Types of Weltschmerz in German Poetry Part 4

[Footnote 62: Werke, Vol. II, p. 81.]

[Footnote 63: Cf. Introduction, p. 1 f.]

[Footnote 64: Werke, Vol. I, p. 89.]

[Footnote 65: Briefe, p. 382 f.]

[Footnote 66: Briefe, p. 403-405.]

[Footnote 67: Werke, Vol. II, p. 175.]

[Footnote 68: Briefe, p. 404.]

[Footnote 69: Werke, Vol. II, p. 68.]

[Footnote 70: Werke, Vol. II, p. 100.]

[Footnote 71: Werke, Vol. II, p. 68.]

[Footnote 72: Werke, Vol. II, p. 85.]

[Footnote 73: Werke, Vol. II, p. 181.]

[Footnote 74: Werke, Vol. I, p. 253.]

CHAPTER III

=Lenau=

If Holderlin's Weltschmerz has been fittingly characterized as idealistic, Lenau's on the other hand may appropriately be termed the naturalistic type. He is par excellence the "Pathetiker" of Weltschmerz.

Without presuming even to attempt a final solution of a problem of pathology concerning which specialists have failed to agree, there seems to be sufficient circ.u.mstantial as well as direct evidence to warrant the a.s.sumption that Lenau's case presents an instance of hereditary taint. Notwithstanding the fact that Dr. Karl Weiler[75] discredits the idea of "erbliche Belastung" and calls heredity "den vielgerittenen Verlegenheitsgaul," the conclusion forces itself upon us that if the theory has any scientific value whatsoever, no more plausible instance of it could be found than the one under consideration. The poet's great-grandfather and grandfather had been officers in the Austrian army, the latter with some considerable distinction. Of his five children, only Franz, the poet's father, survived. The complete lack of anything like a systematic education, and the nomadic life of the army did not fail to produce the most disastrous results in the wild and dissolute character of the young man. Even before the birth of the poet, his father had broken his marriage vows and his wife's heart by his abominable dissipations and drunkenness. Lenau was but five years old when his father, not yet thirty-five, died of a disease which he is believed to have contracted as a result of these sensual and senseless excesses. To the poet he bequeathed something of his own pathological sensuality, instability of thought and action, lack of will-energy, and the tears of a heartbroken mother, a sufficient guarantee, surely, of a poet of melancholy. Even though we cannot avoid the reflection that the loss of such a father was a blessing in disguise, the fact remains that Lenau during his childhood and youth needed paternal guidance and training even more than did Holderlin. He became the idol of his mother, who in her blind devotion did not hesitate to show him the utmost partiality in all things. This important fact alone must account to a large extent for that presumptuous pride, which led him to expect perhaps more than his just share from life and from the world.

Lenau's aimlessness and instability were so extreme that they may properly be counted a pathological trait. It is best ill.u.s.trated by his university career. In 1819 he went to Vienna to commence his studies.

Beginning with Philosophy, he soon transferred his interests to Law, first Hungarian, then German; finding the study of Law entirely unsuited to his tastes, he now declared his intention of pursuing once more a philosophical course, with a view to an eventual professors.h.i.+p. But this plan was frustrated by his grandmother, the upshot of it all being that Lenau allowed himself to be persuaded to take up the study of agriculture at Altenburg. But a few months sufficed to bring him back to Vienna. Here his legal studies, which he had resumed and almost completed, were interrupted by a severe affection of the throat which developed into laryngitis and from which he never quite recovered. This too, according to Dr. Sadger,[76] marks the neurasthenic, and often const.i.tutes a hereditary taint. Lenau thereupon s.h.i.+fted once more and entered upon a medical course, this time not absolutely without predilection. He did himself no small credit in his medical examinations, but the death of his grandmother, just before his intended graduation, provided a sufficient excuse for him to discontinue the work, which was never again resumed or brought to a conclusion. But not only in matters of such relative importance did Lenau exhibit this vacillation. There was a spirit of restlessness in him which made it impossible for him to remain long in the same place. Of this condition no one was more fully aware than he himself. In one of his letters he writes: "Gestern hat jemand berechnet, wieviel Poststunden ich in zwei Monaten gefahren bin, und es ergab sich die kolossale Summe von 644, die ich im Eilwagen unter bestandiger Gemutsbewegung gefahren bin."[77] That this habit of almost incessant travel tended to aggravate his nervous condition is a fair supposition, notwithstanding the fact that Dr. Karl Weiler[78] skeptically asks "what about commercial travellers?" Lenau himself complains frequently of the distressing effect of such journeys: "Ein heftiger Kopfschmerz und grosse Mudigkeit waren die Folgen der von Linz an unausgesetzten Reise im Eilwagen bei schlechtem Wetter und abmudenden Gedanken an meine Zukunft."[79] Many similar Statements might be quoted from his letters to show that it was not merely the ordinary process of traveling, though that at best must have been trying enough, but the breathless haste of his journeys, combined with mental anxiety, which usually characterized them, that made them so detrimental to his health.

