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CHAPTER III
POE'S KNOWLEDGE OF THE GERMAN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
Poe's writings are replete with quotations and references to German literature. Take for example his critique of Longfellow's Ballads. There are frequent allusions to the influence of German literature on Longfellow,(1) as for example:
It will be at once evident that, imbued with the peculiar spirit of German song (a pure conventionality), he regards the inculcation of a moral as essential.
Poe cites Herder, Körner, and Uhland.(2) He prefers Longfellow's The Luck of Edenhall to Körner's Sword Song and adds: “We may observe of this ballad that its subject is more physical than is usual in Germany.” And again: “But in pieces of less extent the pleasure is unique, in the proper acceptation of the term — the understanding is employed without difficulty in the contemplation of the picture as a whole; and thus its effect will depend, in great measure, upon the perfection of its finish, upon the nice adaptations of the constituent parts, and especially upon what is rightly termed by Schlegel the unity or totality of interest.”
In a critique of Thomas Moore's Alciphron, Poe says:(3)
The term mystic is here employed in the sense of A. W. Schlegel, and of most other German critics. It is applied by them to that Class of composition in which there lies beneath the transparent upper current of meaning an under, or suggestive one.
Referring to the Undine of de la Motte Fouqué, our author says:
There is little of fancy here, and everything of imagination [page 21:] nation. Rationale of Verse:(4) If any one has a fancy to be thoroughly confounded — to see how far the infatuation of what is termed ‘classical scholarship’ can lead a book-worm to manufacture darkness out of sunshine, let him turn over for a few moments any of the German Greek Prosodies. The only thing clearly made out in them is a very magnificent contempt for Leibnitz's principle of a sufficient reason.
Poe's assertion that Hawthorne's manner was identical with that of Tieck has already been mentioned. The following from Poe's Marginalia is also a striking passage. He is discussing Fouqué's Theodolf the Icelander and Aslacya's Knight.
This book could never have been popular outside of Germany. It is too simple — too direct — too obvious — too bold — not sufficiently complex — to be relished by any people who have thoroughly passed the first (or impulsive) epoch of literary civilization. The Germans have not yet passed this first epoch ... Individual Germans have been critical in the best sense, but the masses are unleavened. Literary Germany thus presents the singular spectacle of the impulsive spirit surrounded by the critical, and of course in some measure influenced thereby. ... At present German literature resembles no other on the face of the earth, — for it is the result of certain conditions which, before this individual instant of their fulfilment, have never been fulfilled. And this anomalous state to which I refer is the source of our anomalous criticism upon what that state produces, — is the source of the grossly conflicting opinions about German letters. For my own part, I admit the German vigour, the German directness, boldness, imagination, and some other; qualities in the first (or impulsive) epochs of British [page 22:] and French letters. At the German criticism however, I cannot refrain from laughing, all the more heartily the more seriously I hear it praised. ... It abounds in brilliant bubbles of suggestion, but these rise and sink and jostle each other until the whole vortex of thought in which they originate is one indistinguishable chaos of froth. The German criticism is unsettled and can only be settled by time. ... I am not ashamed to say that I prefer even Voltaire to Goethe, and hold Macaulay to possess more of the truly critical spirit than Augustus William and Frederick Schlegel combined.(5)
Such quotations from Poe's works might be multiplied almost indefinitely. As a pendant to this opinion of Goethe and the Schlegels, it is interesting to compare two passages, the one from the Fall of the House of Usher, the other from Morella:
Our books — the books which had for years formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalid — were, as might be supposed, in keeping with this character of Phantasm.
