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Table of Contents | |
Section | Page |
Start of eBook | 1 |
Title: Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei | 1 |
Modern Philology | 1 |
ALLEN WILSON PORTERFIELD | 1 |
I | 1 |
II | 5 |
III | 12 |
ALLEN WILSON PORTERFIELD | 15 |
NEW YORK CITY | 15 |
FOOTNOTES: | 15 |
Author: Allen Wilson Porterfield
Release Date: February 12, 2004 [eBook #11066]
Language: English
Character set encoding: Us-ASCII
***Start of the project gutenberg EBOOK Graf von Loeben and the legend of Lorelei***
Produced by the Project Gutenberg Distributed Proofreaders¥ in the occasion of the birth of Lorelei Kay Lynn Hutchinson.
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Volume XIII October 1915 number 6 (pp. 65-92)
GRAF VON LOEBEN AND THE LEGEND OF LORELEI
The devotees of Apollo have to give a good account of themselves in Olympia before, they can become persona grata on Olympus. They spend their lives, more or less, at the various games of poetry. Some, like Goethe, win in the majority of trials, and then we study all of their records regardless of their individual excellence. Some like Immermann in Oberhof, win only once, but this is sufficient to insure immortality. Some play and joust, run and wrestle with constancy and grace; their records, just after starting and just before finishing, are interesting, but in the end they are always defeated. And when this is the case, posterity, lay and initiated, forgets their names and concerns itself in no wise with their records, unless it be for statistical purposes. It is to the latter class that Graf von Loeben[1] belongs. For twenty-five years he was a perpetual, loyal, chivalric contestant in the Olympic vale of poetry. His running was interesting, but he never won; he never wrote a single thing that everybody still reads for its own sake.
Aside from his connection with the Lorelei-matter, Graf von Loeben is, therefore, at present, a wholly obscure, indeed unknown, Poet. The large Konversations-Lexikons[2] of Meyer and Brockhaus say nothing about him, unless it be in the discussion of some other poet with whom he associated. Of the twenty best-known histories of German literature, some of which treat nothing but the nineteenth century, only six contain his name, and these simply mention him either as a member of the Dresden group of pseudo-romanticists, or as one of those Afterromantiker who did yeoman service by way of bringing real romanticism into disrepute through their unsubstantial, imitative, and formless works. And this is true despite the fact that Loeben was an exceedingly prolific writer and a very popular and influential man in. his day. Concerning his personality, Muncker says: “Die Tiefe und WAerme seines leicht erregbaren GemUethes, seine Herzensreinheit, seine schwAermerische Hingabe an alles SchOene und Edle sowie sein zartes TactgefUehl erwarben ihm bei Freunden und Bekannten das Lob einer schOenen Seele in des Wortes schOenster Bedeutung."[3]
As to his poetic ability from the point of view of quantity, one can only marvel at the amount he produced in the time at his disposal; his creative works cover all types and sorts of literature.[4] He is best known for his numerous poems and his magnus opus, Guido, a novel of 360 pages, written under the pen-name of “Isidorus Orientalis,” and intended as a continuation of Novalis’ Ofterdingen; he used Tieck’s notes for this purpose. He wrote also a great number of letters, between 60 and 70 elaborate reviews, and some critical essays, the best of which seems to be his commentary to Madame de Stael’s De l’Allemagne, while he translated from Anacreon, Dante, Guarini, Horace, Ovid, Petrarch, Vergil, and others, and left a number of fragments including the outline of a pretentious novel of which Heinrich von Veldeke, whom he looked upon as “der Heilige des Enthusiasmus,” was to be the hero. And he was, incidentally, an omnivorous reader, for, as he naively said:
Viele BUecher muss ich kennen,
Denn die Menschen kenn’
ich gern.[5]
As to his originality, another confession is significant:
Ja, es gibt nur wenig Leute,
Deren SchUeler ich nicht bin.[6]
No attempt, however, has as yet been made at even an eclectic edition of his numerous finished works, a few of which are still unpublished, many of which are now rare.[7]
As to his standing with his literary contemporaries, Eichendorff admitted[8] that Loeben influenced him as a man and as a poet; it was he who induced Eichendorff to write some of his earlier works under the pen-name of “Florens.” And Eichendorff in turn credited Goethe with the remark[9] that “Loeben war der vorzUeglichste Dichter jener Zeit.” His influence on Platen[10] is not quite so certain; Loeben was Platen’s senior by ten years, and they resembled each other in their ability to employ difficult verse and strophe forms, and Platen read Loeben in 1824. Kleist interested himself in Loeben sufficiently to publish one of his short stories in his AbendblAetter, but only after he had so thoroughly revised it that Reinhold Steig says: “Ich wUerde als Herausgeber die ErzAehlung sogar unter Kleists Parerga aufnehmen."[11] His connection with, and influence upon, the Dresden group of romanticists, including Tieck, is a matter of record,[12] and Fouque looked upon him as a poet of uncommon ability.[13]
But let no one on this account believe that Loeben was a great poet and that the silence concerning him is therefore grimly unjust. Goethe, whether he made the foregoing remark or not, at least received[14] Loeben kindly; but he received others in the same way who were not poets at all. Eichendorff said: “Loeben. Wunderbar poetische Natur in stiller VerklAerung."[15] But Eichendorff was then only nineteen years old, and he later took this back. Herder was moved to tears[16] on reading Loeben’s Maria,
That Loeben has been so totally neglected by historians and encyclopedists is simply a case of that disproportion that so frequently characterizes general treatises. Loeben is entitled to some space in large works on German literature; but he was, like many another who has been given space, a weak poet. And the sort of weakness, with which he was endowed can be brought out by a discussion of two of his novelettes, Das weisse Ross,[19] and Leda, neither of which is by any means his best work, and neither of which seems to be his worst. But, to judge from what has been said of his prose works in general, both are quite typical.
The plot so far as the action[20] is concerned is as follows: Otto owes the victory he won at a tournament in NUernberg largely to the beauty and agility of his great white horse Bellerophon. Siegenot von der Aue had seen him and his horse perform and determined to obtain Bellerophon, if possible, for, owing to a curse pronounced on his family by a remote ancestor, Siegenot must either win at the next tournament or become a monk, which he does not wish to do. Both he and Otto love Felicitas, the niece of Graf Berthald. Siegenot secures Bellerophon, is victorious at the tournament, though seriously wounded, and is nursed back to health by Otto and Felicitas. It is Otto, however, who wins Felicitas through his chivalric treatment of his rival. The two are married, while Siegenot rides away on the great white horse Bellerophon.
It is such creations that make us turn away from Loeben. Alas for German romanticism if this story were wholly typical of it! It contains the traditional conceits of the orthodox romanticists, but applied in such a sweet, lovely, pretty fashion! One woman is placed between two men, for in that way Loeben could best bring out his philosophy of friendship. The only change, it seems, that he ever made in this arrangement was to place one man between two women. The sick-bed is poetized as the cradle of knowledge, for in it, or on it, we become introspective and learn life. Old chronicles, tournaments, jewelry, precious stones, Maryism, nature from every conceivable point of view, dreams and premonitions, visions and hallucinations, religion of the renunciatory type, the pain that clarifies, the friendship that weeps, Catholic painting and lute music, and love—human and divine—these are the main themes in this tale. Lyrics and episodic stories are interpolated, obsolete words and stylistic archaisms occur. In short, the novelette reads like an amalgamation of Novalis without his philosophy, Waekenroder without his suggestiveness, and Tieck without his constructive ability.
The story[21] entitled Leda is again typical of Loeben. Briefly stated, the plot is as follows: Leda, the daughter of a Roman duke, loves Cephalo, who is a gentleman but not a nobleman, and is loved by him. Her father, however, has forced her to become engaged to Alberto, a man of high degree, whom she does not love. The wedding is imminent, and Leda is sorely perplexed. Her father does not know why she is so indifferent to the approaching event and accordingly sends her to a distant and lonely castle in the hope that she may become interested, at least, in her own nuptials. While there she drowns herself in the swan lake. Alberto drops out of the story, and Cephalo becomes the intimate friend of the duke. Previous to this Alberto had ordered a certain painter to paint a picture of “Leda and the Swan.” Danae, the daughter of an old, unscrupulous antiquarian, was seen by Cephalo while posing as a model for Leda. Enraged at this, she tells her father that she will not be appeased until married to Cephalo. But she loses her life through the falling of an old, dilapidated castle wherein she has been keeping an unconventional tryst, and Cephalo becomes the intimate friend of the painter.
Loeben’s ideas and technique stand out in every line of this story. One woman is placed between two men, unexpected friendships are developed, the lute and the zither are played in the moonlight, love and longing abound, nature is made a confidant, der Zaubern der Kunst is overdone, familiar stories—Leda and the Swan, Actaeon and Danae—are interwoven, there are manifest reminiscences of Emilia Galotti and Ofterdingen, and the prose is uncommonly fluent. The only character in the entire narrative who has any virility is the antiquarian, and he is one of the meanest Loeben ever drew. Alberto has no will at all, Leda not much, Cephalo less than Leda, and Danae is without character. In short, the only valuable, part of the story lies in its approach to a development of the psychology of love in art. But it is only an approach; and it does not make one feel inclined to read a vast deal more of the prose works of Graf von Loeben.