It is as interesting as it is significant to note in this connection the fact that while on a journey to Munich, just a short time before the light of his intellect failed, Lenau wrote the following lines, the last but one of all his poems:

's ist eitel nichts, wohin mein Aug' ich hefte!

Das Leben ist ein vielbesagtes Wandern, Ein wustes Jagen ist's von dem zum andern, Und unterwegs verlieren wir die Krafte.

Doch tragt uns eine Macht von Stund zu Stund, Wie's Kruglein, das am Brunnenstein zersprang, Und dessen Inhalt sickert auf den Grund, So weit es ging, den ganzen Weg entlang,-- Nun ist es leer. Wer mag daraus noch trinken?

Und zu den andern Scherben muss es sinken.[80]

Holderlin also uses the striking figure contained in the last line, not however as here to picture the worthlessness of human life in general, but to stigmatize the Germans, whom Hyperion describes as "dumpf und harmonielos, wie die Scherben eines weggeworfenen Gefa.s.ses."[81]

That Lenau was a neurasthenic seems to be the consensus of opinion, at least of those medical authorities who have given their views of the case to the public.[82] This fact also has an important bearing upon our discussion, since it will help to show a materially different origin for Lenau's Weltschmerz and Holderlin's.

Much more frequent than in the case of the latter are the ominous forebodings of impending disaster which characterize Lenau's poems and correspondence. In a letter to his friend Karl Mayer he writes: "Mich regiert eine Art Gravitation nach dem Unglucke. Schwab hat einmal von einem Wahnsinnigen sehr geistreich gesprochen.... Ein a.n.a.logon von solchem Damon (des Wahnsinns) glaub' ich auch in mir zu beherbergen."[83] He is continually engaged in a gruesome self-diagnosis: "Dann ist mir zuweilen, als hielte der Teufel seine Jagd in dem Nervenwalde meines Unterleibes: ich h.o.r.e ein deutliches Hundegebell daselbst und ein dumpfes Halloh des Schwarzen. Ohne Scherz; es ist oft zum Verzweifeln."[84] This process of self-diagnosis may be due in part to his medical studies, but much more, we think, to his morbid imagination, which led him, on more than one occasion, to play the madman in so realistic a manner that strangers were frightened out of their wits and even his friends became alarmed, lest it might be earnest and not jest which they were witnessing.

Lenau was not without a certain sense of humor, grim humor though it was, and here and there in his letters there is an admixture of levity with the all-pervading melancholy. An example may be quoted from a letter to Kerner in Weinsberg, dated 1832: "Heute bin ich wieder bei Reinbecks auf ein grosses Spargelessen. Spargel wie Kirchthurme werden da gefressen. Ich allein verschlinge 50-60 solcher Kirchthurme und komme mir dabei vor, wie eine Parodie unserer politisch-prosaischen, durchaus unheiligen Zeit, die auch schon das Maul aufsperrt, um alles Heilige, und namentlich die guten glaubigen Kirchthurme wie Spargelstangen zu verschlingen." The letter concludes with the signature: "Ich umarme Dich, bis Dir die Rippen krachen. Dein Niembsch."[85] Not infrequently this humor was at his own expense, especially when describing an unpleasant condition or situation, as for example in a letter to Sophie Lowenthal in the year 1844: "Jetzt lebe ich hier in Saus und Braus,--d. h. es saust und braust mir der Kopf von einem leidigen Schnupfen."[86] Again, on finding himself on one occasion very unwell and uncomfortable in Stuttgart, he writes as follows: "Bestandiges Unwohlsein, Kopfschmerz, Schlaflosigkeit, Mattigkeit, schlechte Verdauung, Rhabarber, Druckfehler, und Aerger uber den tragen Fortschlich meiner Geschafte, das waren die Freuden meiner letzten Woche. Emilie will es nicht gelten la.s.sen, da.s.s die Stuttgarter Luft nichts als die Ausdunstung des Teufels sei.--Ich schnappe nach Luft, wie ein Spatz unter der Luftpumpe.--In vielen der hiesigen Stra.s.sen riecht es am Ende auch lenzhaft, namlich pestilenzhaft, und die guten Stuttgarter merken das gar nicht; 'suss duftet die Heimat.'"[87] In his fondness for bringing together the incongruous, for introducing the element of surprise, and in the fact that his humor is almost always of the impatient, disgruntled, cynical type, Lenau reminds us not a little of Heine in his "Reisebilder" and some other prose works. Holderlin, on the other hand, may be said to have been utterly devoid of humor.