In this list which, “for years had formed no small portion of the mental existence of the invalid,” Poe mentions Tieck's Journey into the Blue Distance.(6)
Another passage from Morella:
Morella's erudition was profound. ... I soon found, however, that, perhaps on account of her Presburg education, she placed before me a number of those mystical writings which are usually considered the mere dross of German literature. These, for what reason I could not imagine, were her favorite and constant study — and that in process of time they became my own should be attributed to the simple but effectual influence of habit and example. In all this, if I err [page 23:] not, my reason had little to do. My convictions, or I forget myself, were in no manner acted upon by the ideal, nor was any tincture of the mysticism which I read to be discovered, unless I am greatly mistaken, either in my deeds or my thoughts. It is unnecessary to state the exact character of those disquisitions which, growing out of the volumes I have mentioned, formed for so long a time almost the sole conversation of Morella and myself. ... The wild pantheism of Fichte; the modified [[Greek text]] of the Pythagoreans; and,, above all, the doctrine of Identity as urged by Schelling, were generally the points of discussion presenting the most beauty to the imaginative Morella.(7)
These passages are of particular importance for the purposes of this work. Poe finds German criticism unsettled and professes to prefer Voltaire to Goethe. In other words, for that which is generally considered best in German literature he has no appreciation. That which is usually considered the “mere dross” of German literature he describes as his constant and favorite reading. Scott's article in the [[*]] Quarterly Review, on the Supernatural in Fiction, has already been mentioned. The author emphasizes the fact that E. T. A. Hoffmann is the type of the best among the “secondary” names of German literature. It will be remembered also that Poe, in discussing German terror in his tales, uses the phrase, “for no better reason than that some of the secondary names of German literature have been identified with its folly.” In the passage from Morella he has evidently the same idea in mind when he speaks of the “mere dross” of German literature.
Poe's reference to this magazine has already been mentioned. He was undoubtedly impressed by Scott's article, and when he speaks of “secondary names” and the “mere dross” of German literature, like Scott he has Hoffmann in mind. And when one considers that this class of literature became [page 24:] his favorite reading, the statement becomes significant for his relationship to Hoffmann. It is also quite significant that Poe nowhere mentions Hoffmann's name directly. The American was an inveterate pursuer of plagiarism (one recalls, for example, the strife about Longfellow). He would therefore Naturally not have given the horde of his inimical critics an opportunity to turn his own guns upon himself by discussing openly a man whose work bore such a striking resemblance to his own.
Just as Poe's references to German literature in his works preclude the possibility of anything but a first-hand knowledge of sources, so also they imply a knowledge of the language. The Mystery of Marie Roget, for example, which appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger, November, December, February, 1842-1843, contained as a heading a quotation from Novalis's Fragments in the original, with the translation appended. with
Es gibt eine Reihe idealischer Begebenheiten, die der Wirklichkeit parallel lauft. Selten fallen sie zusammen. Menschen und Zustande modificiren gewohnlich die idealische Begebenheit, so dass sie unvollkommen erscheint, und ihre Folgen gleichfalls unvollkommen shid. So bei der Reformation; statt des Protestantismus kam das Luthertum hervor.
Poe translates, and no one can question the knowledge of German displayed:
There are ideal series of events which run parallel with the real ones. They rarely coincide. Men and circumstances generally modify the ideal train of events, so that it seems imperfect, — and its consequences are equally imperfect. Thus with the Reformation; instead of Protestantism came Lutherism.
Novalis is again quoted in one of Poe's Fragments.(9) “The Artist belongs to his work, and not the work to the Artist,” Also, in Poe's Tale of the Ragged Mountains, we find a reference to Novalis's theory of dreams. [page 25:]
Poe's reference to Tieck's Journey into the Blue Distance, in The Fall of the House. of Usher, has been mentioned. At the time when this tale was written, 1839, no translation of Tieck's Reise ins Blaue hinein had appeared either in English or French.
Numerous German quotations in the original are scattered throughout Poe's works. In Marginalia,(10) he applies the term Schwärmerei to a certain style of criticism in America. He translates it, “not exactly humbug, but sky-rocketing.” He has a note also on Goethe's Sorrows of Werther.(11) He finds it difficult to conceive how the Germans could have admired it, and adds: “The title, by the way, is mistranslated, — Leiden does not mean sorrows, but sufferings;” which distinction is quite exact.
Poe's tale, The Man of the Crowd, opens with the following sentence: “It is well said of a certain German book, es lässt sick nicht lesen,” and he then translates more literally than elegantly, “it does not permit itself to be read.”
In the article on Longfellow's Ballads,(12) Poe mentions Count Bielfeld's definition of poetry as “L’art d’exprimer les pensees par la fiction,” and our author adds: “With this definition (of which the philosophy is profound to a certain extent) the German terms Dichtkunst, the art of fiction, and dichten, to feign, which are used for poetry, and to make verses, are in full and remarkable accordance.”
While editor of Graham's Magazine, 1840-1841, Poe was much interested in cryptography a nd advertised in the magazine, inviting his readers to invent secret writings and submit them to him for solution. “Yet any one who will take the trouble may address us a note, in the same manner as here proposed, and the key phrase may be either in French, Italian, Spanish, German, Latin or Greek (or in any of the dialects of these languages), and we pledge ourselves for the [page 26:] solution of the riddle.”(13) Poe received responses to his invitation, and did actually solve all the riddles which were submitted to him.