As to Loeben’s lyrics,[22] they are irregular, inconsistent, and odd as to orthography,[23] melodious and flowing in form, poor in ideas, rich in feeling that frequently sounds forced, representative of nearly all the important Germanic, Romance, and Oriental verse and strophe forms, reminiscent of his reading[24] in many instances, and romantic as a whole, especially in their constant portrayal of longing. Loeben was the poet of Sehnsucht. He tried always das Nahe zu entfernen und das Ferne sich nahe zu bringen. With a few conspicuous exceptions, his lyrics resemble those of Geibel somewhat in form and treatment. Poetry and individual poets receive grateful consideration, the seasons are overworked, love rarely fails and nature never, wine and the Rhine are not forgotten, and the South is poetized as the
But be his poems never so good, there is no reason why Loeben should be revived for the general reader. His prose works lack artistic measure and objective plausibility; his lyrics lack clarity and virility; his creations in general lack the story-telling property that holds attention and the human-interest touches that move the soul. His thirty-nine years were too empty of real experience;[27] his works are not filled with the matter that endures. And it is for this reason that they ceased to live after their author had died. His connection with this earth was always just at the snapping-point. His works constitute, in many instances, a poetic rearrangement of what he had just latterly read. And when he is original he is vacuous. To emphasize his works for their own sake would consequently be to set up false values. Loeben can be studied with profit only by those people who believe that great poets can be better understood and appreciated by a study of the literary than by a study of the economic background. To know Loeben[28] throws light on some of his much greater contemporaries—Goethe, Eichendorff, Kleist, Novalis, Arnim, Brentano, Uhland, GOerres, Tieck, and possibly Heine.
But it is not so much the purpose of this paper to evaluate Loeben’s creations as to locate him in the development of the Lorelei-legend, and to prove, or disprove, Heine’s indebtedness to him in the case of his own poem of like name. The facts are these:
In 1801 Clemens Brentano published at Bremen the first volume of his __Godwi_ and in 1802 the second volume at the same place.[29] He had finished the novel early in 1799—he was then twenty-one years old. Wieland was instrumental in securing a publisher.[30] Near the close of the second volume, Violette sings the song beginning:
Zu Bacharach am Rheine
Wohnt eine Zauberin.
That this now well-known ballad of the Lorelei was invented by Brentano is proved, not so much by his own statement to that effect as by the fact that the erudite and diligent Grimm brothers, the friends of Brentano, did not include the Lorelei-legend in their collection of 579 Deutsche Sagen, 1816. The name of his heroine Brentano took from the famous echo-rock near St. Goar, with which locality he became thoroughly familiar during the years 1780-89. No romanticist knew the Rhine better or loved it more than Brentano. “Lore” means[31] a
In Urania: Taschenbuch auf das Jahr 1821, Graf von Loebcn published his “Loreley: Eine Sage vom Rhein.” The following ballad introduces the saga in prose. Heine’s ballad is set opposite for the sake of comparison.[32]
Da wo der Mondschein blitzet Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten Um’s hOechste Felsgestein, Dass ich so traurig bin; Das ZauberfrAeulein sitzet Ein MAerchen aus alten Zeiten, Und schauet auf den Rhein. Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.
Es schauet herUeber, hinUeber, Die Luft ist kUehl und es dunkelt, Es schauet hinab, hinauf, Und ruhig fliesst der Rhein; Die Schifflein ziehn vorUeber, Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt Lieb’ Knabe, sieh nicht auf! Im Abendsonnenschein.
Sie singt dir hold zum Ohre, Die schOenste Jungfrau sitzet Sie blickt dich thOericht an, Dort oben wunderbar, Sie ist die schOene Lore, Ihr goldenes Geschmeide blitzet, Sie hat dir’s angethan. Sie kAemmt ihr goldenes Haar.
Sie schaut wohl nach dem Rheine, Sie
kAemmt es mit goldenem Kamme,
Als schaute sie nach dir, Und
singt ein Lied dabei;
Glaub’s nicht, dass sie dich meine,
Das hat eine wundersame
Sich nicht, horch nicht nach ihr!
Gewaltige Melodei.
So blickt sie wohl nach allen Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe Mit ihrer Augen Glanz, Ergreift es mit wildem Weh; LAesst her die Locken wallen Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe, Im wilden goldnen Tanz. Er schaut nur hinauf in die HOeh’.
Doch wogt in ihrem Blicke Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen Nur blauer Wellen Spiel, Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn; Drum scheu die WassertUecke, Und das hat mit ihrem Singen Denn Flut bleibt falsch und kUehl! Die Lorelei gethan.
The following saga then relates how an old hunter sings this song to a young man in a boat on the Rhine, warning him against the allurements of the Lorelei on the rock above. The hunter’s good intentions are fruitless, the young man is drowned.
In the autumn of 1823, Heine wrote, while at Luneburg, his “Die Lorelei.” It was first published[33] in the Gesellschafter, March 26, 1824. Commentators refer to the verse, “Ein MAerchen aus alten Zeiten,” as a bit of fiction, adding that it is not a title of olden times, but one invented by Brentano about 1800. The statement is true but misleading, for we naturally infer that Heine derived
In the first place, Heine never knew Brentano personally, and never mentions him in his letters previous to 1824, nor in his letters[35] that have thus far been published after 1824. Godwi was repudiated soon after its publicatipn by Brentano himself, who said[36] there was only one good thing about it, the title, for, after people had said “Godwi,” they could just keep on talking and say, “Godwi, dumm.” On its account, Caroline called him Demens Brentano, while Dorothea dubbed him “Angebrenntano.” The novel became a rare and unread book until Anselm Ruest brought out a new edition[37] with a critical and appreciative introduction in 1906. Diel and Kreiten say “es ging fast spurlos vorUeber.” It was not included in his Gesammelte Schriften (1852-55), though the ballad[38] was. Heine does not mention it in his Romantische Schule, which was, however, written ten years after he had finished his “Die Lorelei.” And as to the contents of Brentano’s ballad, there is precious little in it that resembles Heine’s ballad, aside from the name of the heroine, and even here the similarity is far from striking.
And yet, despite all this, commentators continue to say that Heine drew the initial inspiration for his “Lorelei” from Brentano. They may be right, but no one of them has thus far produced any tenable argument, to say nothing of positive proof. The most recent supporter of Brentano’s claim is Eduard Thorn[39] (1913), who reasons as follows:
Heine knew Brentano’s works in 1824, for in that year he borrowed Wunderhorn and TrOesteinsamkeit from the library at GOettingen. These have, however, nothing to do with Brentano’s ballad, and it is one year too late for Heine’s ballad. All of Thorn’s references to Heine’s Romantische Schule, wherein Godwi, incidentally, is not mentioned, though other works are, collapse, for this was written ten years too late. And then, to quote Thorn: “Loeben’s Gedicht lieferte das direkte Vorbild fUer Heine.” He offers no proof except the statements of Strodtmann, Hessel, and Elster to this effect.
And again: “Der Name Lorelay findet sich bei Loeben nicht als Eigenname, wenn er auch das Gedicht, ‘Der Lurleifels’ Ueberschreibt.” But the name Loreley does occur[40] twice on the same page on which the last strophe of the ballad is published in Urania, and here the ballad is not entitled “Der Lurleifels,” but simply “Loreley.” Now, even granting that Loeben entitled his ballad one way in the MS and Brockhaus published it in another way in Urania, it is wholly improbable that Heine saw Loeben’s MS previous to 1823.
And then, after contending that Brentano’s RheinmAerchen,[41] which, though written before 1823, were not published until 1846, must have given Heine the hair-combing motif, Thorn says: “Also kann nur Brentano das Vorbild geliefert haben.” This cannot be correct. What is, on the contrary, at least possible is that Heine influenced Brentano.[42] The RheinmAerchen were finished, in first form, in 1816. And Guido GOerres, to whom Brentano willed them, and who first published them, tells us how Brentano carried them around with him in his satchel and changed them and polished them as opportunity was offered and inspiration came. It is therefore reasonable to believe that Heine helped Brentano to metamorphose his Lorelei of the ballad, where she is wholly human, into the superhuman Lorelei of the RheinmAerchen where she does, as a matter of fact, comb her hair with a golden comb.[43]
And now as to Loeben: Did Heine know and borrow from his ballad? Aside from the few who do not commit themselves, and those who trace Heine’s poem direct to Brentano, and Oscar F. Walzel to be referred to later, all commentators, so far as I have looked into the matter, say that he did. Adolf Strodtmann said[44] it first (1868), in the following words: “Es leidet wohl keinen Zweifel, dass Heine dies Loeben’sche Ballade gekannt und bei Abfassung seiner Lorelei-Ballade benutzt hat.” But he produces no proof except similarity of form and content. Of the others who have followed his lead, ten, for particular reasons, should be authorities: Franz Muncker,[45] Karl Hessel,[46] Karl Goedeke,[47] Wilhelm Scherer,[48] Georg MUecke,[49] Wilhelm Hertz,[50] Ernst Elster,[51] Georg Brandes,[52] Heinrich Spiess,[53] and Herrn. Anders KrUeger.[54] But no one of them offers any proof except Strodtmann’s statement to this effect.
