on to say, "I

would not be understood to approve that everlasting talker [Thersites]

mentioned by Homer [//. II, 212], but that other [Odysseus] described
in the following lines:
442 COMMENTARY

Frequent and soft as falls the winter snow,

Thus from his lips the copious periods flow.

... I should give the preference to that style resembling winter snow,
that is, to the full, uninterrupted, and diffusive [crebram et adsiduam et
-
29. (r Ittfjt fcinen Stein unbcwegt.
largam]." So Pliny says
Bosanquet, p. 30): "As for myself, said I, who do not pretend
(/.c.,

to direct my aim with so much precision, I test every part, I probe

every opening; in short, to use a vulgar proverb, / leave no stone un

31. ^IjUoftet ; i.e., the play by L. Accius (cf. Note to 47,
turned."

16), Ribbeck, I, p. 239, the line

"Reciproca tendens nervo equino concita

Tela,"

"shooting with sinews of horsehide the swift darts that return whence
they came." According to the reconstruction of the play by W. W.
Merry (Selected Fragments of Roman poetry, Oxford, 1891, pp. 133 f.)

Philoctetes gets his daily food by shooting birds with the arrows [of Her
cules] which return to him with their winged game. finb . . . luicbcr
fommeiib = fomiucn tuteber ;
a periphrastic form frequently used by
Herder. Cf. Mendelssohn s jucjleidjfeifiib, j/j, 8.

23<>.
25. ninunr fid) . . . nu$, is conspicuous.
237. i. baft ifyre JQMrfnitft ucrfdjnriubct is in apposition
with $inbtrni8. 17. ait bcr Xonfunft; because it is a form of com
position in which the principles of harmony and counterpoint are also
illustrated. Herder s account of Homer s "revolving" narration with
its repetition of salient features is one of the best expositions of the
subject ever written. One can observe this Homeric manner in the
popular poetry of all nations. It is especially conspicuous in the
Psalms. Herder s method is here quite Lessingian he even attributes a
tfunftfliirf to Homer (1. 15).

XI.

237. 20. Broifdjeu ^ocfie uub ciner fdjuncu &itnft. Herder s

proposition is self-evident:if the method is comparative, all aspects

of one art can be determined only by a series of comparisons with vari
ous other arts, not by comparison with only one other. Lessing was
well aware of this fact, and planned to extend his comparisons; but he
had good reason for restricting himself in this first part of Laokoon
to poetry and "painting" because these arts are, above all others, arts
 COMMENTARY 443

of representation. Cf. Entwurf i, II, p. 282. Music and dancing

are like poetry in respect to the succession in time of their means of

expression; they are like poetry to a certain extent in the use of conven
tional symbols, and the subtle appeal to the imagination through the
senses. For example, music can suggest the ride of the valkyries; and
dancing (according to Heine s Harzreise) can suggest international
diplomacy. But the particular domain of music is rather to be seen
in the stimulation of the feeling of joy in Beethoven s Ninth Symphony;
and dancing is also a rhythmic expression of exuberant life, whose object
is partly the pleasurable exercise of the limbs, and
partly the pleasur
able contemplation of such exercise. Neither music nor dancing pri

marily represents thought or things, and neither is therefore imitative

of an objective model to anything like the extent of poetry and paint

ing. On the other hand, music and dancing are like painting in that
for themost part they are expressions in natural symbols: painting,
informs and colors true to life; music, in sounds and pulsating rhythms;
and dancing, in gestures and attitudes which are direct and natural
manifestations of feeling. Poetry, on the contrary, finding its expression
in words that are chiefly of conventional value, represents thoughts
and things, as "painting" does, but with strikingly different means.
It may be expected, accordingly, that the most notable differences
between any two of these arts will be found between those two which
pursue similar ends by different means; and the differences will appear
both in the matter and in the manner of their imitation (cf. 24, 27).
25. SBiffeitfcfyaftett, especially in the formula bie fdjoneit SBiffettjcfyaf-
ten, were hardly distinguishable from tfitnfte ; and if Herder makes a
distinction here, it is with reference to the greater philosophical and
theoretical content of arts like music and oratory. Mendelssohn, as we
have seen above (p. cxxiv) uses fd)bne SBtffettjdjaftetl, for belles lettres;
Herder (241, 20) writes bte ein^ige jd)5ne SBtffenfdjaft, bie ^oefie.
238. 5. 993tC flcfjt JCUC 0&, how does the former go to work?
239. 6. fo fccftimmt. Herder means, figures and
@tt)0lt nirfjt

colors are the picture; Lessing says, the

words make the poem.
uses words. Herder s
painter uses figures and colors, and the poet
the symbols are to the
objection has not much point; for whatever
the symbols. 9. fcequcmeS
poet and the painter respectively, they are
Lessing said, the symbol must stand in a fitting rela
$erfyaltlti$.
tion to the thing symbolized. We can conceive liberty, or France,
444 COMMENTARY

or a ship, or a college, in the form of a woman, and refer to any of

these as "she." An algebraic equation, or an athletic field, or a street
car, does not lend itself so readily to such symbolization. An anchor
is a good symbol for hope, and a pair of wings for fleetness; a pendu
lum and a wheel suggest motion, and a pyramid, rest. The symbols
of painting, being figures and colors fixed in space, stand in a fitting
relation to objects fixed in space, and can represent them; but articu
late words, following each other in time, are not
symbols for objects
fit

fixed in space only for objects which follow, or whose parts follow
each other in time; i.e., objects in motion, or, as Lessing says, broadly
generalizing, actions. The relation of words to actions is constant;
as one progresses, the other progresses; they run in parallel lines, in
the same direction, perhaps even at the same rate. And the same is
true of the symbols used in painting: they subsist side by side, just
as objects or parts of objects do; the relation is constant here also.
There is no flaw in Lessing s reasoning. Nevertheless, Herder denies
Lessing s premise concerning a fitting relation. He denies it on grounds
prepared for him by Lessing (cf. 707, i ff.). The two sets of relations,
says Herder, are not comparable, because the symbols of poetry are
conventional, and the symbols of painting are natural; conventional
symbols have nothing in common with the things that they designate.
As has been seen above (p. cxlvi), this is an over-statement. Painting
uses conventional symbols; and some of the symbols of poetry are
natural. But granting Herder s contention for the moment, we cannot
find that it in any way invalidates Lessing s conclusion. In what
ever sense words may be taken, they are successive; whatever ideas
they call to mind, they call them in succession; though they may
indeed be used to call up the idea of objects fixed in space, their de
scriptionis piecemeal, and the gradual perfecting of a conception is

an action to which the mind is successively stimulated. There is,

then, an inherent incongruity between successive symbols and co
existent parts. 23. Tertium comparationis, the common term in the.

comparison, without which comparison is impossible. The common

term in this comparison is the constancy of the relation defined above.
Whether or not the symbols are by nature totally unlike, is immaterial.
24. im 9iaume . .
burrf)
.
3cirfjcit a true account of the way
;

painting "works." Turtf) ben JKnum (1. 26) is an unjustifiable per

version: space is for painting neither more nor less a conditio sine qua
 COMMENTARY 445

non, an indispensable presupposition, than succession, or time, for

poetry. The effect of both the arts has its source in the significance
of their symbols, not in the relative place of them. It is not mere co
existence that is either the nature of
painting (1. 30) or the fundamental
quality of picturesqueness. The nature of painting is representation,
and the fundamental quality of picturesqueness is a quality of
drawing
and coloring.
240. 7. burcf) ben IHuitm . . . iwrtf) Me geitfolge. Here, again,
it would be truer to say int SJcutnte, ill bev 3eitfolge. The effect of
music, however, not half explained by ba
is
9liifeinanberfo(gcu ber
Xonc (1. 10). Melody is indeed an integral part of music; but the
foundation of that art is harmony, for which coincidence is no less sig
nificant than succession. Nevertheless, music does work in successive
moments, and Herder s discussion in this paragraph of the difference
between music and painting is sensible and suggestive. 14.

fclmtfl, varying combination, modulation; cf. 198, 3. 17.