Prof. Gruener, in an article in Modern Philology, Vol. 2, page 125, entitled Poe's Knowledge of German,(14) argues in favor of Poe's ability to read German. Prof. Gruener enumerates, in part, the evidence given here, and in addition calls attention to a German motto which appeared on the title page of Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque. The motto in question is a verse from Goethe's Die Göttin:
Seltsamer Tochter Jovis,
Seinem Schlosskind,
Der Phantasie —
Prof. Gruener also adduces as evidence a passage in Poe's Eureka translated from Alexander Humboldt's Kosmos. Previous to the publication of Eureka, two translations of this work had appeared; one by Prichard, London, 1845, another by Col. Sabine, London, 1847. The passage referred to is to be found in the Kosmos, Vol. i, page 151:
Betrachtet man die nicht perspectivischen eigenen Be-wegungen der Sterne, so scheinen viele gruppenweise in ihrer Richtung entgegengesetzt; und die bisher gesammelten Thatsachen machen es aufs wenigste nicht nothwendig, dass alle. Theile unserer Sternenschicht oder gar derjgesammten Stertteninseln, welche den Weltraum füllen, sich um einen grossen, unbe-kannten, leuchtenden oder dunkel Centralkorper bewegen. Das Streben each den letzten und hochsten Grundursachen macht freilich die reflectirende Thatig-keit des Meschen, wie seine Phantasie, zu einer solchen Annahme geneigt.
Prichard's translation of the passage(16) reads: [page 27:]
If the non-perspective, proper motion of the stars be considered, many of them appear group-wise opposed in their directions; and the data hitherto collected make it at least not necessary to suppose that all parts of our astral system, or the whole of the star islands which fill the universe, are in motion about any great unknown luminous or non-luminous central mass., The longing to reach the last or highest fundamental cause, indeed, renders the reflecting faculty of man, as well as his fancy, disposed to adopt such a proposition.
Sabine's translation(17) is as follows:
If we consider the proper motions of the stars, as contradistinguished from their apparent or perspective motions, their directions are various; it is not, therefore, a necessary conclusion, either that all parts of our astral system, or that all the systems which, fill universal space, revolve around one great undiscovered luminous or non-luminous central body, however naturally we may be disposed to an inference which would gratify alike the imaginative faculty and that intellectual activity which ever seeks after the last and highest generalization.
Poe's translation(18) reads:
When we regard the real, proper, or non-perspective motions of the stars, we find many groups of them moving in opposite directions; and the data as yet in hand render it not necessary at least to conceive that the systems composing the Milky Way, or the clusters generally composing the Universe, are revolving about any particular centre unknown, whether luminous or non-luminous. It is but man's longing for a fundamental First Cause that impels both his intellect and fancy to the adoption of such an hypothesis. [page 28:]
Relative to the passage which Poe quotes from Novalis, Prof. Gruener notes that it had appeared in a volume entitled Fragments from German Prose Writers, translated by Sarah Austin, London, 1841. Poe's story, The Mystery of Marie Roget, in which the passage from Novalis is used as a motto, appeared in November, 1842. But Poe's translation of the passage and that of Mrs. Austin diverge as radically as do the foregoing versions of the passage from the Kosmos.
In Poe's story, The Premature Burial, he recounts several supposedly authentic cases of persons having been buried alive. One of his instances he says he has found in “a late number” of the “Chirurgical Journal” of Leipsic.(19) Prof. Gruener suggests that Poe was perhaps in the habit of consulting this journal in search of novel material, and that he did actually read the story in the original. A search of all the medical periodicals in the libraries of Berlin for the period 1834-1844 (Poe's Premature Burial was published in 1844) failed to result in a discovery of the case cited by Poe, although, at that time, there was apparently a lively interest in the subject among surgeons and numerous similar cases were recorded.
The same story affords some evidence of Poe's unreliability as to his statement concerning his source. In addition to the case of premature burial just mentioned, Poe gives in the same story the facts in another case; that of a young woman rescued from her grave by her lover. Poe states that this event occurred in Paris in the year 1810, and gives the names of the persons concerned. This latter is a very commonly quoted case, and can be traced in various slightly different forms as far back as the year 1754.(20)
The same story appears also in the following works:
“Über die Ungewissheit des Todes and das einzige untrügliche Mittel sich von seiner Wirklichkeit zu überzeugen.” C. M. Hufeland, Weimar, 1791. [page 29:]
“Beweis, dass einige Leute lebendig konnen begraben werden.” J. P. Brinckmann, Düsseldorf, Cleve, and Leipzig, 1772.