Now their contention may be substantially correct; but their method of contending is scientifically wrong. To accept, where verification is necessary, the unverified statement of any man is wrong. And, that is the case here. Elster’s note is of peculiar interest. He says: “Heine schloss sich am nAechsten an die Bearbeitung eines Stoffs an, die ein Graf LOeben 1821 verOeffentlichte.” The expression “ein Graf LOeben” is grammatical evidence, though not proof, of one of two things: that Loeben was to Elster himself in 1890 a mere name, or that Elster knew Loeben would be this to the readers of his edition of Heine’s works. Brandes says: “Die Nachahmung ist unzweifelhaft."[55] His proof is Strodtmann’s statement, and similarity of content and form, with special reference to the two rhymes “sitzet-blitzet” that occur in both. But this was a very common rhyme with both Heine and Loeben in other poems. How much importance can be attached then to similarity of content and form?
The verse and strophe form, the rhyme scheme, the accent, the melody, except for Heine’s superiority, are the same in both. As to length, the two poems are exactly equal, each containing, by an unimportant but interesting coincidence, precisely 117 words.[56] But the contents of the two poems are not nearly so similar as they apparently seemed, at first blush, to Adolf Strodtmann. The melodious singing, the golden hair and the golden comb and the use that is made of both, the irresistibly sweet sadness, the time, “Aus alten Zeiten,” and the subjectivity—Heine himself recites his poem—these indispensable essentials in Heine’s poem are not in Loeben’s. Indeed as to content and of course as to merit, the two poems are far removed from each other.
And, moreover, literary parallels are the ancestors of that undocile child, Conjecture. We must remember that sirenic and echo poetry are almost as old as the tide of the sea, certainly as old as the hills, while as to the general situation, there is a passage in Milton’s Comus (ll. 880-84) analogous to Heine’s ballad, as follows:
And fair Ligea’s golden
comb,
Wherewith she sits on diamond
rocks,
Sleeking her soft alluring
locks,
By all the nymphs that nightly
dance
Upon thy streams with wily
glance,
and so on. And as to the pronounced similarity of form, we must remember that Heine was here employing his favorite measure, while Loeben was almost the equal of Ruckert in regard to the number of verse and strophe forms he effectively and easily controlled. In short, striking similarity in content is lacking, and as to the same sort of similarity in form to this but little if any significance can be attached.
And if the internal evidence is thin, the external is invisible, except for the fact that Loeben’s ballad was published by Brockhaus, whom Heine knew by correspondence. But between the years 1818 and 1847, Heine never published anything in Urania,[57] which was used by so many of his contemporaries. Heine and Loeben never knew each other personally, and between the years 1821 and 1823 they were never regionally close together.[58] Heine never mentions Loeben in his letters; nor does he refer to him in his creative works, despite the fact that he had a habit of alluding to his brothers in Apollo, even in his poems.[59]
And therefore, though it is fashionable to say that Heine knew Loeben’s ballad in 1823, and though the contention is plausible, it is impossible to prove it. Impossible also for this reason: Karl Simrock, Heine’s intimate friend, included in his Rheinsagen (1836, 1837, 1841)[60] the ballads on the Lorelei by Brentano, Eichendorff, Heine, and himself. Why did he exclude the one by Loeben? He made an ardent appeal in his preface to his colleagues to inform him of any other ballads that had been written on these themes. The question must be referred to those who like to skate on flabby ice in things literary.
The most plausible theory in regard to the source of Heine’s ballad is the one proposed by Oscar F. Walzel, who says: “Heine hat den Stoff wahrscheinlich aus dem ihm wohlbekannten Handbuch fUer Reisende am Rhein von Aloys Schreiber Uebernommen."[61] The only proof that Walzel gives that Heine knew Schreiber’s manual is a reference[62] to it in Lutetia. But this was written in 1843, and proves nothing as to 1823. His contention, however, that Heine borrowed from Schreiber[63] has everything in its favor, from the point of view of both external and internal evidence and deserves, therefore, detailed elaboration.
As to internal evidence, there is only one slight difference between Heine’s ballad and Schreiber’s saga: where Heine’s Lorelei combs her hair with a golden comb and has golden jewelry, Schreiber’s “bindet einen Kranz fUer ihre goldenen Locken” and “hat eine Schnur von Bernstein in der Hand.” Even here the color scheme is the same; otherwise there is no difference: time, place, and events are precisely the same in both. The mood and style are especially similar. The only words in Heine not found in Schreiber are “Kamm” and “bedeuten.” Schreiber goes, to be sure, farther than does Heine: he continues the story after the death of the hero.[64] This, however, is of no significance, for Heine was simply interested in his favorite theme of unrequited or hindered love.
Now Heine must have derived his plot from somewhere, else this would be an uncanny case of coincidence. And the two expressions, “Aus alten Zeiten,” and “Mit ihrem Singen,” the latter of which is so important, Heine could have derived only from Schreiber. Heine was not jesting when he said it was a fairy tale from the days of old; he was following, it seems, Schreiber’s saga, the first sentence of which reads as follows: “In alten Zeiten liess sich manchmal auf dem Lureloy um die AbenddAemmerung und beym Mondschein eine Jungfrau sehen, die mit so anmuthiger Stimme sang, dass alle, die es hOerten, davon bezaubert wurden.” But Brentano’s Lorelei does not sing at all, and Loeben’s just a little, “Sie singt dir hold zum Ohre,” while Heine, like Schreiber, puts his heroine in the prima donna class, and has her work her charms through her singing. And it seems that Heine was following Schreiber when the latter wrote as follows: “Viele, die vorUeberschifften, gingen am Felsenriff oder im Strudel zu Grunde, weil sie nicht mehr auf den Lauf des Fahrzeugs achteten, sondern von den himmlischen TOenen der wunderbaren Jungfrau gleichsam vom Leben abgelOest wurden, wie das zarte Leben der Blume sich im sUessen Duft verhaucht.”
And as to her personal appearance, Brentano and Loeben simply tell us that she was beautiful, Brentano employing the Homeric method of proving her beauty by its effects. Heine and Schreiber not only comment upon her physical beauty, they also tell us how she enhanced her natural charms by zealously attending to her hair and her jewelry and religiously guarding the color scheme in so doing. In brief, the similarity is so striking that, if we can prove that Heine knew Schreiber in 1823, we can definitely assert that Schreiber[65] was his main, if not his unique, source.
Let us take up the various arguments in favor of the contention that Heine knew Schreiber’s Handbuch in 1823, beginning with the least convincing. If Heine read Loeben’s ballad and saga in “Urania fUer 1821,” he could thereby have learned also of Schreiber’s Rheinsagen, for, by a peculiar coincidence for our purpose, Brockhaus discusses[66] these in the introduction in connection with a tragedy by W. Usener, entitled Die BrUeder, and based upon one of Schreiber’s Sagen. Proof, then, that Heine knew Loeben in 1823 is almost proof that he also knew Schreiber.
But there is better proof than this. In Elementargeister[67], we find this sentence: “Ganz genau habe ich die Geschichte nicht im Kopfe; wenn ich nicht irre, wird sie in Schreibers Rheinischen Sagen aufs umstAendlichste erzAehlt. Es ist die Sage vom Wisperthal, welches unweit Lorch am Rheine gelegen ist.” And then Heine tells the same story that is told by Schreiber. It is the eighth of the seventeen Sagen in question. This, then, is proof that Heine knew Schreiber so long before 1835 that he was no longer sure he could depend upon his memory. But it is impossible to say whether Heine’s memory was good for twelve years, or more, or less.
But there is better evidence than this. Heine’s Der Rabbi von Bacharach reaches far back into his life. That he intended to write this sort of work before 1823 has been proved;[68] just when he actually began to write this particular work is not so clear, but we know that he did much preliminary reading by way of preparing himself for its composition. And the region around and above and below Bacharach comes in for detailed discussion and elaborate description in Schreiber’s Rheinsagen. The crusades, the Sankt-Wernerskirchen, Lorch, the Fischfang, Hatto’s MAeuseturm, the maelstrom at Bingen, the Kedrich, the story of the Kecker Reuter who liberated the maid that had been abducted by dwarfs, and again, and this is irrefutable, the story “von dem wunderlicheft Wisperthale drUeben, wo die VOegel ganz vernUenftig sprechen,” all of these and others play a large role in Schreiber’s sagas and in Heine’s Rabbi. No one can read Schreiber’s Handbuch and Heine’s Rabbi without being convinced that the former stood sponsor for the latter.
And lastly, Heine wrote before 1821 his poem entitled “Die zwei BrUeder."[69] It is the tenth of the seventeen Volkssagen by Schreiber, the same theme as the one treated by W. Usener already referrred to. It is an old story,[70] and Heine could have derived his material from a number of places, but not from Grimm’s Deutsche Sagen, indeed from no place so convenient as Schreiber. Heine knew Schreiber’s Handbuch[71] in 1823.