. . .
^attytfadje ;
cf. 101, 26. 20. ^nrbcttflatuer, clavecin octdaireor
clavecin de coulciirs, ocular piano, an apparatus devised by the French
Jesuit, Louis Bertrand Castel (1688-1757), by means of which colors
could be rapidly brought to view in any order, and a kind of tune in
colors could be played. Herder ridiculed this machine on various occa
sions. 25. bie nnturltdjcit -UJltttel, the natural means of painting and
music are form and colors on the one hand, and tones on the other.
It is very loose language that calls coexistence and succession natural
means. Coexistence and succession are conditlones sine quibus non;
cf. Note to 239, 29. 28. SBttdjftnbciU Herder does not really mean
that written or printed letters, words, or verses are poetry, any more
than the dots on a staff are music. Poetry, like all language, is a suc
cession of sounds, and by "letter" Herder means sound. The substi
tution of I d lit for 23ud)ftcibe, even in scientific treatises on grammar,
down into the nineteenth century.
did not become universal until well
241. 2. btC 3eid)CU Jjafccu JC. Not a direct quotation; cf. Note
to 2jp, 9. Herder has not made the difference between music and
poetry appear so great as he would like to have it appear. The differ
ence is,
due to sounds pleasurable
of course, that the effects of music are
for their own
and the effects of poetry, to sounds as symbols
sake,
of ideas with which they have in themselves no necessary connec

tion; that is, to conventional symbols, to words. Sounds for what

446 COMMENTARY

they are, words for what they mean, are the media in which the two
arts work. 6. bitrrf) cine fimftlirfjc Sorftclluufl beS SHoumS, by
means of an artful representation of space; i.e., the inclusion, within
the a canvas, of a given scene in three dimensions, which con
field of

stitutes a little whole and obeys its own laws. Observe the differ
ence between Herder s phrases burd) cine fiinftlidje $orflettung and
bnrd) ben dtaiim (240, 7). 8. buref) bic 3cttfolfle and burrf) eincn
!unftlid)Ctt >)eitwerf)fe( are not synonymous terms. The former is er
roneous (cf. Note to 240, 7); the latter is correct. Artful succes
sion of tones is, or may be, music. It is music in so far as it is artful;
and the art required is the vital principle of the music. If music is an
enevflijdje $mift (1. 7; cf. 197, 20), it is hard to see how Herder can
deny to this vital principle the designation $raft (I. 13) restricted to
poetry. 13. Wnuiii, $cit nub rnft, brci (^runbbcflriffc. Herder
is here thinking of the lectures and some of the early writings of Kant.

In the Fragmcnte, Dritte Sammlung (1767), XI (Werkc, I, p. 419), Herder

had said, (53 mnft enblid) un^erglieberlidje 33egriffe geben, bie ton belt
einfndjften Morten nidjt nieljr 311 trenneii ftnb, unb bereit mujj e$ uernuttlid)
mrljr altf eincn geben. Gine d)itle ber SMtroeifen glanbt, bafj ftrf) alleS

anf (9ebanfe, itnb jelbft ber Scgriff beS *Soin bal)in jnritdfteiteit laffe :

bio* ftnb nnftrfitig bie (^nuibftetne unfercr Grfenntni. 5lIIein nnter bem
^oflvtff be^ ^ein [te()en ineUeidjt gteid) unmittclbar bret nn^ergUebevlidje
33fflviffe: dtaiun itnb ^eit iinb ^raft: ba ijt, neben, nad) unb bind) eiiu
anbev. Similarly, Kant in his Untersuchung iibcr die Deutlichkeit dcr

Grnndsdtzc dcr nutiirlichcn Thcologie und dcr Moral (1764; Werke, ed.
G. Hartenstein, Leipzig, 1867, II, p. 288) wrote, Staler Utele 33ejiriffe
beinat)e gar nid)t anfgelbft tuerben, 5. (5. ber 3?egriff einer ^orflclluiifl, ba8
9tc br ite inanber ober ^adjeinanber &e u\ ;
anbere nnr gum Xeil, inic
ber SBogriff oom SKanme, Don ber e\t r Don oem niondjerlei (^efitl)le ber

ineufd)lid)en eele, bem efiiljt be8 Gvtjabenen, be? @d)bnen, be Gfdl)aften

n. f. U). Space, Time, and Causation are indeed the fundamental
problems of metaphysics; and the science of physics likewise starts
with its three "fundamental units," length (space), time, and mass
(energy, or force). As a basis for the classification of the arts (Herder
combines for this purpose impulses derived from Kant and from Har
ris; cf. supra, p. xcii, and Note to jp/, 20), these three metaphysical-
mathematical conceptions are less well adapted than might at first
sight appear. For what is $raft, and how does it differ from Gnergie ?
 COMMENTARY 447

The distinction of the physicists, which dates from

1800, is inappli
cable. In physics, force is whatever produces or can
produce motion;
energy is the capacity to do work. But by energy Herder means the
capacity for the successive operation of causes that produce effects
during the operation; and by work he means a completed product.
The arts whose vital principle is energy were said (200, 31) to be poetry,
music, and dancing. But now Herder declares (1. 20), bie ein^tge
fctyone SBiffenfdjaft (cf. 237, 25), bie ^oefie, tmrft burrf) $raft. In
other words, poetry has a double effect: in common with music and
dancing its symbols are successive, and it produces the effects of en
ergy; but by distinction from music and dancing it produces other
effects independently of this succession, through the force that is in
herent in its symbols; and these other effects are those at which it
aims. Herder s force has evidently nothing to do with motion, noth
ing to do with energy; it is not a mathematical or physical conception*
nor it strictly speaking metaphysical; it is a special term for a spe
is

cial property of words, and of words as symbols, not as things in them

selves. Herder describes painting and music in their objective aspect,
as things in space and time; but poetry in its subjective aspect, with
regard to its effect on the soul (1. 23). If force be the property of sym
bols that affect the soul, why restrict it to words? Does not music
affect the soul? Does the effect of painting penetrate no deeper than
the eye? Is there not force also in figures, colors, and sounds when
they are artfully composed to represent objects, or to express thoughts
and feelings? There can be no doubt that there is. Nor can there
be any doubt that the product of any art of which we can say e8
ttrirft (cf. 3, 3) embodies energy, the capacity for doing work in an
esthetic sense; and Herder uses the verb ttnrfen of the arts of
If he uses $raft in
painting, music, and poetry indiscriminately.
a subjective, esthetic sense, we may demand a similar esthetic use
of (Snergie; if he treats poetry with regard to its effect upon the
of painting and music. But
soul, we may demand a similar treatment
if he classifies painting and music with regard to their objective
ex

istence in spaceand time, then it is fair to expect him to find a place

for poetry according to its objective existence; and this is in a suc
cession of sounds in time. Herder returns to this subject on page
beg SBefeuS ber
263. There he speaks of the 2ttittetyunft poefte,
There is no objection to
SBirfung ouf uufere @eele, (Snergie (1. 4)-
448 COMMENTARY

this expression; but from it we see clearly that he made no adequate

distinction between Gnergie and $raft and this means that he had
no clear and useful conception of that very $raft which on page 241
(1. 23) he called ba SBffen bcr ^oefte.
242. i. fimtlirf) madjt; cf. 41, 15; 93, 10; 98, 28; 707, 22;
227, 28 The passage that follows bears a close resemblance to a pas
sage in Mendelssohn s Ilauptgrundsdize; cf. supra, p. cxxv. 14.
cillC ?lrt Don Wnlcrfi. Undoubtedly; and this is a noteworthy
supplement to Lessing s description of poetry from its formal, almost
mechanical side. The idea, however, is not new; cf. supra, p. civ.
When Herder says poetry is a kind of painting, he returns to the theory
Ut pidnra Lcssing was as familiar with this theory, and with
poesis.
the passage from Mendelssohn referred to, as Herder could possibly
have been. He chose to disregard the inner aspect of poetry and deal
only with its outward symbols. 18. bcr Wmtb, the outer edge, where
poetry is indistinguishable from prose. 21. 9lbU)Cd)fc(nitfl, succes
sion of di/crcnl elements; cf. 198, 3, 240, 14. 27. <Diitjif bcr cc(c.
I am not aware that any Greek actually defined poetry in these terms.