Lack of self-control, perhaps the most characteristic trait among men of genius, was even more p.r.o.nounced in Lenau than in Holderlin. This shows itself in the extreme irregularity of his habits of life. For instance, it was his custom to work long past the midnight hour, and then take his rest until nearly noon. He could never get his coffee quite strong enough to suit him, although it was prepared almost in the form of a concentrated tincture and he drank large quant.i.ties of it. He smoked to excess, and the strongest cigars at that; in short, he seems to have been entirely without regard for his physical condition. Or was it perverseness which prompted him to prefer close confinement in his room to the long walks which he ought to have taken for his health? Even his recreation, which consisted chiefly in playing the violin, brought him no nervous relaxation, for it is said that he would often play himself into a state of extreme nervous excitement.

All these considerations corroborate the opinion of those who knew him best, that his Weltschmerz, and eventually his insanity, had its origin in a pathological condition. Indeed this was the poet's own view of the case. In a letter to his brother-in-law, Anton Schurz, dated 1834, he says: "Aber, lieber Bruder, die Hypochondrie schlagt bei mir immer tiefere Wurzel. Es hilft alles nichts. Der gewisse innere Riss wird immer tiefer und weiter. Es hilft alles nichts. Ich weiss, es liegt im Korper; aber--aber--"[88] In its origin then, Lenau's Weltschmerz differs altogether from that of Holderlin, who exhibits no such symptoms of neurasthenia.

Lenau's nervous condition was seriously aggravated at an early date by the outcome of his unfortunate relations with the object of his first love, Bertha, who became his mistress when he was still a mere boy. His grief on finding her faithless was doubtless as genuine as his conduct with her had been reprehensible, for he cherished for many long years the memory of his painful disappointment. The general statement, "Lenau war stets verlobt, fand aber stets in sich selbst einen Widerstand und unerklarliche Angst, wenn die Verbindung endgiltig gemacht werden sollte,"[89] is inaccurate and misleading, inasmuch as it fails to take into proper account the causes, mediate and immediate, of his hesitation to marry. Lenau was only once "verlobt," and it was the stroke of facial paralysis[90] which announced the beginning of the end, rather than any "unerklarliche Angst," that convinced him of the inexpediency of that important step.

Beyond a doubt his long drawn out and abject devotion to the wife of his friend Max Lowenthal proved the most important single factor in his life. It was during the year 1834, after his return from America, that Lenau made the acquaintance of the Lowenthal family in Vienna.[91]

Sophie, who was the sister of his old comrade Fritz Kleyle, so attracted the poet that he remained in the city for a number of weeks instead of going at once to Stuttgart, as he had planned and promised. What at first seemed an ideal friends.h.i.+p, increased in intensity until it became, at least on Lenau's part, the very glow of pa.s.sion. We have already alluded to the poet's premature erotic instinct, an impulse which he doubtless inherited from his sensual parents. In his numerous letters and notes to Sophie, he has left us a remarkable record of the intensity of his pa.s.sion. Not even excepting Goethe's letters to Frau von Stein, there are no love-letters in the German language to equal these in literary or artistic merit; and never has any other German poet addressed himself with more ardent devotion to a woman. A characteristic difference between Holderlin and Lenau here becomes evident: the former, even in his relations with Diotima, supersensual; the latter the very incarnation of sensuality. Lenau was fully conscious of the tremendous struggle with overpowering pa.s.sion, and once confessed to his clerical friend Martensen that only through the una.s.sailable chast.i.ty of his lady-love had his conscience remained void of offence. Almost any of his innumerable protestations of love taken at random would seem like the most extravagant attempt to give utterance to the inexpressible: "Gottes starke Hand druckt mich so fest an Dich, da.s.s ich seufzen muss und ringen mit erdruckender Wonne, und meine Seele keinen Atem mehr hat, wenn sie nicht Deine Liebe saugen kann. Ach Sophie! ach, liebe, liebe, liebe Sophie!"[92] "Ich bete Dich an, Du bist mein Liebstes und Hochstes."[93] "Am sechsten Juni reis' ich ab, nichts darf mich halten.

Mir brennt Leib und Seele nach Dir. Du! O Sophie! Hatt' ich Dich da! Das Verlangen schmerzt, O Gott!"[94] Instead of experiencing the soothing influences of a Diotima, Lenau's fate was to be engaged for ten long years in a hot conflict between principle and pa.s.sion, a conflict which kept his naturally oversensitive nerves continually on the rack. He himself expresses the detrimental effect of this situation: "So treibt mich die Liebe von einer Raserei zur andern, von der zugellosesten Freude zu verzweifeltem Unmut. Warum? Weil ich am Ziel der hochsten, so heiss ersehnten Wonne immer wieder umkehren muss, weil die Sehnsucht nie gestillt wird, wird sie irr und wild und verkehrt sich in Verzweiflung,--das ist die Geschichte meines Herzens."[95] It would seem from the tone of many of his letters that there was much deliberate and successful effort on the part of Sophie to keep Lenau's feelings toward her always in a state of the highest nervous tension. So cleverly did she manage this that even her caprices put him only the more hopelessly at her mercy. One day he writes: "Mit grosser Ungeduld erwartete ich gestern die Post, und sie brachte mir auch einen Brief von Dir, aber einen, der mich krankt."[96] For a day or two he is rebellious and writes: "Ich bin verstimmt, miss.m.u.tig. Warum storst Du mein Herz in seinen schonen Gedanken von innigem Zusammenleben auch in der Ferne?"[97] But only a few days later he is again at her feet: "Ich habe Dir heute wieder geschrieben, um Dich auch zum Schreiben zu treiben. Ich sehne mich nach Deinen Briefen. Du bist nicht sehr eifrig, Du bist es wohl nie gewesen. Und kommt endlich einmal ein Brief, so hat er meist seinen Haken--O liebe Sophie! wie lieb' ich Dich!"[98] Her att.i.tude on several occasions leaves room for no other inference than that she was extremely jealous of his affections. When in 1839 a mutual regard sprang up between Lenau and the singer Karoline Unger, a regard which held out to him the hope of a fuller and happier existence, we may surmise the nature of Sophie's interference from the following reply to her: "Sie haben mir mit Ihren paar Zeilen das Herz zerschmettert,--Karoline liebt mich und will mein werden. Sie sieht's als ihre Sendung an, mein Leben zu versohnen und zu beglucken.--Es ist an Ihnen Menschlichkeit zu uben an meinem zerrissenen Herzen.--Verstosse ich sie, so mache ich sie elend und mich zugleich.--Entziehen Sie mir Ihr Herz, so geben Sie mir den Tod; sind Sie unglucklich, so will ich sterben. Der Knoten ist geschurzt. Ich wollte, ich ware schon tot!"[99] Not only was this proposed match broken off, but when some five years later Lenau made the acquaintance of and became engaged to a charming young girl, Marie Behrends, and all the poet's friends rejoiced with him at the prospect of a happy marriage, a "Musterehe," as he fondly called it, Sophie wrote him the cruel words: "Eines von uns muss wahnsinnig werden."[100] Only a few months were needed to decide which of them it should be.

The foregoing ill.u.s.trations are ample to show what sort of influence Sophie exerted over the poet's entire nature, and therefore upon his Weltschmerz. Whereas in their hopeless loves, Holderlin and to an even greater extent Goethe, struggled through to the point of renunciation, Lenau constantly retrogrades, and allows his baser sensual instincts more and more to control him. He promises to subdue his wild outbursts a little,[101] and when he fails he tries to explain,[102] to apologize.[103] If with Holderlin love was to a predominating degree a thing of the soul, it was with Lenau in an equal measure a matter of nerves, and as such, under these conditions, it could not but contribute largely to his physical, mental and moral disruption. With Holderlin it was the rude interruption from without of his quiet and happy intercourse with Susette, which embittered his soul. With Lenau it was the feverish, tumultuous nature of the love itself, that deepened his melancholy.

The charge of affectation in their Weltschmerz would be an entirely baseless one, both in the case of Holderlin and Lenau. But this difference is readily discovered in the impressions made upon us by their writings, namely that Holderlin's Weltschmerz is absolutely nave and unconscious, while that of Lenau is at all times self-conscious and self-centered. Mention has already been made, in speaking of Lenau's pathological traits,[104] of his confirmed habit of self-diagnosis. This he applied not only to his physical condition but to his mental experiences as well. No one knew so well as he how deeply the roots of melancholy had penetrated his being. "Ich bin ein Melancholiker" he once wrote to Sophie, "der Kompa.s.s meiner Seele zittert immer wieder zuruck nach dem Schmerze des Lebens."[105] Innumerable ill.u.s.trations of this fact might be found in his lyrics, all of which would repeat with variations the theme of the stanza:

Du geleitest mich durch's Leben Sinnende Melancholie!

Mag mein Stern sich strebend heben, Mag er sinken,--weichest nie![106]

The definite purpose with which the poet seeks out and strives to keep intact his painful impressions is frankly stated in one of his diary memoranda, as follows: "So gibt es eine Hohe des k.u.mmers, auf welcher angelangt wir einer einzelnen Empfindung nicht nachspringen, sondern sie laufen la.s.sen, weil wir den Blick fur das schmerzliche Ganze nicht verlieren, sondern eine gewisse k.u.mmervolle Sammlung behalten wollen, die bei aller scheinbaren Aussenheiterkeit recht gut fortbestehen kann."[107] Holderlin, as we have noted,[108] not infrequently pictures himself as a sacrifice to the cause of liberty and fatherland, to the new era that is to come:

Umsonst zu sterben, lieb' ich nicht; doch Lieb' ich zu fallen am Opferhugel Fur's Vaterland, zu bluten des Herzens Blut, Fur's Vaterland....[109]

Lenau, on the other hand, is anxious to sacrifice himself to his muse.

"Kunstlerische Ausbildung ist mein hochster Lebenszweck; alle Krafte meines Geistes, meines Gemutes betracht' ich als Mittel dazu. Erinnerst Du Dich des Gedichtes von Chamisso,[110] wo der Maler einen Jungling ans Kreuz nagelt, um ein Bild vom Todesschmerze zu haben? Ich will mich selber ans Kreuz schlagen, wenn's nur ein gutes Gedicht gibt."[111] And again: "Vielleicht ist die Eigenschaft meiner Poesie, da.s.s sie ein Selbstopfer ist, das Beste daran."[112] The specific instances just cited, together with the inevitable impressions gathered from the reading of his lyrics, make it impossible to avoid the conclusion that we are dealing here with a _virtuoso_ of Weltschmerz; that Lenau was not only conscious at all times of the depth of his sorrow, but that he was also fully aware of its picturesqueness and its poetic possibilities. It is true that this self-consciousness brings him dangerously near the bounds of insincerity, but it must also be granted that he never oversteps those bounds.

Regarded as a psychological process, Lenau's Weltschmerz therefore stands midway between that of Holderlin and Heine. It is more self-centred than Holderlin's and while the poet is able to diagnose the disease which holds him firmly in its grasp, he lacks those means by which he might free himself from it. Heine goes still further, for having become conscious of his melancholy, he mercilessly applies the lash of self-irony, and in it finds the antidote for his Weltschmerz.

Fichte, says Erich Schmidt, calls egoism the spirit of the eighteenth century, by which he means the revelling, the complete absorption, in the personal. This will naturally find its favorite occupation in sentimental self-contemplation, which becomes a sort of fas.h.i.+onable epidemic. It is this fas.h.i.+on which Goethe wished to depict in "Werther,"

and therefore Werther's hopeless love is not wholly responsible for his suicide. "Werther untergrabt sein Dasein durch Selbstbetrachtung," is Goethe's own explanation of the case.[113] And it is in this light only that Werther's malady deserves in any comprehensive sense the term Weltschmerz. Here, then, Lenau and Werther stand on common ground. Other traits common to most poets of Weltschmerz might here be enumerated as characteristic of both, such as extreme fickleness of purpose, supersensitiveness, lack of definite vocation, and the like; all of which goes to show that while for artistic purposes Goethe required a dramatic cause, or rather occasion, for Werther's suicide, he nevertheless fully understood all the symptoms of the prevailing disease with which his sentimental hero was afflicted.

While the personal elements in Lenau's Weltschmerz are much more intense in their expression than with Holderlin, its altruistic side is proportionately weaker. So far as we may judge from his lyrics, very little of Lenau's Weltschmerz was inspired by patriotic considerations.

There is opposition, it is true, to the existing order, but that opposition is directed almost solely against that which annoyed and inconvenienced him personally, for example, against the stupid as well as rigorous Austrian censors.h.i.+p. Against this bugbear he never ceases to storm in verse and letters, and to it must be attributed in a large measure his literary alienation from the land of his adoption. That we must look to his lyrics rather than to his longer epic writings, in order to discover the poet's deepest interests, is nowhere more clearly evidenced than in the following reference to his "Savonarola," in a letter to Emilie Reinbeck during the progress of the work: "Savonarola wirkte zumeist als Prediger, darum muss ich in meinem Gedicht ihn vielfach predigen und dogmatisieren la.s.sen, welches in vierfussigen doppeltgereimten Iamben sehr schwierig ist. Doch es freut mich, Dinge poetisch durchzusetzen, an deren poetischer Darstellbarkeit wohl die meisten Menschen verzweifeln. Auch gereicht es mir zu besonderem Vergnugen, mit diesem Gedicht gegen den herrschenden Geschmack unseres Tages in Opposition zu treten."[114] The inference lies very near at hand that his opposition to the prevailing taste was after all a secondary consideration, and that the poet's first concern was to win glory by accomplis.h.i.+ng something which others would abandon as an impossibility. While recognizing the fact that Lenau's "Faust" and "Don Juan" are largely autobiographical, it is, I think, obvious that an entirely adequate impression of his Weltschmerz may be gained from his letters and lyrics alone, in which the poet's sincerest feelings need not be subordinated for a moment to artistic purposes or demands. And nowhere, either in lyrics or letters, do we find such spontaneous outbursts of patriotic sentiment as greet us in Holderlin's poems:

Gluckselig Suevien, meine Mutter![115]

This could not be otherwise; for was he (Lenau) not an Hungarian by birth, an Austrian by adoption, and in his professional affiliations a German? Had his interests not been divided between Vienna and Stuttgart, and had he not been possessed with an apparently uncontrollable restlessness which drove him from place to place, his patriotic enthusiasm would naturally have turned to Austria, and the poetic expression of his home sentiments would not have been confined, perhaps, to the one occasion when he had put the broad Atlantic between himself and his kin. That his brother-in-law Schurz should wish to represent him as a dyed-in-the-wool Austrian is only natural.[116] However this may be, the poet does not hesitate to state in a letter to Emilie Reinbeck: "Ein Hund in Schwaben hat mehr Achtung fur mich als ein Polizeiprasident in Oesterreich."[117] And although he professes to have become hardened to the pestering interference of the authorities, as a matter of fact it was a constant source of unhappiness to him. "So aber war mein Leben seit meinem letzten Briefe ein bestandiger Aerger. Die verfluchten Vexationen der hiesigen Censurbehorde haben selbst jetzt noch immer kein Ende finden konnen."[118] Speaking of his hatred for the censors.h.i.+p law, he says: "Und doch gebuhrt mein Ha.s.s noch immer viel weniger dem Gesetze selbst, als denjenigen legalisierten Bestien, die das Gesetz auf eine so niedertrachtige Art handhaben;--und unsre Censoren stellen im Gegensatze der pflanzen- und fleischfressenden Tiere die Kla.s.se der geistfressenden Tiere dar, eine abscheuliche, monstrose Kla.s.se!"[119]

Roustan expresses the opinion that with Lenau patriotism occupied a secondary place.[120] He had too many "native lands" to become attached to any one of them.

There is something of a counterpart to Holderlin's h.e.l.lenism and champions.h.i.+p of Greek liberty in Lenau's espousal of the Polish cause.

But here again the personal element is strongly in evidence. A chance acquaintance, which afterward became an intimate friends.h.i.+p, with Polish fugitives, seems to have been the immediate occasion of his Polenlieder, so that his enthusiasm for Polish liberty must be regarded as incidental rather than spontaneous. Needless to say that with a Greek cult such as Holderlin's Lenau had no patience whatever. "Da.s.s die Poesie den profanen Schmutz wieder abwaschen musse, den ihr Goethe durch 50 Jahre mit kla.s.sischer Hand grundlich einzureiben bemuht war; da.s.s die Freiheitsgedanken, wie sie jetzt gesungen werden, nichts seien als konventioneller Trodel,--davon haben nur wenige eine Ahnung."[121]

All these considerations tend to convince us that Lenau's Weltschmerz is after all of a much narrower and more personal type than Holderlin's.

Again and again he runs through the gamut of his own painful emotions and experiences, diagnosing and dissecting each one, and always with the same gloomy result. Consequently his Weltschmerz loses in breadth what through the depth of the poet's introspection it gains in intensity.