The situation, then, is as follows: Heine had to have a source or sources, There are three candidates for Heine honors; Brentano, Loeben, Schreiber. Brentano has a number of supporters, though the evidence, external and internal, is wholly lacking. It would seem that lack of attention to chronology has misled investigators. Brentano’s ballad can now be read in many places, but between about 1815 and 1823 it was safely concealed in the pages of an unread and unknown novel. Loeben[72] has many supporters, though the external evidence, except for the fact that Heine corresponded with Brockhaus, is wholly lacking, and the internal weakens on careful study. It would seem that the striking similarity in form has misled investigators. Schreiber has only one supporter, despite the fact that the evidence, external and internal, is as strong as it can be without Heine’s ever having made some such remark as the following: “Yes, in 1823 I knew only Schreiber’s saga and borrowed from it.” But Heine never made any such statement. It would seem that the strong assertions of so many investigators in favor of Brentano and Loeben have made careful study of the matter appear not worth while; the problem was apparently solved. And since Heine never committed himself in this connection, the matter will, in all probability, remain forever conjectural. This much, however, is irrefutable: even if Heine knew in 1823 the five Loreleidichtungen, that had then been written, those by Brentano, Niklas Vogt, Eichendorff, Schreiber, and Loeben, and if he borrowed what he needed from all of them, he borrowed more from Schreiber[73] than from the other four combined.[74]
Whore Brentano sowed, many have reaped. Since the publication of his Godwi, about sixty-five Loreleidichtungen[75] have been written in German, the most important being those by Brentano (1810-16), Niklas Vogt[76] (1811), Eichendorff (ca. 1812), Loeben (1821), Heine (1823), Simrock (1837, 1840), Otto Ludwig (1838), Geibel (1834, 1846), W. MUeller von KOenigswinter (1851), Carmen Sylva, (ca. 1885), A. L’Arronge (1886), Julius Wolff (1886), and Otto Roquette (1889). In addition[77] to these, the story has been retold[78] many times, with slight alterations of the “original” versions, by compilers of chrestomathies, and parodies have been written on it. There is hardly a conceivable interpretation that has not been placed upon the legend.[79] The Lorelei has been made by some the evil spirit that entices men into hazardous games of chance, by others, she is the lofty incarnation of a desire to live and be blessed with the love that knows no turning away. The story has also wandered to Italy, France, England, Scotland, Scandinavia, and the United States,[80] and the heroine has proved a grateful theme for painters and sculptors. Of the epic works, that by Julius Wolff is of interest because of the popularity it
Though Brentano created[83] the story of his ballad, he located it in a region rich in legendary material, and it was the echo-motif of which he made especial use, and traces of this can be found in German literature as early as the thirteenth century.[84] The first real poet to borrow from Brentano was Eichendorff,[85] in whose Ahnung und Gegenwart we have the poem since published separately under the title of “WaldgesprAech,” and familiar to many through Schumann’s composition.[86] That Eichendorff’s Lorelei operates the forest is only to be expected of the author of so many Waldlieder. Even if Heine had known it he could have borrowed nothing from it except the name of his heroine.[87]
As to Loeben’s saga, there can be but little doubt that he derived his initial inspiration from Schreiber, with whom he became intimately acquainted[88] at Heidelberg during the winter of 1807-8. This, of course, is not to say that Heine borrowed from Loeben. Indeed, one of the strongest proofs that Heine borrowed from Schreiber rather than from Loeben is the clarity and brevity, ease and poetry of Schreiber’s saga as over against the obscurity and diffuseness, clumsiness and woodenness of Loeben’s saga,[89] the plot of which, so far as the action is concerned, is as follows: Hugbert von Stahleck, the son of the Palsgrave, falls in love with the Lorelei and rows out in the night to her seat by the Rhine. In landing, he falls into the stream, the Lorelei dives after him and brings him to the surface. The old Palsgrave has, in the meanwhile, sent a knight and two servants to capture the Lorelei. They climb the lofty rock and hang a stone around the enchantress’ neck, when she voluntarily leaps from the cliff into the Rhine below and is drowned.
The one episode in Loeben not found in any of Schreiber’s Rheinsagen is the story of the castaway ring miraculously restored from the stomach of the fish. This Loeben could have taken from “Magelone” by Tieck, or “Polykrates” by Schiller, both of whom he revered as men and with whose works he was thoroughly familiar. But there is nothing in Loeben that Heine could not have derived in more inspiring form from Schreiber; and Schreiber contains essentials not in Loeben at all. Indeed, a general study of Schreiber’s manuals leads one to believe that the influence of them, as a whole, on Heine would be a most grateful theme: there is not one Germanic legend referred to in Heine that is not contained in Schreiber. And as a prose writer, Heine’s fame rests largely on his travel pictures.[90]
The points of similarity between Loeben’s ballad and saga and the ballads and MAerchen of Brentano, all of which Loeben knew in 1821, are wholly negligible. It remains,[91] therefore, simply to point out some of the peculiarities of Brentano’s “Loreley” as protrayed in the RheinmAerchen—peculiarities that are interesting in themselves and that may have played a part in the development of the legend since 1846.
In “Das MAerchen von dem Rhein und dem MUeller Radlauf,"[92] Loreley is portrayed in a sevenfold capacity, as it were: seven archways lead to seven doors that open onto seven stairways that lead to a large hall in which Frau Lureley sits on a sevenfold throne with seven crowns upon her head and her seven daughters around her. This makes interesting reading for children, but Brentano did not lose sight of adults, including those who like to speculate as to the origin of the legend. He says: “Sie [Lorelei] ist eine Tochter der Phantasie, welches eine berUehmte Eigenschaft ist, die bei Erschaffung der Welt mitarbeitete und das Allerbeste dabei that; als sie unter der Arbeit ein schOenes Lied sang, hOerte sie es immer wiederholen und fand endlich den Wiederhall, einen schOenen JUengling in einem Felsen sitzen, mit dem sie sich verheiratete und mit ihm die Frau Lureley erzeugte; sie hatten auch noch viele andere Kinder, zum Beispiel: die Echo, den Akkord, den Reim, deren Nachkommen sich noch auf der Welt herumtreiben.”
Just as Frau Lureley closes the first MAerchen, so does she begin the second: “Von dem Hause Staarenberg und den Ahnen des MUellers Radlauf."[93] Here she creates, or motivates, the other characters. Her seven daughters appear with her, as follows: Herzeleid, Liebesleid, Liebeseid, Liebesneid, Liebesfreud, Reu und Leid, and Mildigkeit. She reappears then with her seven daughters at the close of the MAerchen, and each sings a beautiful song, while Frau Lureley, the mother of Radlauf, proves to be a most beneficent creature. Imaginative as Brentano was, he rarely rose to such heights as in this and the next, “MAerchen vom Murmelthier,"[94] in which Frau Lureley continues her great work of love and kindness. She rights all wrongs, rewards the just, corrects the unjust, and leads a most remarkable life whether among the poor on land or in her element in the water. All of which is poles removed from Loeben’s saga, though he knew these MAerchen,[95] for they were written when Brentano was his intimate friend.
As to the importance of Loeben’s saga, Wilhelm Hertz says: “Fast alle jUengeren Dichter knUepfen an seinen Erfindungen an, so besonders die zahlreichen musikdramatischen Bearbeitungen."[96] It is extremely doubtful that this statement is correct. It is plain that many of the lyric writers leaned on Schreiber, and the librettists could have done the same; or they could have derived their initial suggestion in more attractive form than that offered by Loeben. It seems, however, that Geibel[97]
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]
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
[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
[2] Meyer (6th ed.) does not mention Loeben even in
the articles on
Fouque and Malsburg, two of
Loeben’s best friends; Brockhaus
(Jubilee ed.) mentions him
as one of Eichendorff’s friends in the
article on Eichendorff, but
neither has an independent note on
Loeben. Nor is he mentioned
in such compendious works on the
nineteenth century as those
by Gottschall, R.M. Meyer
(Grundriss and Geschichte),
and Fr. Kummer. Biese
says (Deutsche Literaturgeschichte,
II. 436) of him: “Auch
ein so ausgesprochenes Talent,
wie es Graf von Loeben war, entging
nicht der Gefahr, die Romantik
in ihre Karikatur zu verzerren.”
[3] Cf. Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, XIX, 42.
[4] Partial lists of his works are given in:
Goedeke,
Grundriss, VI, 108-10
(2nd ed.): Allgemeine deutsche
Biographie, XIX. 40-45;
the sole monograph on Loeben by
Raimund Pissin. Otto Heinrich
Graf von Loeben, sein Leben und
seine Werke, Berlin, 1905,
326 pages. By piecing these lists
together—for they
vary—it seems that Loeben wrote, aside from
the works mentioned above,
the following: 1 conventional drama, 1
musical-romantic drama, 2
narrative poems, one of which is on
Ferdusi, 3 collections of
poems, between 30 and 40 novelettes,
fairy tales and so on. and_
“einige tausend” aphorisms and
detached thoughts. It
is in Pissin’s monograph that Loeben’s
position in the Heidelberg
circle of 1807-8 is worked out. as
follows: Loeben and Eichendorff
constituted one branch, Arnim and
Brentano the other, GOerres
stood loosely between the two, and the
others sided now with one
group, now with the other.
[5] The verses are from GestAendnisse, No.
125 in Pissin’s
collection of Loeben’s poems.
[6] GestAendnisse. No. 125.
[7] Aside from the reviews, letters, and individual
poems reprinted
here and there, the following
works were accessible to the writer:
(1) Das weisse Ross, eine
altdeutsche Familienchronik; (2) Die
Sonnenkinder, eine ErzAehlung;
(3) Die Perle und die Maiblume, eine
Novelle; (4) Cephalus und
Procris, ein Drama; (5) Ferdusi; (6)
Persiens Ritter, eine ErzAehlung;
(7) Die ZaubernAechte am Bosporus,
ein romantisches Gedicht;
(8) Prinz Floridio, ein MAerchen; (9)
Leda; eine ErzAehlung; (10)
WeinmAerchen; (11) GesAenge.
[8] Eichendorff’s relation to Loeben can be
studied in the edition of
Eichendorff’s works
by Wilhelm Kusch, Regensburg. Vols. III,
X-XIII have already appeared.
For a poetization of Loeben, see
Ahnung und Gegenwart,
chap. xii, pp. 144 ff. For a
historical account of Loeben,
see Erlebtes, chap. x,
pp. 425 ff. It is here
that Eichendorff makes Goethe praise Loeben
in the foregoing fashion.
[9] There is no positive evidence that Goethe made
any such remark. In
his GesprAeche (Biedermann.
V, 270; VI, 198-99) there are
two references to Loeben by
Goethe; they are favorable but
noncommittal as to his poetic
ability.
[10] Cf. Die TagebUecher des GrAefen von Platen,
Stuttgart, 1900.
Under date of August 14, 1824,
Platen wrote: “Es enthAelt viele
gute Bemerkungen, wiewohl
diese Art Prosa nicht nach meinem Sinne
ist.” The reference
is to Loeben’s commentary to Madame de Staels
De l’Allemayne.
[11] Cf. Heinrick von Kleists Berliner KAempfe,
Berlin, 1901, pp.
490-96. The story in
question is “Die furchtbare Einladung.”
[12] Cf. Herm. Anders KrUeger, Pseudoromantik.
Friedrich Kind und der
Dresdener Liederkreis._ Leipzig.
1904. pp. 144-48. KrUeger also
discusses Loeben in his Der
junge Eichendorff. Leipzig. 1904.
pp. 88 and 128.
[13] Cf. Fouque, Apel. Miltitz. BeitrAege
zur Geschichte der deutschen
Romantik, Leipzig,1908.
In a letter to his brother. Fouque wrote
(January 6, 1813): “Ein
Dichter, meine ich, ist er allerdings, ein
von Gott dazu bestimmter.”
Fouque, however, realized Loeben’s many
weaknesses as a poet, though
at Loeben’s death he wrote a poem on
him praising him as the master
of verse technique.
[14] Cf. Kosch’s edition of Eichendorff.
XIII. 65. Loeben says: “In
Weimar war ich im vorigen
Winter bei Goethe; er war mir
freundlich.” The
“previous winter” was 1813.
[15] Cf. Kosch’s edition, XI, 220. The remark was made in 1807.
[16] Cf. Pissin. p. 25. The incident occurred
in 1803 and Herder died
in 1804.
[17] Cf. Kosch’s edition, XI, 308.
Lochen himself utterly condemned
this work later. See
Pissin, pp. 238-39, 267-08. Pissin gives the
number of verse and strophe
forms on p. 266.
[18] Cf. Pissin, p. 267. Uhland made the
remark in 1812—his own most
fruitful year as a poet.
[19] The story was published in 1817. The full
title is Das weisse
Ross, eine altdeutsche Familienchronik
in sechs und dreissig
Bildern. It is 160 pages
long.
[20] An idea as to the lack of action in this story
can be derived
from the following statement
by Otto (pp. 127-28), the brave hero:
“Was man Schicksale
zu nennen pflegt, habe ich wenige gehabt, aber
erfahren habe ich dennoch
viel und mehr als mancher durch seine
glAenzenden Schicksale erfahren
mag: nAemlich die FUehrungen der
ewigen Liebe habe ich erfahren,
die keinen verlAesst. und alles
herrlich hinausfuhrt.”
And then Siegenot, the other hero, says
that this is very true—whereupon
they embrace each other.
[21] The story was first published In Urania:
Taschenbuch fUer Damen
auf das Jahr 1818. pp. 305-37.
[22] Aside from the poems in Pissin’s collection
in the D.L.D. des
18. u. 19. Jahr.,
Ignaz Hub’s Deutschlands Balladen- und
Romanzen-Dichter, Karlsruhe,
1845, contains: (1) “Romanze von der
weissen Rose,” (2) “Der
Tanz mit dem Tode,” (3) “Der Bergknapp,”
(4) “Das Schwanenlied.”
“Loreley” is also reprinted here, with
modifications for the worse.
“Schau’, Schiffer, schau’ nicht
hinauf,” is certainly
not an improvement on Loeben’s “Lieb Knabe,
sieh’ nicht hinauf,”
[23] The following are common forms: “Nez,”
“zwey,” “versteken,”
“SfAeren,” “Saffo,”
“Stralenboten,” “Abendrothen.”
“Uebermuth,”
and so on, though the regular
forms, except in the case of
“Saffo,” also
occur.
[24] “Der Abend” reminds one strongly
of HOelderlin’s “Die Nacht,”
while “Tag und Nacht”
goes back undoubtedly to Novalis’ “Hymnen
an
die Nacht,” W. Schlegels
sonnet on the sonnet stood sponsor for
“Das Sonett,”
and Goethe and Tieck also reoccur in changed
dress. The poems on Correggio
(73), Ruisdael (75), Goethe (137),
Tieck (138-39), and Novalis
(141) sound especially like
W. Schlegel’s poems
on other poets and artists.
[25] In his Geschichte des Sonettes in der deutschen
Dichtung.’Leipzig,
1884. Heinrich Weltl (pp. 210-17) criticizes
Loeben’s sonnets most
severely from the point of view of content;
and as to their form he says:
“Blos die Form, oder gar die blosse
Form der Form ist beachtenswert.”
This is unquestionably a case of
warping the truth in order
to bring in a sort of pun.
[26] The triolett is worth quoting as a type of Loeben’s prettiness:
Galt
es mir, das sUesse Blicken
Aus
dem hellen Augenpaar?
Unter’m
Netz vom goldnen Haar
Galt
es mir das sUesse Blicken?
Einem
sprach es von Gefahr,
Einen
wollt’ es licht umstricken;
Galt
es mir, das sUesso Blicken
Aus
dem hellen Augenpaar.
[27] An idea as to Loeben’s temperament can
he derived from the
following passage in a letter
to Tieck: “Gott sei mit Ihnen und
die heilige Muse! Oft
drAengt es mich, niederzuknien im Schein, den
Albrecht DUerers und Novalis
Glorie wirft, im alten frommen
Dom. dann denk’ ich
Ihrer und ich lieg’ an Ihrer Seele. Ich
fUehle
Sie in mir, wie man eine Gottheit
fUehlt in geweihter
Stunde. ’Liebe
denkt in sel’gen TOenen, denn Gedanken stehn
zu
fern.” The quotation
should read “sUessen” instead of “sel’gen.”
See Briefe an Tierk.
edited by Holtei, II, 266.
[28] As a corrective to the monographs of Pissin on
Loeben and
H. A. KrUeger on Eichendorff.
one should read Wilhelm Kosch’s
article in Euphorion
(1907, pp. 310-20). Kosch. contends
that Pissin and KrUeger have
vastly overestimated Loeben’s
influence on Eichendorff,
and that Loeben in general was “eine
bedeutungslose Tageserscheinung.”
[29] The complete title is Godwi, oder das steinerne
Bild der
Mutter. Ein verwilderter
Roman von Maria. The very rare first
edition of this novel, in
two volumes, is in the Columbia
Library. Friedrich Wilmans
was the publisher.
[30] Cf. Alfred Kerr, Godwi. Ein Kapitel
deutscher
Romantik. Berlin,
1898, p. 2.
[31] Cf. Wilhelm Hertz, “UEber den Namen
Lorelei,” Sitzungsberichte
der k.b. Akademie der
Wissenschaften zu MUenchen, Jahrgang
1886, pp. 217-51. For
the etymologist, this is an invaluable
study.
[32] The superficial similarity of those two poems
can easily be
exaggerated. The rhyme
“sitzet-blitzet” is perfectly natural:
the
Lorelei had to be portrayed
as “sitzen”; what is then easier than
“blitzen”?
In “Ritter Peter von Stauffenberg und die Meerfeye”
(Des Knaben Wunderhorn, ed.
of Eduard Grisebach, p. 277) we have
this couplet:
Er sieht
ein schOenes Weib da sitzen.
Von Gold
und Silber herrlich blitzen.
For more detailed illustrations, see below.
[33] It is worth while to note the actual date of
Heine’s composition
of his ballad, since so eminent
an authority as Wilhelm Scherer
(Ges. d. deut. Lit.,
8th ed., p. 662) says that Heine wrote the
poem in 1824. And Eduard
Thorn (Heinrich Heines Beziehungen zu
Clemens Brentano, p. 90.)
says that he published it in 1826.
This is incorrect, as is also
Thorn’s statement, p. 88, that
Brentano wrote his ballad
in 1802. For the correct date of Heine’s
ballad, see SAemtliche
Werke, Hamburg, 1865, XV, 200.]
[34] An instance of this is seen in Selections
from Heine’s
Poems, edited by H.S.
White, D.C. Heath & Co., Boston, 1900,
p. 182. Professor White
does, to be sure, refer to Strodtmann for
the details; but Strodtmann
does not prove anything. And in
Heines Werke in fUenfzehn
Teilen, edited by Hermann
Friedeman, Helene Herrmann.
Erwin Kaliseher. Raimund Pissin, and
Veit Valentin, we have the
comment by Helene Herrmann, who follows
Pissin: “Die Loreleysage,
erfunden von Clemens Brentano; vielfach
von Romantikern gestaltet.
Zwischen Brentanos Romanze und Heines
Situationsbild steht die Behandlung
durch den Grafen Loeben, einen
unbedeutenden romantischen
Dichter.”
[35] The best finished collection of Heine’s
letters is the one by
Hans Daffis, Berlin, 1907,
2 vols. This collection will, however,
soon be superseded by Heinrich
Heines Briefwechsel, edited
by Friedrich Hirth, MUenchen
and Berlin, 1914. The first volume
covers Heine’s life
up to 1831. In neither of these collections is
either Brentano or Loeben
mentioned. There are 643 pages in
Hirth’s first volume.
[36] For a discussion of Godwi, see Clemens
Brentano: Ein
Lebensbild, by Johannes
Baptista Diel and Wilhelm Kreiten,
Freiburg i.B., 1877, two volumes
in one, pp. 104-25. As to the
obscurity of Brentano’s
work, one sentence (p. 116) is
significant: “Godwi
spukt heutzutage nur mehr in den KOepfen
der liberalen Literaturgeschichtsschreiber,
denen er einen
willkommenen Vorwand an die
Hand gibt, mit einigen stereotyp
abgeschriebenen Phrasen den
Stab Ueber den phantastischen,
verschwommenen, unsittlichen
u.s.w., u.s.w. Dichter zu brechen.”
[37] Clemens Brentano: Godwi oder das steinerne
Bild der
Mutter. Ein verwilderter.
Roman. Herausgegeben und
eingeleitet von Dr. Anselm
Ruest, Berlin, 1906. Ruest edited the
work because he thought it
was worth reviving. In this edition,
the ballad is on pages 507-10.
Bartels (Handbuch, 2d ed., p. 400)
lists a reprint in 1905, E.A.
Regener, Berlin.
[38] II, 391-93.
[39] For the various references, see Thorn’s
Heinrich Heines
Beziehungen zu Clemens Brentano.
pp. 88-90. His study is
especially unsatisfactory
in view of the fact that he says (p. 88)
in this connection: “Wirklich
Neues zu bringen ist uns nicht
vergOennt, denn selbstverstAendlich
haben die Forscher dieses
dankbare und interessante
Objekt schon in der eingehendsten Weise
untersucht.” And
Thorn’s attempt to show that Heine knew
Godwi early in life
by pointing out similarities between
poems in it and poems by Heine
is about as untenable as argument
could be, in view of the great
number of poets who may have
influenced Heine in these
instances; Thorn himself lists (p. 63)
BUerger, Fouque, Arnim, E.T.A.
Hoffmann.
[40] In Pissin’s collection of Loeben’s
poems (D.L.D., No. 135)
we have a peculiar note.
After the ballad (Anmerk.,
p. 161), which Pissin entitles
“Der Lurleifels,” we read:
“N.d. Hs.”
This would argue that Loeben did so entitle his ballad
and that Pissin had access
to the original MS. But then Pissin
says: “Auch, die
gleichnamige Novelle einleitend, in der
Urania auf 1821.”
But in Urania the novelette is
entitled “Eine Sage
vom Rhein.” and the ballad is entitled
“Loreley.”
Bet him who can unravel this!
[41] For the entire story of the composition and publication
of the
RheinmAerchen, see
Die MAerchen von Clemens Brentano,
edited by Guido GOerres. 2
vols. in 1, Stuttgart, 1879 (2d ed.)
This edition contains the
preface to the original edition of 1840,
pp. i-1.
[42] Thorn, who drew on M.R. Hewelcke’s
Die Loreleisage,
Paderborn, 1908, makes (p.
90) this suggestion. It is impossible
for the writer to see how
Thorn can be so positive in regard to
Brentano’s influence
on Heine. And one’s faith is shaken by this
sentence on the same page:
“Brentano verOeffentlichte sein
Radlauf-MAerchen erst
1827, Heine ‘Die Lorelei’ schon 1826.”
Both of these dates are incorrect.
Guido GOerres, who must be
considered a final authority
on this matter, says that, though
Brentano tried to publish
his MAerchen as early as 1816,
none of them were published
until 1846, except extracts from “Das
MyrtenfrAeulein,” and
a version of “Gockel,” neither of which
bears
directly on the Lorelei-matter.
[43] Of GOerres’ second edition, I, 250:
“Nachdem Murmelthier herzlich
fUer diese Geschenke gedankt
hatte, sagte Frau Else: ’Nun, mein
Kind! kAemme mir und Frau
Lurley die Haare, wir wollen die deinigen
dann auch kAemmen’—dann
gab sie ihr einen goldnen Kamm, und
Murmelthier kAemmte Beiden
die Haare und flocht sie so schOen, dass
die Wasserfrauen sehr zufrieden
mit ihr waren.”
[44] In H. Heines Leben und Werke.
Hamburg, 1884 (3d ed.),
Bd. I. p. 363. In
the notes, Strodtmann reprints Loeben’s ballad,
pp. 696-97. His statement
is especially unsatisfactory in view of
the fact that he refers to
the “fast gleicher Inhalt,” though the
essentials of Heine’s
ballad are not in Loeben’s, and to
“einegewisse AEhnlichkeit
in Form,” though the similarity in form
is most pronounced.
[45] In Allgemeine deut. Biog., XIX. 44.
It is interesting to
see how Professor Muncker
lays stress on this matter by placing in
parentheses the statement:
“Einige ZUege der letzten Geschichte
["Sage vom Rhein”] regten
Heine zu seinem bekannten Liede an.”
[46] In Dichtungen von Heinrich Heine, ausgewAehlt
und
erlAeutert, Bonn, 1887,
p. 326. Hessel’s Statement is
peculiarly unsatisfactory,
since he says (p. 309) that he is going
to the sources of Heine’s
poems, and then, after reprinting
Loeben’s ballad, he
says: “Dieses Lied war Heines nAechstes
Vorbild. AusfUehrlicheres
bei Strodtmann, Bd. I, S. 362.” And
this
edition has been well received.
[47] In Grundriss, VI, 110. Again we read
in parentheses: “Aus
diesem Liede und dem EingAenge
der ErzAehlung schOepfte H. Heine sein
Lied von der Loreley.”
[48] In Ges. d. deut. Lit., p. 662 (8th ed.).
[49] In Heinrich Heines Beziehungen zum deutschen
Mittelalter,
Berlin, 1908, pp., 94-95.
MUecke is the most cautious of the ten
authorities above listed;
and he anticipated Walzel in his
reference to Schreiber’s
Handbuch.
[50] In Ueber den Namen Lorelei, p. 224. Hertz
is about as cautious
as Strodtmann; “Es ist
kaum zu bezweifeln dass,” etc.
[51] In SAemtliche Werke, I, 491.
[52] In HauptstrOemungen. VI, 178.
Brandes says: “Der Gegenstand
ist der gleiche, das Versmass
ist dasselbe, ja die Reimen sind an
einzelnen Stellen die gleichen:
blitzetsitzet; statt ‘an-gethan’
steht da nur ‘Kahn-gethan.’”
[53] In Der deutschen Romantiker, Leipzig, 1903, p. 235.
[54] In Deutsches Literatur-Lexikon, MUenchen,
1914, p. 271. It
is significant that KrUeger
makes this statement, for the subtitle
of his book Is “Biographisches
und bibliographisches Handbuch mit
MotivUebersichten und Quellennachweisen.”
And it is, on the whole,
an extremely useful book.
[55] It is impossible to see how Brandes can lay great
stress on the
fact that this rhyme occurs
in both poems. The following rhymes
are found on the following
pages of the Elster edition, Vol. I, of
Heine’s works:
“Spitze-Blitze” (36), “sitzen-nUetzen”
(116),
“Witzen-nUetzen”
(124), “sitzen-blitzen” (216),
“erhitzet-bespitzet”
(242), “Blitz-Sitz” (257), “blitzt-gestUetzt”
(276), “blitze-besitze”
(319), “blitzet-gespitzet” (464).
And in
Loeben’s poems the rhyme
is equally common. The first strophe of
his Ferdusi runs as
follows:
Hell erglAenzt
an Persiens Throne
Wo der grosse
Mahmud sitzt;
Welch Juwel
ist’s, das die Krone
So vor allen
schOen umblitzt.
And in Schreiber’s saga
we have in juxtaposition, the
words. “Blitze”
and “Spitze.” The rhyme “Sitze-Blitze”
occurs in
Immanuel’s “Lorelei,”
quoted by Seeliger, p. 31.
[56] There are, to be sure, only 114 words in Loeben’s
ballad if we
count “um’s,”
“dir’s,” and “glaub’s”
as three words and not six.
[57] These numbers are in the Columbia Library.
[58] During these years Heine’s letters are
dated from GOettingen,
Berlin, Gnesen, Berlin, MUenster,
Berlin, LUeneburg, Hamtburg,
RitzenbUettel, and LUeneburg.
During these same years Loeben was in
Dresden and he was ill.
[59] We need only to mention such a strophe as the
following from
Atta Troll:
Klang das
nicht wie JugendtrAeume.
Die ich trAeumte
mit Chamisso
Und Brentano
und Fouque
In den blauen
MondscheinnAechten?
See Elster edition, II, 421. The lines were written in 1843.
[60] The first edition of Karl Simrock’s Rheinsagen
came out in
1836. This was not accessible.
The edition of 1837, “zweite,
vermehrte Auflage,”
contains 168 poems, 572 pages; this contains
Simrock’s “Ballade
von der Lorelei.” The edition of 1841 also
contains Simrock’s “Der
Teufel und die Lorelei.” The book contains
455 pages, 218 poems.
The sixth edition (1809) contains 231 poems.
In all editions the poems
are arranged in geographical order from
SUedersee to GraubUenden.
Alexander Kaufmann’s Quellenangaben und
Bemerkungen zu Kart Simrocks
Rheinsagen throws no new light on
the Lorelei-legend.
[61] Cf. Heinrich Heines sAemtliche Werke,
edited by Walzel,
FrAenkel, KrAehe, Leitzmann,
and Peterson. Leipzig. 1911, II,
408. So far as I have
looked into the matter, Walzel stands alone
in this belief, though MUecke,
as has been pointed out above,
anticipated him in the statement
that Heine drew on Schreiber in
this case. But MUecke
thinks that Heine also knew Loeben.
[62] The reference in question reads as follows:
“Ich will kein Wort
verlieren Ueber den Wert dieses
unverdaulichen Machwerkes [Les
Burgraves], das mit allen
mOeglichen PrAetensionen auftritt,
namentlich mit historischen,
obgleich alles Wissen Victor Hugos
Ueber Zeit und Ort, wo sein
StUeck spielt, lediglich aus der
franzOesischen Uebersetzung
von Schreibers Handbuch fUer
Rheinreisende geschOepft,
ist.” This was written March 20, 1843
(see Elster edition, VI. 344).
[63] Aloys Wilhelm Schreiber (1763-1840) was a teacher
in the Lyceum
at Baden-Baden (1800-1802),
professor of aesthetics at Heidelberg
(1802-13) where he was intimate
with the Voss family,
historiographer at Karlsruhe
(1813-26), and in 1826 he retired and
became a most prolific writer.
He interested himself in guidebooks
for travelers. His manuals
contain maps, distances, expense
accounts, historical sketches,
in short, about what the modern
Baedeker contains with
fewer statistics and more popular
description. His books
appeared in German, French, and
[64] The remainder of Schreiher’s plot is as
follows: The news of the
infatuated hero’s death
so grieved the old Count that ho
determined to have the Lorelei
captured, dead or alive. One of his
captains, aided by a number
of brave followers, set out on the
hazardous expedition.
First, they surround the rock on which the
Lorelei sits, and. then three
of the most courageous ascend to her
seat and determine to kill
her, so that the danger of her
repealing her former deed
maybe forever averted. But when they
reach her and she hoars what
they intend to do, she simply smiles
and invokes the aid of her
Father, who immediately sends two white
horses—two white
waves—up the Rhine, and. after leaping down
to
the Rhine, she is safely carried
away by these. She was never
again seen, but her voice
was frequently heard as she mocked, in
echo, the songs of the sailors
on her paternal stream.
[65] It is not simply in the appendix of Schreiber’s
Handbuch
that he discusses the legend
of Lorelei, but also in the
scientific part of it.
Concerning the Lorelei rock he says
(pp. 174-75): “Ein
wunderbarer Fels schiebt sich jetzt dem
Schiffer gleichsam in seine
Bahn—es ist der Lurley (von Lure,
Lauter, und Ley, Schiefer)
aus welchem ein Echo den Zuruf der
Vorbeifahrendem fUenfzehnmal
wiederholt. Diesen Schieferfels
bewohnte in grauen Zeiten
eine Undine, welche die Schiffenden
durch ihr Zurufen ins Verderben
lockte.”
[66] Brockhaus says (p. xxiv): “Die einfache
Sage von den beiden
feindlichen BrUedern am Rhein,
van denen die TrUemmer ihrer BUergen
selbst noch Die BrUeder
heissen ist in A. Schreiber’s
Auswahl von Sagen jener Gegenden
zu lesen.” Usener’s tragedy is
published In full in this
number of Urania, pp. 383-442.
[67] Cf. Elster edition, IV, 406-9. The
circumstantial way in which
Heine retells this story is
almost sufficient to lead one to
believe that he had Schreiber
at hand when he wrote this part of
Elementargeister; but he says
that he did not.
[68] Discussion as to the first conception of Heine’s
Rabbi are
found in: Heinrich
Heines Fragment; Der Rabbi von Bacharach,
by Lion Feuchtwanger, MUenchen,
1907; Heinrich Heine und Der Rabbi
von Bacharach, by Gustav
Karpeles, Wien, 1895.
[69] The poem is one of the Junge Leiden, published
in 1821, Elster
(I, 490) says: “Eine
bekannte Sage, mit einzelnen vielfach
wiederkehrenden uralten ZUegen,
dargestellt In Simrocks
Rheinsagen.”
Simrock had, of course, done nothing on the
Rheinsagen in 1821,
being then only nineteen years old and an
inconspicuous student at Bonn.
Walzel says (I. 449.): “Mit einem
andern Ausgang ist die Sage
in dem von Heine vielbenutzten
Handbuch fUer Reisende
am Rhein von Aloys Schreiber (Heidelberg,
1816) Ueberliefert.”
The edition of this work in the New York
Public Library has no printed
date, but 1818 is written in. Walzel
may be correct. The outcome
of Heine’s poem is, after all, not so
different: In Schreiber,
both brothers relinquish their clalms to
the girl and remain unmarried;
in Heine the one kills the other
and in this way neither wins
the girl.
[70] It is the same story as the one told by Bulwer-Lytton
in his
Pilgrims of the Rhine.
chap. xxiv.
[71] All through the body of Schreiber’s Handbuch,
there are
references to the places and
legends mentioned in Heine’s
Rabbi. On Bacharach
there is the following: “Der Reisende,
wenn er auch nur eine Stunde
in Bacharach verweilt, unterlasse
nicht, die Ruinen von Staleck
zu besteigen, wo eine der schOensten
Rheinlandschaften sich von
seinen Blicken aufrollt. Die Burg von
sehr betrAechtlichem Umfang
scheint, auf den TrUemmern eines
ROemerkastells erbaut.
Die, welche die Entstehung derselben den
Hunnen zuschreiben, well sie
in Urkunden den Namen Stalekum hat,
sind in einem Irrtum befangen,
denn Stalekum oder Stalek heisst
eben so viel als StalbUehl,
oder ein Ort, wo ein Gericht gehegt
wurde. Pfalzgraf Hermann
von Staleck, starb im 12ten Jahrhundert;
er war der letzte seines Stammes,
und von ihm kam die Burg, als
KOelnisches Lehen, an Konrad
Von Staufen.”
[72] To come back to Heine and Loeben, Herm.
Anders KrUeger says (p.,
147) in his Pseudoromantik:
“Heinrich Heine, der Ueberhaupt
Loeben studiert zu haben scheint,”
etc. He offers no proof. If one
wished to make out a case
for Loeben, it could bo done with his
narrative poem “Ferdusi”
(1817) and Heine’s “Der Dichter Ferdusi.”
Both tell about the same story;
but each tells a story that was
familiar in romantic circles.
[73] In reply to a letter addressed to Professor Elster
on October 4,
1914, the writer received
the following most kind reply on
November 23: “Die
Frage, die Sie an mich richten ist leicht
beantwortet: Heine hat
Loeben in seinen Schriften nicht erwAehnt,
aber das besagt nicht viel;
er hat manchen benutzt, den er nicht
nennt. Und es kann gar
keinem Zweifel unterliegen, dass
Loeben fUer die Lorelei Heines
unmittelbares Vorbild ist;
darauf habe ich Oefter hingewiesen,
aber wohl auch andere. Das
Taschenbuch Urania
fUer das Jahr 1821, wo Loebens Gedicht
u. Novelle zuerst erschienen,
ist unserem Dichter zweifellos zu
Gesicht gekommen.”
No one can view Professor Elster in any other
light than as an eminent authority
on Heine, but his certainty
here must be accepted with
reserve, and his “wohl auch andere” is,
in view of the fact that,
he was by no means the first, and
certainly not the last, to
make this assertion, a trifle
disconcerting.
[74] The ultimate determining of sources is an ungrateful
theme. Some
excellent suggestions on this
subject are offered by Hans Rohl in
his Die Aeltere Romantik
und die Kunst des jungen Goethe,
Berlin, 1909, pp. 70-72.
This work was written under the general
leadership of Professor Elster.
The disciple would, in this case,
hardly agree with the master.
Pissin likewise speaks wisely in
discussing the influence of
Novalis on Loeben in his monograph on
the latter, pp. 97-98. and
129-30. And Heine himself (Elster
edition, V. 294) says in regard
to the question whether Hegel did
borrow so much from Schelling:
“Nichts ist lAecherlicher als das
reklamierte Eigentumsrecht
an Ideen.” He then shows how the ideas
were not original with Schelling
either; he had them from
Spinoza. And it is just
so here. Brentano started the legend;
Heine goes back to him indirectly.
Eichenidorff and Vogt directly;
Schreiber borrowed from Vogt,
Loeben from Schreiber, and Heine
from Schreiber—and
thereafter it would be impossible to say who
borrowed from whom.
[75] The majority of the Loreleidichtungen
can be found in:
Opern-Handbuch, by
Hugo Riemann, Leipzig, 1886: Zur
Geschichte der MAerchenoper,
by Leopold Schmidt, Halle, 1895;
Die Loreleysage in Dichtung
und Musik, by Hermann Seeliger,
Leipzig, 1898. Seeliger
took the majority of his titles from
Nassau in seinen Sagen,
Geschichten und Liedern, by
Henniger, Wiesbaden, 1845.
At least he says so, but one is
inclined to doubt the statement,
for “die meisten Balladen” have
been written since 1845.
Seeliger’s book is on the whole
unsatisfactory. He has,
for example, Schreiber improving on, and
remodeling Loeben’s
saga; but Schreiber was twenty-three years
older than Loeben, and wrote
his saga at least three years before
Loeben wrote his.
[76] In F. GrAeter’s Idunna und Hermode,
eine Alterthumszeitung,
Breslau, 1812, pp. 191-92,
GrAeter gives under the heading, “Die
Bildergallerie des Rheins.”
thirty well-known German sagas. The
twenty-seventh is “Der
Lureley: Ein GegenstUeck zu der Fabel von
der Echo.” It is
the version of Vogt.
[77] Aside from the above, some of the less important
authors of
lyrics, ballads, dramas, novels,
etc., on the Lorelei-theme are:
J. Bartholdi, H. Bender, H.
Berg, J. P. Berger, A. H. Bernard,
G. Conrad, C. Doll, L. Elchrodt,
O. Fiebach, Fr. FOerster,
W. Fournier, G. Freudenberg,
W. Freudenberg, W. Genth, K. Geib,
H. Grieben, H. GrUeneberg,
G. Gurski, Henriette Heinze-Berg,
A. Henniger, H. Hersch, Mary
Koch, Wilhelmine Lorenz, I. Mappes,
W. Molitor, Fr. MUecke, O.
W. Notzsch, Luise Otto, E. RUeffer, Max
Schaffroth, Luise Frelin von
Sell, E. A. W. Siboni, H. Steinheuer,
Adelheid von Stolterfoth,
A. Storm, W. von WaldbrUehl, L. Werft,
and others even more obscure
than these.
[78] In Menco Stern’s Geschichten vom Rhein,
the story is told
so as to connect the legend
of the Lorelei with the treasures of
the Nibelungenlied.
In this way we have gold in the
mountain, wine around it,
a beautiful woman on it—what more could
mortal wish? Sympathy!
And this the Lorelei gives him in the
echo. In reply to an
inquiry, Mr. Stern very kindly wrote as
follows: “The facts
given in my Geschichten vom Rhein are
all well known to German students;
and especially those mentioned
in my chapter ‘Lorelay’
can bo verified in the book: Der
Rhein von Philipp F. W.
Oertel (W. O. v. Horn) who was, I
think, the greatest authority
on the subject of the Rhine.” Oertel
is not an authority.
In Eduard-Prokosch’s German for
Beginners, the version
of Schreiber was used, as is evident
from the lines spoken by the
Lorelei to her Father:
Vater, Vater,
geschwind, geschwind.
Die weissen
Rosse schick’ deinem Kind,
Es will reiten
auf Wogen und Wind.
These verses are worked into
a large number of the ballads, and
since they are Schreiber’s
own material, his saga must have had
great general influence.
[79] There would be no point in listing all of the
books on the
legends of the Rhine that
treat the story of the Lorelei. Three,
however, are important, since
it is interesting to see how their
compilers were not satisfied
with one version of the story, but
included, as becomes evident
on reading them, the versions of
Brentano, Schreiber, Loeben,
and Heine: Der Rhein: Geschichten
und Sagen, by W. O. von
Horn, Stuttgart, 1866, pp. 207-11;
Legends of the Rhine,
by H. A. Guerber, New York, 1907, pp:
199-206; Eine Sammlung
von Rhein-Sagen, by A. Hermann
Bernard, Wiesbaden, no year,
pp. 225-37.
[80] Mrs. Caroline M. Sawyer wrote a poem entitled
“The Lady of
Lorlei. A Legend of the
Rhine.” It is published in The female
Poets of America, by Rufus
Wilmot Griswold, New York, 1873,
p. 221. This is not the
first edition of this work, nor is it the
original edition of Mrs. Sawyer’s
ballad. It is an excellent
poem. Fr. Hoebel set
it to music, and Adolf Strodtmann translated
it into German, because of
its excellence, and included it in his
Amerikanische Anthologie.
It was impossible to determine
just when Mrs. Sawyer wrote
her poem. The writer is deeply
indebted to Professor W. B.
Cairns, of the department of English
in the University of Wisconsin,
who located the poem for him.
[81] Cf. Otto Ludwigs gesammelte Schriften,
edited by Adolf
Stern, Leipzig, 1801, I.
69, 107, 114.
[82] It has been impossible to determine just when
Sucher (1789-1860)
set Heine’s ballad to
music, but since he was professor of music
at the University of TUebingen
from 1817 on, and since he became
interested in music while
quite young, it is safe to assume that
he wrote his music for “Die
Lorelei” soon after its
publication. The question
is of some importance by way of finding
out just when the ballad began
to be popular. Strangely enough,
there is nothing on Silcher
in Hobert Eitner’s compendious
Quellen-Lexicon der Musiker
und Musikgelehrten der christlichen
Zeitrechnung, Leipzig,
1900-1904. Heine’s ballad is included
in the Allgemeines deutsches
Commersbuch unter musikalischer
Redaktion von Fr. Silcher
und Fr. Erck, Strassburg, 1858 (17th
ed.), but the date of composition
is not given.
[83] In Pauls Grundriss der germanischen Philologie,
I, 1039,
Mogk says: “Die
Weiblichen Nixen bezaubern durch ihren Gesang, die
Loreley und Aehnliche Sagen
mOegen hierin ihre Wurzel haben.” The
only trouble is, no one has
thus far unearthed this saga.
[84] Wilhelm Hertz gives (pp.229-30) instances of
this so that
uncertainty as to its accuracy
is removed. The passages are
striking in that they concern
the “Lorberg” and the “Lorleberg.”
[85] In chap, XV Eichendorff introduces the ballad
as follows:
“Leontin, der wenig
darauf achtgab, begann folgendes Lied Ueber ein
am Rheine bekanntes MAerchen.”
The reference can be only to
Brentano, despite the fact
that the first two lines are so
strongly reminiscent of Goethe’s
“Erlkonig.” Eichendorff and
Brentano became acquainted
in Heidelberg and then in Berlin they
were intimate. There
is every reason to believe that Eichendorff
knew Bretano’s “RheinmAerchen”
in manuscript form. For the relation
of the two, see the Kosch
edition of Eichendorff’s
works. Briefe and TagebUecher,
Vols. XI-XIII.
[86] Niklas Vogt included, to be sure, in his Jugendphantasien
Ueher
die Sagen des Rheins (ca.
1811) an amplified
recapitulation in prose of
Brentano’s ballad. Schreiber knew this
work, for in his Handbuch
there is a bibliography of no
fewer than ten pages of “Schriften,
welche auf die Rheingegend
Bezug haben.” So
far as one can determine such a matter from mere
titles, the only one of these
that could have helped him in the
composition of his Lorelei-saga
is: Rheinische Geschichten und
Sagen, von Niklas Vogt.
Frankfurt am Main, 1817, 6 BAende.
[87] Eduard Thorn says (p. 89): “Man darf
annehmen, dass Heine die
Ballade Brentano’s kennen
gelernt hat, dass er aus ihr den Namen
entlehnte, wobei ihm Eichendorff
die Fassung ‘Lorelei’ lieferte,
und das ihm erst Loebens Auffassung
der Sage zur Gestaltung
verhelfen hat.”
It sounds like a case of ceterum censeo,
but Thorn’s argument
as to Brentano and Heine is so thin that this
statement too can be looked
upon only as a weakly supported
hypothesis.
[88] Cf. Raimund Pissin’s monograph, pp. 73-74.
[89] There are about two thousand words in Schreiber’s
saga, and about
five thousand in Loeben’s.
[90] It must be remembered that Schreiber’s
manuals are written in an
attractive style: his
purpose was not simply to instruct, but to
entertain. And it was
not simply the legends of the Rhine and its
tributaries, but those of
the whole of Western Germany that he
wrote up with this end in
view.
[91] Some minor details that Loeben, or Heine, had
he known the
MAerchen in 1823, could
have used are pointed out in Wilhelm
Hertz’s article, pp.
220-21.
[92] