knew Loeben’s saga.  Though his individual poems on the Lorelei betray the influence of Heine, and though his drama resembles Brentano’s ballad in mood and in unimportant details, it contains the same proper names of persons and places that are found in Loeben.  And what is more significant, it contains two important events that are not found in any of the other versions of the saga:  the scene with the wine-growers and the story of the castaway ring.  The latter is an old theme, but that they both occur in Loeben and in Geibel would argue that the latter took them from the former.  It is largely a question as to whether a poet like Geibel has to have a source for everything that is not absolutely abstract.  The entire matter is complicated.[98] The paths of the Lorelei have crossed each other many times since Brentano started her on her wanderings.  To draw up a map of her complete course, showing just who influenced whom, would be a task more difficult than grateful.[99]

As to Brentano’s original ballad,[100] try as we may to depreciate the value of his creation by tracing it back to echo-poetry and by coupling it with older legends, such as that of Frau Holla, we are forced to give him credit for having not simply revived but for having created a legend that is beautiful in itself and that has found a host of imitators, direct and indirect, the world over, including one of the world’s greatest lyric writers.  This then is just one of the many things that the German romanticists started; it is just one of their many contributions to the literature that lasts.  And for the perpetuation of this one, students of German literature have, it seems, given the obscure Graf von Loeben entirely too much credit.  But who will give the oft-scolded Clemens Brentano too little credit?  Only those who dislike romanticism on general principles and who will not be convinced that the romanticists could be original.[101]

ALLEN WILSON PORTERFIELD

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK CITY

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] Ferdinand August Otto Heinrich Graf von Loeben, the scion of an
    old, aristocratic, Protestant family, was born at Dresden, August
    18, 1786.  He received his first instruction from private
    tutors.  For three years from 1804 on, he unsuccessfully, because
    unwillingly, studied law at the University of Wittenberg.  In 1807
    he entered, to his profound delight, the University of Heidelberg,
    where, in association with Arnim, Brentano, and GOerres, he
    satisfied his longing for literature and art.  Beginning with 1808
    he lived alternately at Wien, Dresden, and Berlin and with Fouque
    at Nennhausen.  He took an active part in the campaign of 1813-14,
    marched to Paris, and returned after his company had been