There are similar ideas in Plato. 29. Lessing did not indeed thus
discuss the subjective effects of poetry, and we may welcome Herder s

emphasis upon the difference between poetry and prose. The musical
effects ofpoetry which he describes should be carefully distinguished
from the musical qualities of sounds in harmonious verses. Herder
is speaking here as elsewhere of the subjective effects of words as sym

bols, of the agreeable thrill of the mind in sympathetic accord with the
impressions that the poet can give by bringing vividly and suggestively
before the mind a succession of images, the very succession and varying
combination of which stimulate the imagination. The poet s subject
is represented to the mind as a great whole; but every part of it i>

made alive with the vital energy to which the mind responds as the

subject is developed; and it may well be that the sum of the parts is
greater than the whole; cf. Note to 197, 20.
243. 8. iiimlirt) uullfommcitc Mebe. Nothing could be more
illuminating than Herder s definition of poetry, culminating in this
phrase of Baumgarten s, which may stand in this form, although
Baumgarten himself wrote the Latin for sensuous and perfect, not sen
suously perfect. Cf. Carolus Raabe, A. G. Baumgarten, JEsthdica in
discipline for mam redacts parens et auctor, Rostock, 1873, P- 34>
 COMMENTARY 449

5. 23. 2Beflen= unb (Setylattgenltmen; a reference to William Ho

garth Analysis of Beauty (London, 1753), in which the waving line,
s

called the "line of beauty" (chapter IX, p. 48) and the serpentine line,
called the "line of grace" (chapter X, p. 50), are described and illus
trated as the sources of the most exquisite pleasure, and the fundamental
lines in all beautiful and graceful forms, in nature or in art. Hogarth s
work was translated into German by C. Mylius in 1754. Lessing spoke
highly of it in announcements printed in the Vossische
Zeitung, May
30, June 25, July 4, August 13, 1754 (L-M V, pp. 405 ff.) and in a Vor-
bcricht sum neuen Abdruck, 1754 (L-M
V, pp. 368 ff.). In this Vor-
bericht Lessing expressed the wish that a philosophical mathematician
might take up the problem where Hogarth left it, and demonstrate
the exact proportions of the lines of beauty, the curves of which must
be neither too flat not too bulging. He also gave a noteworthy defi
nition: 2)ie $>oUfommen()ett beftefyt in bcr Ubercinftimmung bes 2Kanmg=
falttgen, unb atsbann, toenn bie Ubercinftimmung teirfjt 511 foffcn ifr, nen=
nen fair bie 33ollfomment)eit @<i)bnl)eit (p. 371). Mendelssohn also

accepted Hogarth s theory of the line of beauty; cf. 312, 12.

244. anblung; cf. Note to 101, 18.
i. 6. $raft ift bcr
Undoubtedly; but as has been said, it is not by $raft
3)iittetyltltft.
that the arts can be profitably distinguished, since none of them
can produce any effect without it. 13. $11 bcm StnitC bcr SBortc . . .

btC ilroft. Certainly. The power is, however, exerted upon the
mind moments. ,,)er
in successive ?efer ftefjt, baf) anr ftitb, mo
nrir ttaren." nut fel)r fpat. Hardly fair to Lessing, who makes
17.
this qualification after only six pages, and who was aware of the facts
from the very beginning of his speculation on these subjects. 21.

Snburd), bafj 2C. Not a direct quotation, but a condensation of

707, 17-26, which does some violence to Lessing s meaning. After
Derloreit gefye Herder ought rather to have said bafo gmar bie SKebe

an fonne, aber bie fumlid) tooflfommene 5Rebe,

ftd) florper fcf)Ubern
bie ^oefte, torper nic^t anfrfjoulid) genug jd^ttbern fonne unb be
tuegen Ueber barauf berjid^te. The distinction is not unimportant;
which is also lan
for if language as such can describe bodies, poetry,
guage, can describe them after a fashion; i.e., after the fashion of

language, but not necessarily with the

effect of poetry. Lessing im

pliesa difference between poetry and prose which Herder ought not
here to efface. 26. nidjt materifd) flCttttfl. Herder may well say
450 COMMENTARY

this, and yet not mean anything different from nt(f)t anfdjaitltcf)
flemig, which is what Lessing expresses in the phrase bie fum* n>ol)ren

lidjen (Sinbriicfe jit empfmben glauben (707, 23). Herder would add,
however, not picturesque enough for lack of power; Lessing would
say, not picturesque enough because successive symbols are not suit
able for the vivid expression of coexistent picturesqueness. On this
basis Lessing must admonish the poet, "Do not try to describe";
and Herder might bid him cultivate and increase his power. Herder
must then show that enough power may be cultivated, and his best
evidence would be a convincing example.
245. 6. ein fljmbolifrfjer Womcncrflarcr, an interpreter of words
in terms In such writing, the symbols (,3eid)nt, words)
of words.
would be mere representatives of ideas, not the means of con
juring up images. 7. fein
Seifjrid ^citficn (
etQtted bqeugen).
=
An example to prove Herder
contention s the burden of proof is on
him would be more convincing, especially since the reader is some
what in the dark as to his opinion of Haller s performance. Herder
must regard this performance, if it is at all unsuccessful, as an example of
inadequate power applied to description. But instead of giving an example
of successful description, he seeks to show that Lessing s objections to
Haller s poem might with equal justice be raised against an exposition in
prose. If this proves anything, it proves that neither prose nor poetry is

well But Herder implies by it that

adapted to the description of bodies.
Lessing s criterion lies outside the domain of poetry that is, since it
includes prose, it is no distinguishing mark of poetry. Herder him
self, however, makes a new definition of prose. He says, if Haller s
purpose was didactic, he voluntarily renounced the poetic purpose of
illusion; this voluntary renunciation is the reason for his failure to
produce illusion; he was content to be an expositor instead of a poet.
Lessing said (707, 20), the expositor is satisfied to be intelligible. Herder
accepts this definition (1. 8). But the expositor, he declares (I. 19)
must vividly present to the imagination the object described, must
in a certain sense produce illusion (1. 24), must cause the mind to see
the object as a whole and in sensuous form (1. 26). In other words,
the expositor must, in a certain sense, be a poet. And if an expositor can
vividly describe, a fortiori a poet can describe, in accordance with the
measure of his power. It is obvious that Herder shifts his ground in the
midst of the discussion. If Haller as an expositor renounces the privi-
 COMMENTARY 451

lege of illusion, itcannot be true that an expositor as such seeks to

pro
duce illusion. cannot be both possible (11. 10 ff.) and
Intelligibility
impossible (1. 24) without illusion. The difference between Derfttinb*
lid) (1. 22) and anfdjaulid} (cf. 1. 26) which appeared so significant
above (242, 9) in the aroeite 5lrt ber anfdjauenben tcnntnig unb
ba Scfcn ber ^oefte has vanished;
and Herder, far from contributing
anything to the establishment of a difference between poetry and paint
ing, confuses a well-established difference between poetry and prose,
between objectivation and exposition.
246. 31. fid) ... poffcn = paffen, Herder was fond of the re
flexive, and used it with many verbs not now so construed.
247. 3. anfd)oucnb = anfcf)aulid); cf. Note to 231, i, and observe
the inconsistency with 242, 9.

XII.

248. 4. Uidrtjc ^roporttoit tft; i.e., how does the rate of pro
gression of the symbols compare with the rate of progression of the
action? This is not a vital question. Successive sounds as symbols
have no more need to be on the same scale as the thing symbolized
than a picture needs to be on the same scale as the thing depicted.
That the narrative of a man s life should take seventy years in the

recounting is absurd. 12. SJtrtlcrct. Lessing certainly underesti

mated the capacity of painting to represent action. 20. Nobody has

ever said that words cannot excite or convey 33egriffe Don focrifHe=
rcnbcn 2)iugen. 5tnjd)cmenbe (StfenntniS is a different matter. 23ilber

ftnb nidjt but pictures can be seen otherwise than by

Ijbrbar. True;
means of the eyes, as we know who have experienced vivid dreams,
or have been startled by mistaking a rope-end for a serpent, or have
seen a ghost. The question has been raised (cf Note to 98, 28) whether .

images formed in the mind in response to the suggestion of words are

of the same kind as those due to direct visual impressions. It is be
yond question that the mind is usually content to comprehend the
meaning of words, and does not take the further step of objectifying
for itself the image of the thing described, even when it is especially
stimulated by the emotional appeal of poetry. Ordinary reading is a
of words that
process of rapid, superficial, impassive comprehension
Entire familiarity
represent ideas more than they present images.
with the words, and confidence that at any time the ideas for which
452 COMMENTARY

they stand can be conceived, satisfies the inertia of indolence or in

difference. But
the interest be aroused, the attention fixed, the
let

passions excited, and the mind is no longer content with the shadows
of things; it becomes filled with the idea of the things themselves.
This idea is an image, a picture, not usually as clear as a visual per

ception, but just as real, and frequently more affecting. 23 f. Herder

tries to reduce Lessing s reasoning to an absurdity by showing that he

proves too much. Herder does not himself believe that the mind is
unable to construct for itself the image of a connected whole in re
sponse to the stimulation of a succession of sounds. It is as easy to
say that successive tones do hang together as that they do not. They
may constitute an unbroken series, and the effect upon the imagination
may remain after the verbal cause has been forgotten. Remembering
an ode, however, is a different matter from remembering the details
of an object, and then visualizing the whole object by the composition
of its enumerated parts.

249. 7. nur auS bicfcu ruubfa^cu (102, 18) is in truth a

hazardously sweeping statement; and Herder s ensuing discussion of
Homer, proving as it does by positive results the fruitfulness of his
conception of the nature of poetry, is incomparably more valuable
than his rather petulant negation of Lessing s principle. Sympathetic
interpretation was Herder s forte, and he was able in more than one
particular to rectify the cool calculations of Lessing. 21. frfjtlberu
Uiolltc. Lessing nowhere attributed any such desire to Homer;
nor did he anywhere represent Homer as ponderating his means of
expression quite so mechanically as appears from Herder s summary.
Nevertheless, one does get from Lessing s exposition a certain impres
sion of self-consciousness on the part of Homer; and properly enough
this state of mind never occurred to Herder (1. 30) when he read the
Iliad or the Odyssey.
250. 4. 5ufammcnfommt. An important point. Homer has
not made
use of a device to describe a chariot, but has interested his
reader in the assembling of the parts thereof. n. Xvofy I defy.
15. gctfllt has done; pluperfect subjunctive because, though
IjattC,

alleged Lessing, the statement is contrary to fact; cf. #7, 20.

by In
respect to negative force, fauilt is here hardly inferior to nid)t. 18.

fiicgt . nm Harcn Skgriffe, but if the great object aimed at here

cc< . .

is a clear idea. 21. UJclctje griifjcre 9)iiil)e; cf. 108, 21. 24. Wr-
 COMMENTARY 453

fcettcte . . , rwf; cf. 55, 21. 27. SBrorfe^; cf. supra, p. xlvi. 28.
$a3 3ltfammcnfe$en JC. This sentence is somewhat obscure.
Herder means, what we have under consideration is not Hebe s action,
the assembling of the parts of the chariot, but the trick of presenting,
through the gradual assembling of parts, an object that is intended
to be presented and thought of as one whole. Brockes and Homer are
alike in this intention and this trick indeed, Homer takes more time
than Brockes; for he not only gives an account of the chariot part
by part, but also describes Hebe s action in putting the parts together;
whereas Brockes performs only the former operation.
251. 18. ba3 ucccffiuc . . naljer bringen, approximate, so to
.

speak, in the successive elements of his description, the nature of the co

existent elements in the object. So Herder paraphrases Lessing s words
quoted above (1. 7). Inverted, the words would be nearer Lessing s
meaning: Homer resolves the coexistent into its parts in order that
these may be enumerated successively in the successive words of his
description. 27. gejwerft
= gejielt. 29. ben fdjiedjtefiten 2Seg.
There can be no doubt that this is so, granting that Homer desired to

give a clear and vivid picture of the bow as such.

252. 25. $tefen Suier! an mir utdjt errcidjen 511 fonnen; certainly
the experience of every reader. 27. tuerbcub = im SBerbeu; cf. Note
to 235, 31.
258. bcu @d)Ub fjcritm; sc. urn ... getyen.
2. 14. bieS fann

IciltC Herder s impetuosity here decidedly overshoots the

Dtcbc.
mark. If a word can conjure up a picture (1. 9), language can pro
duce the illusion that the hearer sees an object in space. Herder is
thinking, of course, of a complicated object with many parts; and
whether language can vividly represent such an object is indeed a
but he has here
question not lightly to be answered in the affirmative;
tofore so answered it; cf. Note to 245, 7. 20. nod) mtubcr ttUT3 bie

9iebC be3 StdjterS. This is different. The Homeric taijtgriff which

Lessing commended, ben flunflgriff, ba3 floejiftierenbe feine3 SJorttmrfS
in cin $onfefiittoe 511
Derroanbeln (118, 14), made a misconception
But Lessing is not ambiguous as to the poet s intention. He
easy.
of Agamemnon, @o !enne enbtid)
says, to be sure, of the scepter id)

al mir eS bcr 2ttater oor Eugen legen . . . fonnte

btejeS @cepter beffer,

(105, 5) ; but, after all, fettnen is

not the same as fefyen. Lessing affirmed
that instead of a tedious description Homer gives us action.
He did
454 COMMENTARY

not say that by means of action Homer describes objects in such a way
that after the narrative of the action is concluded we have before our
mind s eye a vivid picture of the thing described. On the contrary, he
said in so words, Sir fefyen nid)t ben
many djilb, fonbcrn ben gott-

lidjen 3fteifier, ttrie er ben @d)ilb uerfertigt (118, 16); and he concludes,
9lim tfl e fertig, unb nnv erftounen iiber ba SSerf (118, 23); that is,
we are impressed with its magnificence and sublimity, and the more so,
perhaps, because we have left upon our minds a very imperfect idea of
the details of its appearance. 27. in ber adje felbft ; i.e., on the
proposition that Homer does narrate action and does not extensively
describe bodies.
254. i. cf. 235, 31.
fortfrffrettenb
; 15. $err fieffmg fann a(fo
nid)t faflcn. Lessing does say this, to be sure (106, 9); he says Corner
ivitt 11118 ben S9ogen beS ftantarut malen (106, 14); and Herder
is Homer s intention was not the depiction
right in protesting that
that Lessing here seems to attribute to him. But even here Lessing
at least hints at a difference between "depiction" and "energizing
narration" when he contrasts angeben with lliaten (1. 18); and in view
of his previous determination of Homer s "method of depiction" he
had a However, the word inaleu
right to rest content with this hint.
is misleading; cf. Notes to jp, 10; 107, 22. 27. 83Mb OJcftalt. . . .

The thing most immediately perceived in a picture is unquestionably

iorm. But strength, as well as other elements of character, can be
immediately perceived, if the subject is represented as doing, or as
having done, something requiring strength or whatever the peculiarity
of character may be. To a certain extent, that is to say, the painter
can tell a story. And, on the other hand, the recognition of strength
or any other quality in a character is equally a matter of deduction,
whether from a story or the representation of a form. Herder here
and elsewhere too fondly clings to the distinction between "work"
and "energy"; cf. 200, 29. But the fact remains that the epic poet s
chief aim and principal resource is a narrative of action, as was said

by Lessing (101 ff.). 31. toftS

= ttJarum.
255. 4. ein fuccefftaed, nidjt aber , . . cin enerflife^eS SWb.
True of Lessing s words, though not of his meaning; and Herder s cor
rection is made.
well 15. bcr Skflriff foil rtrirfcn. Clearer, but
not different from Lessing s meaning implied in un3 bei einem ein;e(iten
25inge OerroeUen 311 nmcfjen. Herder would have done well to use
$orflellung instead of SBegrtff here and elsewhere; cf. 254, 26.
 COMMENTARY 455

256. 14. SRmtbfdjenf; cf. 204, 18. 19. toorntfe; cf. borftec^en,
60, ii, 72, 4.
257. 12. ein Utpttiifya SBitb. Hard to reconcile with 253, 14.
13. XtyerfiteS; cf. 147, 7. 15. The difference be
ftortfdjreitung.
tween Herder and Lessing isone rather of form than of substance.
Lessing defines Homer s process; Herder interprets Homer s intention.
With Herder s interpretation, gortfd)reitung ift bie eete jeineS (SpoS,
compare Lessing s observations, 3d) finbe, joiner malt nid)t al8 fort*
fdjreitenbe anblungen (702, 24); ftatt cincr TOUbnng gibt er un$ bie
@efd)id)te be @cepter (104, 30); Bonier matt ben @d)itb . . als cincn .

tterbenben @d)Ub (77,?, 10); tuir jefjen nid)t ben @d)Ub, fonbern ben

gottlidjen 2Keiftev, u>ie er ben @d)ilb uerfertigt (77^, 16).

XIII.

257. 17. XljrtttuS, T^raio? or Tvpraios, a poet of the seventh

century B.C., who wrote martial songs for the Spartans in the second
Messenian War. Cf. Bergk, Poeta lyrici graci, III, and Herder,
Fragmente, Zweite Sammlung, Werke, I, p. 335. 9(uafreun cf. ;

Herder, I.e., p. 330, and Lessing, 7j7, 10. ^inbaruS cf. Note to 189, ;

17, and Herder, Fragmente, Zweite Sammlung, Werke, I, p. 307. When

Lessing chose to deduce rules for poetry from Homer only, he was not
unaware that other poets wrote other kinds of poetry; cf. Entwurf
i, p. 285. &fd)t)(u, Aio-^uAos, the tragic poet (c. 525-456 B.C.).
21. fjuXoTTOios. The second member of the compound, TTOIOS, like
poet, is derived from TTOICW, make, produce, create. 27. bft

;
Unb @ott fprod), S Juerbe id)t.
cf. Genesis I, 3:

258. 3. It is a long jump from e8 Uwr to id) mitt or bu foUfh

Herder gives no example of the use of a emcitbe (in the sense of de

piction in words) for the sake of vivid representation of a thing. 8.

&u3fd)nietfunflett ; cf. 26, 8. n. odes, accordingly, Pindar

sub s are
of objects for the sake of the objects.
jective expressions, not depictions
15.ba3 SSerf* Here and below (1. 17) Herder uses 28er! in the
sense of (Snbjioecf, and temporarily abandons the distinction between
SBerf and (Snergie ;
cf. 197, 20; 263, 26.
259. 15. 9lu3
JC. Rules for all kinds of poetry can be
finer

deduced from the example of one kind, if all kinds are alike in respect
to one common property. Lessing found this common property in the
456 COMMENTARY

use of successive words. 21. Ossian, the hero of ancient Celtic stories,
who came to be regarded as a bard and minstrel in versions of these
stories current in the Highlands of Scotland since the sixteenth century.
The name and the songs of "Ossian" gained wide-spread popularity in.
Europe in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, after the pub
lication of translations by James Macpherson, which were in part made
from modern Gaelic texts that go back to older versions. Macpherson s
translations appeared between 1760 and 1765. His style is florid and

lachrymose, and he indulges in elaborate descriptions of more or less

fantastic natural scenes. As yet Herder knew Ossian only from extracts
that he had seen in reviews. He saw the original English text at Nantes
in the summer of 1769. A year later he communicated his enthusiasm
for it to Goethe at Strassburg. Cf. Notes to 173, n; 175, 2. sltop=
ftorf; cf. 775, 23. 28. bie ^Srajrte .omer3. In spite of 102, 15,
Lessing was not revolving in a vicious circle when he said that the
practice of Homer revealed to him the principle of poetry, and then
proceeded to illustrate the principle of poetry by the example of the
practice of Homer. The Entwiirfe show that he arrived at a concep
tion of the principle of poetry by a process of deductive reasoning.
260. 14. fccttriefen; cf. 239, 24 to 249, n. Proved is too much to
say of this general denial. 19. (Sfinfd)(tejiung
= (Sinui)rdnfuug ; cf. 144,
17. 21. ^lutbab. Herder s fear and trembling are more rhetorical
than real. He fails to take account of no, 27 ff.; 114, g to 116, 20;
/j2, 1 6 ff. 31. SBeinamen, standing epithets; an entirely just observa
tion. Cf. 70, 15.
261. 2. bttrfen, need; cf. 170, 10; 225, 18. 3. einem jcben;
sc. @afee. 4. (Bleim, Johann Wilhelm Ludwig (1719-1803), friend
of Lessing s, author of Anacreontic songs, fables, romances; especially

celebrated for his Prenssische Kriegslieder von einem Grenadier, Berlin,

1758; ed. A Sauer, DLD 4. Cf. 180, 22. 7. boflmatifd)

= bibaftifdj ;

cf. in, 15. 14. often ; i.e., 250, 17; 256, 28 ff.
262. 3. cincr frittfdjctt (Sdjrtft; presumably Friedrich Nicolai s

anonymous Ehrengedachtnis Herrn E. Chr. v. Kleist, Berlin, 1760.

14. $oefte. Lessing (in, 13) excluded from poetry worttidje
itidjt

@d)ilberungen ber tforper made merely for the sake of describing.

He unequivocally condemned such frosty descriptions because of the
inordinate fondness of his contemporaries for them. lie purposely
made his warning emphatic. But he had previously qualified his con-
 COMMENTARY 4;, 7

demnation sufficiently to make Herder s literalness in the interpreta

tion of this passage seem ungenerous. Herder s confession in the fol
lowing paragraph is not so far removed from Lessing s faith as it might
seem. 17. fttUftefycnbe modifies @d)Ubentng not =fnd)t; cf. 245, 6.

26. Corner . . .
^Soefte. Herder here comes perilously near to an
equation such as he blamed Lessing for making. If Homer s watch
word is e8 Qffrfjaf), e luarb (257, 24), how is it with poets whose
watchword is e3 tuar (258, 3)? And who are those poets? Later it
appears that Ariosto is one (267 f.). Herder waives mention of ber
bognmtifdjen, ber mateitben, ber 3bt)flenbid)ter (261, 7); he has yet to
give an effective example of a poet endowed w ith sufficient power to
r

depict an object as vividly as a painter can do it (cf. Note to 244,

21). He declares, poetry is etne 9lrt Don SDMerei (242, 14); neverthe
less, language not able to arouse ben tiiufchenben 2lnblicf eineg raum*
is

lidjen egenftanbeS, eineS $orper3 im 92aume (253, 13); it is an inno

cent ancient hypothesis, ba8 anje jeber ebidjtart a(3 eiue 5lrt Don

emalbe, tton ebanbe, Don ^unftnjerfe 311 betradjten, tuo atte Xeite 511
tfyrem ^auptstuecf, bent anjen mitiuirfen fotlen (258, 28); this emdlbe,
however, is not intended to furnish a picture of things, and this struc
ture is not so much a product of contributory forces as an aggregation
of them (262, 27 ff.). This vague and inconsistent terminology
creates no favorable presumption of usefulness for the classification of

the arts upon the basis of the distinction between work and energy
(cf. 197, 19) which the following chapter
advocates.

XIV.

263. 6. 9JtaIerei toirft :c, Cf. 240, 7; 241, 8. 16. burd) ben

cift; cf. 240, 27 ff.; 244, 8. 18. fttr3 Sfoge ;

cf. Note to 241, 13.
- 19. bic untern Seelenfrafte ;
cf. supra, p. cxv. 22. anfdjauenb =
cf. 23. 9Katcrin; cf. 242, 14. 26. einSScrf;
anfdjauUd); 247, 3.

cf. /p7, 19. 29. hwfyrenb ber Slrbeit ;

cf. 257, 26; 254.
264. 6. bttS Stuflc ... bic $f)antafte. As before(cf. Note to

Herder confuses causes and effect, objective means and sub

241, 13),
If the operation of the imagination is an intuitive
jective experience.
perception (263, 20), poetry
must affect the inward eye just as paint
ing affects the outward eye.
Both arts act upon the imagination
through the instrumentality of the real, or the assumed inward, sense
458 COMMENTARY

of sight. The real sense of sight receives, and the painter can convey
more definite, specific, and materialistic pictures than are possible for
the inward vision or the poet who must stimulate it. On the other
hand, poetry is more expressive and adapted to a greater range of
emotional effects than painting; but painting is capable of an expres
sion not included in the terms @cfjont)eit and SBafyrfyeit (1. n; cf.

supra, p. Ivi). 10. fret jcbcr GJcbtdjtart ucrfdjieben; cf. 257, 16

ff. 16. eineS SluWtrftf; cf. 197, 32 ff. 20. ucrgletrfje. The im
plication is, of course, that this cannot be done. Cf. Note to 2jp, 6.
22. Shaftesbury; cf. supra, p. Ixxv. 23. cin QJcfprarf), by James
Harris; cf. supra, p. xci.
265. i. SXkltwei^ljett; here used in a contemptuous sense; cf.

27, 17. 10. ftriftoteled; cf. 197, 20. 21. bcr Sferfaffer ber
$fji(ofopljifd|cn @rf)rtftcit; i.e., Mendelssohn; cf. Note to 242, 14.
28. attb(lingcit. Harris himself
63) illustrates (p. thus: "Such

for instance as a storm at sea; whose incidents of visionmay be nearly

all included in foaming waves, a dark sky, ships out of their erect pos
ture, and men hanging upon the ropes. Or a battle; which from begin
ning to end presents nothing else than blood, fire, smoke, and disorder.
Now such events may be well imitated all at once; for how long soever
they last, they are but repetitions of the same."
266. 2. 9Wan ftcfyt :c. True; and that is why Lessing printed
Gvfter Xfjfil on his title-page. 4. meljr fur ben $tdjter. Also
true. 8. ^icfc finb K. Herder is too summary to be quite clear.
Harris (pp. 66 f.) illustrates with "the glidings, murmurings, tossings,
roarings, and other accidents of water, as perceived in fountains, cata
racts, rivers, seas, etc.
The same of thunder, the same of winds, as

well the stormy as the gentle. In the animal world, it may imitate
the voice of some animals, but chiefly that of singing birds. It may
also faintly copy some of their motions. In the human kind it can
also imitate some motions, as the walk
of the giant Polypheme in the

pastoral of Ads and

Galatea [or the striding of the giants in Wagner s

Rheingold], and sounds, as the shouts of a multitude in the coronation

anthem of God save the King; and of sounds, the most perfectly which
are expressive of grief and anguish." 15. ^oefte . . . Xonfwtft.
Harris s contention is (p. 73): "Now music seems to imitate nature
better as to motion, and poetry as to sound. The reason is that in
motions music has a greater variety [i.e., notes of five different lengths],
 COMMENTARY 459

and in sounds, those of poetry

approach nearer to nature. If, there
fore, insound the one have the preference, in motion the other, and the
merit of sound and motion be supposed nearly
equal, it will follow that
the merit of the two imitations will be
nearly equal also." This pas
sage well illustrates Herder s opinion expressed above (264, 24 ff.). 17.
burrf) bebeutenbe SSortC is the second and, according to
Herder,
by far the most significant method of poetic imitation; cf. Notes to
2J7, 20; 239, 9.
267. 12. toeitergefommeit.
Hardly. 15. feljeit
= e8 abfeljen.

XV.
267. 1 6 ff. This assurance of the substantial agreement between
Lessing and Herder is the more significant in that the reasons for the
opinion of one man are inconsistent with the reasons given by the other
for his opinion. 23. iljr SSkrf ttefere
= energiftere (260, 29), energifd)
nnrfe (262, 26). 26. ttrie fat) elctw au3 ;
cf. 126, 14; 250, 4, 24; 252,
2 SJ 255, 4; 262, 26.
268. 2. nufrijcinciib
= anfd)einlirf), aiigenfdjeinlid), on the evi
dence of our eyes. 6. gefjaiten, sculptured. 10. fecit fie ifjtt md)t[3]
Oltflcljt; cf. 253, 25, and Lessing s proposition (eidjiuofyl ift ba8
ganjc auf bic
ebicfyt djoiifjeit ber e(eua gebaut (725, 22). Les
sing and Herder are both right: Homer was not concerned to describe
the beauty of Helen as such, but to impress us with the fact that her
beauty was an adequate cause for the war. On the other hand, Les
sing alone right in the interpretation of the lines quoted on p. ijj.
is

What the old men felt and said is in itself of no consequence, but only
as showing Helen s beauty by narrating its effect upon the graybeards.
And in any case, Homer did not describe Helen. 26. fciucit 3U)erf.
What was Ariosto s purpose? Let us assume with Herder that
it was

to exert some kind and inquire how well the detailed descrip
of energy,
tion of a beautiful woman suited this purpose. Meinhard enumerates
the details point for point in his prose; and there can be no other
opinion than that this enumeration is tedious, and that it fails to give
a clear and vivid impression either of Alcina or of her manifold charms.
Ariosto s purpose, then, was attained, if at all, through the means that
differentiate his poetry from Meinhard s prose; namely, through
for other differ-
rhythm, rhyme, and the musical effects of language;
460 COMMENTARY

entiae of poetry and prose, such as the more abundant use of

figures,
are not here in question Mcinhard retains Ariosto s figures. It is
obvious, however, that rhythm, rhyme, and musical effects cannot
make an impression clearer, or make the mental image of a person more
in other words, they do not contribute to the
definite; conception of
an idea in any respect comparable for distinctness to the impression
produced by a picture to say nothing of the impression produced

by the actual sight of a living person. If, therefore, Ariosto s verse is

less tedious than Meinhard s prose, this is because the verse arouses

an interest, in spite of obscurity, and stimulates the mind with agree

able feelings sensations of hearing to sensations of inward
by adding
vision. His purpose was to give an emotional value to a series of de
tails, and so, by a cumulative
process, to overwhelm his reader in a
wave of feeling. Was
such a cataloguing of details. the surest means
to this end; or did Ariosto attain to a measure of success because he
was a poet even when he attempted the poetically impossible ? Is not
poetic energy better employed in making a whole effective than in
dissipating itself among parts which defy synthesis? Cf. Note to 242, 29.
2C>9. 2. $cr ftorm . . .
iff, which is form. 3. ttn^octtft^. Les-
sing said no such thing; cf., on the contrary, 132, 16 ff. 8. JCtflC ftrf) . . .

Woft. As an imperative, this precept exaggerates. Lessing reported

the fact that Homer revealed the beauty of Helen .solely by relating the
story of its effects. Herder s examples which follow prove nothing.
Lessing s theories in no wise conflict with the use of epithets; cf. 102,
8ff.; 115, 22 ff.; 132,27; and Herder, 260, 31. 13. rctjciibcr. Herder
uses this word in its ordinary sense, as he has a right to do, regardless
of Lessing s definition; but he has then no right to hold up to ridicule
the application of Lessing s definition to examples which only he
and not Lessing calls reijenb. 14. Hictf;cllbufltd)t, AevKwAei/os
cf. //. I, 55. 17. fdjonfnietdjt. No such epithet occurs in Homer.
Suphan suggests (Werke, III, p. 485) that Herder may have confused
the translation of the epithet KoAAtTrap^os, fair-cheeked (applied to Bri-
seis, //. XIX, 246) into Latin (pulclrris gents) with pule/iris gcnibns;
or that he may have been thinking of KaAAi cr<vpos, with beautiful ankles.
This word, however, occurs only in the Odyssey (V, 333) and is not
applied to Briseis. Briseis was a damsel, the taking away of whom by
Agamemnon caused the wrath of Achilles with which the Iliad begins.
18. blnuiiuflirtjtC ^attnc* for yXan*ca)7rt? AOyvrj, Athena with gleam-
 COMMENTARY 45 j

ing eyes; cf. //. I, 206. Brettftfyllltertg, TreAw/oios, huge; e.g., II.

Ill, 229. 19. gefrfjttrinbfitfetg, TTO^KTJO^; e.g., II., XXIII, 249.

fdjflnfjaartfl, ^ KO/XOS; II.
24. gefrfjUbert.
e.g., Ill, 329.
Lessing
wrote genialt, 133, 17. 28. $orm
here equivalent to idea, design,
is

beautiful whole, the harmonious union of parts constituting that per

fection which is called beauty. 29. (Sjeftflft, figure, objective aspect.

umgefeljrt.
<3o The inversion is Herder s. Lessing said simply
Gin anberer 2Beg (133, 23); he did not say bcr einjige SSeg; and the
proposition which in the following paragraph Herder reduces to an
absurdity is his own, not Lessing s.
2 7O. i. gefdjilbert ttierbeu mujfe. Certainly. The only ques
tion is how? Lessing has suggested
processes: the two feasible

representation of beauty in its effect upon the observer, and the repre
sentation of beauty in motion. Herder vacillates between 23etregung
and SBtrfung, to suit the convenience of his polemic, but vitiates his
whole argument thereby. His question in line 6 is not difficult to
answer: emotional interest on the part of the poet is 2Bir!ung; and he
could stimulate his reader to a similar interest in the characteristic
features of his fairy one after the other, perhaps, but preferably with
out the plotting, surveying, and measuring in which he indulged. 9.
tit frtjiincr Stetoeguttg. Herder ought to have said SBirfiUig. There
would then have appeared to be no reason for omitting this feature;
but the question of the desirability of cataloguing all the features is

still open. 14. erfjob, lauded. 16. $0ritt is here eftdtt, external

appearance. 29. btC fytgureit. A

poet certainly does not need to
illustrate his figures by means of engravings. If his figures are affect

ing, however, this is because he knows how to give them a charm that
does not depend upon clear comprehension of their physical aspect.
That the very enumeration of details of form and feature tends to
exalt distinctness of detail above the effectiveness of total impression
is admitted on all sides; Herder seems also to admit that it is tedious

when he considers the possibility of refreshment after the inclusion of

some details (1. 18).
271. i. fceften. Lessing wrote gdjortgen, 130, 12, 24. 5. $er=

geblidjfeit Lessing s confession, ober bet bem )id)ter felje id)

iud)tS (130, 26), is literally true,

but overemphasizes the difficulty of
imaginative vision. The difficulty of such aflgemeine ftormeln (130,
that they are vague, unsen-
20) as a brow in the proper proportions
is
462 COMMENTARY

suous, and prosaic. n. ba encrgifterte fcinc 2Rnfe. Did it? 27.

93?drc btc ftrage. This was precisely the question; cf. 144, 12 ff.
272. 2. Slbcr hm3 fott ba3 f)ier? Herder has already (1. i)
answered this question in Lessing s own words; cf. 140, 18. 10. nufccn
is a very different thing from anjdjauttd) frfjilbern ; and by losing

sight of the difference between painting and poetry, which Lessing

held constantly in view, Herder celebrates an easy triumph over an
adversary whom he has not even met on the real ground of battle. 18.

^ugabe = 3 u 9 e ftftnbnl8, concession. At most, Herder has alleged for

his case that the Italian taste (270, 19) approves such circumstantial
descriptions as Ariosto s of Alcina.

XVI.
272. 26. $a$ <Sd)rcrflid)C, ate unfdjabltd) crfannt. If in the dim
light of a hay-mow one should suddenly catch sight of a prowling
animal with great gleaming eyes, one might easily be startled; but
one would certainly laugh upon discovering that the creature was
a cat. On the other hand (1. 27), a baboon which seemed to us ridicu
lous so long as it was encaged or chained, would be an object of terror

if it were discovered to be at large.

273. 7. l)rif;lid) frtjun an oxymoron, like our "shabby gen
;

teel." 17. a matter of definition and usage, whether

djrcrfen. It is

the terms terror and terrible are to be restricted to objects and phe
nomena that inspire abhorrence, or may include objects and phenomena
that we contemplate with awe after the first shock of surprise is over.
Terror mingled with awe is a high degree of fear; terror mingled with
abhorrence is a particular kind of fear. In the Hamburgische Drama
turgic (74. Stuck) Lessing wrote of Weisse s Richard the Third, 2Bo!)l
envecft er id)recfen, roenn unter @d)recfeu bag (Srfiaunen iibcr unbe*

flveiflidje SWiffetaten, ba (Sntfefeen iibcr 23oI)eiten, bie unfern 23egriff

iibcrffcigen, roeim barunter ber (Sdjanbev 311 Derflefyen ift, ber unS bet (5r=

blicfmtfl borfa tjlidjer reuel, bie mtt 1 nft brgangen roerbeii, iiberfdllt. And
again in the same place, (5 ijl toafyr, bo @d)rfrffn ifl cine (battling

ber (5itrd)t ijl eine plb^lid)e

;
e iiberrafdjenbe ^iirdjt. From these two
;

sentences would seem that Lessing used the word @d)recfen to

it

include both the abhorrent and the awful. In aokoon, the example
of Shakspere s Richard the Third shows that he is thinking of the ab-
 COMMENTARY 463

horrent rather than the awful; and it is naturally only of the former
that harmful ugliness is an ingredient. Lessing says (142, 28), jo ift
fdjabUdje aJ3tid)feit attejeit fd)recf(td) ;
he does not say that ugliness
is a sine qua non of the terrible. His purpose, in fact, is not to de
fine the terrible, but to determine the use which can be made of
ugliness al ein 3ngrebien, urn gettnffe ttermtjdjte (Smpfinbnngeu f)er=

Dorjubringen unb 311 Derftarfen (140, 28). 23. ctn brttflenber Sfltoe.
Bliimner justly observes that this example, illustrating the terror of
awe, belongs in the region of the sublime; fyingegen ber 9higriff eineS
$rofobil8 crregt djaubern unb (Sntjejjen, um ber >tiftUd)feit
beS ieve

tmUen. epithet jdjauberDott would apply more aptly to a croc

Herder s

odile than to a lion. 29. btirfe, Lessing did not affirm this need.
274. 10. <Sd)auber
is here (as in 275, 6) the shuddering with fear,
and synonymous with @d)recfen cf. 44, 22. But
is djauber is really
;

horror, not terror; and in the idea of horror, ugliness is,

in spite of

1. 12, an essential ingredient; cf. 275, 22. Herder does not carefully
distinguish the two kinds of terror. 21. $fop ; cf. 141, 15.

275. 5. ba efttfyl be3 afeUrf)etu This description is in its

of fear rather than
firstpart vivid; in its second, it is a description
terror and of a passing, unjustifiable fear. In the terror associated
with sublimity and awe, there is no place for anger (1. n); from the
terror associated with horror, there is no such quick recovery; and of
this terror ba flraUen in metner 9tetur, the discord (1. 16), is an
essential 20. 5iifammengefrf)(agen ; with reference to
ingredient.
s Ot unb gfftg (141, 20). 21. . . .
$&fc^eu. Since
Lessing Sweden
is not easy to distinguish
by Wdjeil Herder means abhorrence, it
his djrecfen from ftnrdjt in 1. 25 he uses ba ;prd)terlid)e synon
Terror is, then, to him only a high
ymously with djrecfcn evregenb.
modified kind of fear. He accordingly
degree of fear, not a particularly
reduces Lessing s two examples to one, and maintains that
in neither
Les
has ugliness anything to do with the terror that both inspire.
sing a contrast between the sublime villainy of Edmund and the
makes
villainy of Gloucester. The two characters are equally
repulsive
criminal, equally
but Gloucester, mean and horrible, would
terrible;
be ridiculous if he were not dangerous; and he inspires the greater
terror because of his dangerous ugliness.
Herder wipes out this con
ter
trast. In his view, the two men, being equally cruel, are equally
is abhorrent for his villainous soul;
Richard s ugly
rible. Edmund
464 COMMENTARY

body and ugly soul increase our abhorrence of him; but abhorrence
has nothing to do with terror; terror is caused in both cases by cruelty.
It is obvious that <Scf)rccfen so defined is not different from fturrfjt;
and that a which admits the sublime and the ridiculous on
definition

equal terms no very useful contribution to this discussion.

is

9. bfof? Jocflcn iljrcr Scfjabttrfjfcit.

27<>.
Lessing would not
have admitted so much. But he does not say that ugliness suffices
to produce terror. The terror aroused by Gloucester is the conse
quence of dangerous ugliness; that is, it is fear tinged with horror
a mixed feeling, in which abhorrence is an essential ingredient. Les
sing must therefore have denied Herder s propositions in 11. 12 ff. 14.

Jure!)! unb 91bfd)cu . . .

tocrft^tcicnc ftrtcn. Yes. But it is here a

question not of fturdjt, but of vSifjwcten. 19. urn Hbfdjcu 511 tocr=

ftarfcn? No; but as before, inn bie ttermifdjte Gmpfutbiutg betf djrerf*

lidjcii 311 tterftcirfen. 23. ftftfdjcu . . . GW. We should probably

prefer Herder s and Mendelssohn s classification. Our word dis

gust applies properly only to the sense of taste and the closely
allied sense of smell. But there can be no doubt that objects repul
sive to sight produce upon very sensitive natures an effect which,
whether caused by the sight itself or by association of ideas, is very
similar to the sensation of disgust with a malodorous or nauseating
article of food. There are good reasons for refusing to sit down at the
table with Caliban. 25. gctyt ab = . . .
lueidjt ab. 29. (9ef Ufyl, feeling
in the general sense, not in the sense of touch, as in 1. 26.

277. Herder more or less substantiated these propositions

7 ff.

in passages that we have omitted, but truly said that the question at

issue is chiefly a matter of definition.

XVII.

277. 18. nrie flcfagt; cf. 274, 29. 21. bag fd)cinbar Sdfdnc;

cf.^7J, 7 ff. 25. Hogarth; cf. Note to 243, 23. Herder makes the
point that Hogarth s satirical, moralizing, realistic pictures often give
the impression of ugliness itself instead of ugliness as the effect of im
morality and the cause of amusement or abhorrence in the spectator.
There is no doubt that Hogarth, for all his artistic skill, many times

sought a didactic rather than an artistic effect, and that much of his
work is more important as an accurate representation of certain phases
 COMMENTARY
of contemporary London life than as legitimate pictorial art. He
sacrificed esthetic considerations to truth.
278. 17. ber Skater; cf. Lessing, 146, 16 ff. 20. fret = leer,
how vain the artist s e/orts!2^. ba3
149, 29. SStefel;
29. fcofen cf.

,mmour3, bad humor, in contrast to good humor. In the Fragmente,

Erste Sammlung, Kap. 6 (Werke, I, pp. 162 f.) Herder
wrote, Sffiarmn
fyaben fjaffpere unb ubibra, @wift unb ftielbing fid) fo fefjr ba e*

fiifyl ifyrer Nation ;$u eigen gemad)t? SBetl fie bie ftunbgruben ifyrer
pradje burd)forjd)t, unb ifyrett Rumour mit 3btoti8mcn, jebeu nad) feiner
5lrt unb feiuem 9ftaJ3, gepaart l)aben. And in Das vierte kritische

Waldchcn, Kap. 4 (Werke, IV, p. 182) he says, cume unb Rumour,

bie SSorte tt)erben meiftenS fiir Stn gebraud)t . . . Rumour, (S.
3. ift

offenbar etn 9?attonataiort ber Snglanber ait i^rem dfyarafter. Hesiod,

Ho-ioSos, Greek didactic poet of the eighth century B.C. A The-
ogony the most important work attributed to him. The "picture of
is

sadness" referred to is in a fragmentary poem on the Shield of He

racles, verse 266. Longinus says of it (On the Sublime, IX, 5, trans.

Hashagen, p. 49), (r fagt, ,,d)Ietm ffofc if)r au ber 9?afe" unb ritft ba=

burd) utd^t einen ertjabenen, fonbern etncn efeterregeuben (Sinbrncf ^erdor.

27O. 21. nirfft fo Bitnbig. Herder s reasoning is not so close
and cogent as Lessing s; but his observations seldom fail to be sug

gestive. 28. Ctne3 @enbfdjrctben3. 1769, Herder

In January,
wrote an anonymous letter to Lessing announcing the forthcoming
publication of his Erstes Waldchen, and assuring Lessing of his respect
and good will in terms identical, in part, with those used here. One
sentence of this letter runs as follows: 9?ef)inen ie bie offenfte 2$er*

ftdjerung metner oc()ad)tung an, bie and) cuts metner ganjen @d)rtft er=

ijefleit miifj, unb fiiufttg uoa^ me^r ertjetten trirb. 3ebe SBort fei uer=

bannt, rt)a etncu SMftng beletbigen iuoflte ;

attetn jebe 2Bort rt)erbe urn

fo fdjdrfer gepriift, iua ein ^effing jagt, benn \mt t)iel l)at ber nid)t

jager (I-MXIX, p. 291).

 BIBLIOGRAPHY
OF IMPORTANT WORKS NOT ALREADY DESCRIBED.

LESSING.
Erich Schmidt: Lessing. Geschichte seines Lebens und seiner
Schriften. 3. Aufl. Berlin, 1910.
Lessing s Laokoon, edited, with English Notes, by A. Hamann. Re
vised, with an Introduction, by L. E. Upcott. Oxford, 1892.
- translated by Sir R. Phillimore. London, 1874.
herausgegeben von Robert Boxberger. Leipzig, 1879.
fur den weiteren Kreis der Gebildeten herausgegeben von
W. Cosack. 3. Aufl. Berlin, 1882.
in gekiirzter Fassung herausgegeben von Aug. Schmarsow.
Leipzig, 1907.
Aug. Schmarsow: Erliiuterungen und Kommentar zu Lessings
Laokoon. Leipzig, 1907.
H. Fischer: Lessings Laokoon und die Gesetze der bildenden Kunst.
Berlin, 1887.
Ernst Elster: Das 16. und 17. Kapitel in Lessings Laokoon. Zeit-

schrift fur vcrgleichende Liter aturgeschichte, XIII, pp. 135 ff.

Alfred Rausch: Lessings Laokoon. Lehrproben und Lehrgange, LII,
pp. i ff.

Die Form der Darstellung in Lessings Laokoon. Ehren-

gabe der Latina. Halle, 1906. Pp. i ff.
Carl Nohle: Lessings Laokoon und der Kunstunterricht. Neue
Jahrbiicher fur Padagogik, VIII (1905), pp. 454 ff.

H. Fechner: Lessings Laokoon und das Prinzip der bildenden

Kiinste. Kunst, XIX, pp. 252
Zeitschrift fiir bildende ff.

Carl Rethwisch: Der bleibende Wert des Laokoon. 2. Aufl. Berlin,

1907.
Philipp Wegcner: Lessings Anschauung von der Darstellbarkeit der
467
468 BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Handlung. Unlcrsuchungcn tibcr die Grundfragen dcs Sprach-

lebens. Pp. 152 ff.
Halle, 1885.
F. Reborn: Uber das Verhaltnis Shaftesburys zu Lessings Laokoon.
Bcrichtc des freien Deutschcn Hochstifts zu Frankfurt a. M., II,
III (1886-87).
W. Wundt: Lessing und die kritische Methode. Essays. 2. Aufl.

Leipzig, 1906. Pp. 417!!.

W. Dilthey: Das Erlebnis und die Dichtung. 2."Aufl.
Leipzig, 1908.
Chr. Schrempf: Lessing als Philosoph. Stuttgart, 1906.
Lessings Hamburgische Dramaturgic, abridged and edited with In
troduction and Notes by Charles Harris. New York, 1901.

HERDER.
Rudolf Haym: Herder nach seinem Leben und seinen Werken dar-

gestcllt. Berlin, 1880-85.

Kritische Waldcr, I. Herausgegeben von Hans Lambel. Herders
Werke, III, ii. DNL LXXVI.
G. Hoffmann: Darstellung und Kritik der von Herder gegebenen
Erganzung und Fortbildung der Ansichten Lessings in seinem
Laokoon. Beilage znm J ahresbcricht der Allgcmcincn Handcls-
lehrcranstalt.
Augsburg, 1900-01.
N. Friedland: Uber das Verhaltnis von Herders Erstem Kritischen
Waldchcn zu Lessings Laokoon. Progr. Brombcrg, 1905. Rez.
H. Lambel: Deutsche Liter at urzcitung, 2. Feb., 1907, Sp. 289.
I. C. Hatch: Der Einfluss Shaftesburys auf Herder. Studien zur

vcrglcichcndcn Literal Hrgcschichtc, I, pp. 68 ff.

A. E. Berger: Der junge Herder und Winckelmann. Sludien zur

dcutschen Philologic von Ph. Strauch, A. E. Berger und Frz. Servacs.
Halle, 1903.
Johannes Haussmann: Untersuchungen liber Sprache und Stil des

jungen Herder. Leipzig, 1907.

Giinther Jacoby: Herders und Kants Asthetik. Leipzig, 1907.

GOETHE.
Aufsatze tiber bildende Kunst und Theater. Herausgegeben von
A. G. Meyer und Georg Witkowski. Goethes Werke, XXX.
DNL CXI.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY. 469

Ludwig Geiger: A. Hirt. Goethe- Jahrbuch, XV, pp. 96 ff.

L. v. Urlichs: Goetheund die Antike. Goethe-Jahrbuch, III, pp. 3 ff.

Frz. Thalmayr: Goethe und das klassische Altertum. Leipzig,
1897.
Ad. Michaelis: Goethe und die Antike. Strassburger Goethe-Vortrage,
1899, pp. 155 ff.

F. J. Schmidt: Goethe und das Altertum. PreussischeJahrbiicher,CV,

pp. 63 ff.

Theod. Volbehr: Goethe und die bildende Kunst. Leipzig, 1895.

Otto Harnack: Goethes Kunstanschauung in ihrer Bedeutung fur die
Gegenwart. Goethe-Jahrbuch, XV, pp. 187 ff. Also in Essais
und Studien. Braunschweig, 1899. Pp. 170 ff.
Goethe in der Epoche seiner Vollendung. 2. Aufl. Leipzig,
1901.
Wilhelm Bode: Goethes Asthetik. Berlin, 1901.
C. H. Handschin: Goethe und die Gothik in Strassburg. Modern
Philology, VII, pp. 427 ff.

E. A. Boucke: Wort und Bedeutung in Goethes Sprache. Berlin,

1901.

ESTHETIC HISTORY AND THEORY.

Bernard Bosanquet: A History of Aesthetic. 2nd. ed.London, 1904.
Julius Walter: Die Geschichte der Asthetik im Altertum. Leipzig,
1893.
K. H. v. Stein: Die Entstehung der neueren Asthetik. Stuttgart,

1883.
Robert Sommer: Grundziige einer Geschichte der deutschen Psycho-
bis Kant-Schiller.
logie und Asthetik von Wolf-Baumgarten
Wurzburg, 1892.
Fr. Braitmaier: Geschichte der poetischen Theorie und Kritik von
den Diskursen der Maler bis auf Lessing. Frauenfeld, 1888-89.
Frz. Servaes: Die Poetik Gottscheds und der Schweizer. Quellen und

Forschungcn, LX. Strassburg, 1887.

Gustav Waniek: Gottsched und die deutsche Literatur seiner Zeit.

Leipzig, 1897.
des
O. F. Walzel: Shaftesbury und das deutsche Geistesleben
1 8. Jahrhunderts. Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, I,

pp. 416 ff.

470 BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Ludwig Goldstein: Moses Mendelssohn und die deutsche Asthetik.

Konigsberg, 1904.
Helene Stocker: Zur Kunstanschauung des 18. Jahrhunderts. Pa
laestra, XXVI. Berlin, 1904.
Otto Harnack: Die klassische Asthetik der Deutschen. 2. Aufl.
Leipzig, 1892.
Fr. Theod. Vischer: Das Schone und die Kunst. 3. Aufl. Stuttgart,
1907.
Johannes Volkelt: System der Asthetik. Miinchen, 1905 ff.

Max Dessoir: Asthetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft. Stutt

gart, 1906.
Rudolf Lehmann: Deutsche Poetik. Miinchen, 1908.
R. M. Meyer: Die Poesie unter den bildenden Kiinsten. Neve
Jahrbiichcr fur das klassische Altertum, Geschichte und deutsche
Lileralur, XXIII, pp. 449 ff.
O. E. Lessing: Die neue Form. Dresden, 1910.
Irving Babbitt: The New Laokoon. Boston, 1910.
 ^
- Ot
>

y,

-t^, (/,

"tv
v
^x^-*

A, y~ .
<yXuut^
r^
.

r ^
^
jo
-^-
t
<-\J r y > ,
y

J*
\ t
I
v,

^VA> /