The same story is found in the Causes Célèbres(21), and this is probably the source of all the other versions. Bruhier states that this is his source. Poe states that the event occurred in Paris in 1810, and provides the persons concerned with names. It would seem, then, that his statement relative to the source of the other case which he says he took from the Chirurgical Journal of Leipsic might be regarded also as somewhat untrustworthy.
So much we may deduce with certainty from the foregoing. First, that in England and America, in the Thirties and Forties, there was a lively interest in German contemporary literature. Secondly, that Poe as a magazine editor was thoroughly en rapport with this wave of interest, and that among his favorite reading he counted some of the secondary productions (meaning probably Hoffmann) of German literature. Finally, the American author possessed at least an ability to read German in the original, though in view of the meagreness of the information which we have concerning his life, it is impossible to discover when and where he acquired this ability.
It now remains for us to see what echo of his German reading we find in his own work.
In this connection it is interesting to take account of certain utterances of Poe with reference to his theory of the tale.
A skilful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but, haviug [[having]] conceived with deliberate care a certain unique or single effect to be wrought out, he then invents such incidents — he then combines such events as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect And here it will be seen how full of prejudice are the usual animadversions [page 30:] against those tales of effect, many fine examples of which were found in the earlier numbers of Blackwood.(22)
It was worth noting that Hoffmann's Elixiere des Teufels appeared in an “early number of Blackwood” for 1824.
We have a similar utterance on the same subject in the Philosophy of Composition.(23)
I prefer commencing with the consideration of an effect. Keeping originality always in view — for he is false to himself who ventures to dispense with so obvious and so easily attainable a source of interest — I say to myself in the first place, ‘Of the innumerable effects or impressions of which the heart, the intellect, or (more generally) the soul is susceptible, what one shall I, on the present occasion, select?’ Having chosen a novel, first, and secondly, a vivid, effect, I consider whether it can be best wrought by incident or tone — whether by ordinary incidents and peculiar tone, or the converse, or by peculiarity both of incident and tone — afterwards looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations of event or tone as shall best aid me in the construction of the effect.
The last sentence, especially the phrase “looking about me (or rather within) for such combinations,” is significant. Poe has placed the words “or rather within” in parentheses, lest the foregoing might be construed as a confession of his literary borrowings.
In looking about him for combinations of event or tone, what did he find that was serviceable among the productions of the German romanticists?
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 20:]
1. Harrison, Vol. XI, Page 69.
2. Harrison, Vol. XI, Page 80.
3. Harrison. Vol. X, Page 65.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 22:]
4. Harrison, Vol. XIV, Page 217.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 22:]
5. Marginalia. Harrison, Vol. XVI, Page 115.
6. Harrison, Vol. III, Page 287.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 23:]
[[* In the copy of Cobb's pamphlet at Columbia University, someone has written, in the right margin, “where?” The answer to that question is in “Morella,” where Cobb seems to be equating Poe with his narrator, as suggested near the end of the paragraph and in the passage already quoted at the bottom of page 22. — JAS]]
7. Harrison, Vol. II, Page 27.
[[In the original, there is no footnote 8 — JAS]]
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 24:]
9. Marginalia. Harrison, Vol. XVI, page 98. Heilborn, Vol. II, page 563.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 25:]
10. Harrison, Vol. XVI, page 166.
11. Ingram, Vol. III, page 477.
12. Harrison, Vol. XVI, page 74.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 26:]
13. Harrison, Vol. XIV, page 124.
14. The attention of the author was called to this article after the foregoing had been completed.
[[In the original, there is no footnote 15 — JAS]]
16. Vol. I, page 154.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 27:]
17. Vol. I, page 135.
18. Harrison, Vol. XVI, page 299.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 28:]
19. Harrison, Vol. V, page 299.
20. Bruhier.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 29:]
21. Vo1. 8, page 452.
[The following footnotes appear at the bottom of page 30:]
22. Ingram, vol. IX, pages 216, 217.
23. Ingram, Vol. III, page 266.
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Notes:
None.
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[S:0 - PCETA, 1908] - Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore - Bookshelf - The Influence of E. T. A. Hoffman on the Tales of Edgar Allan Poe (Jacobs)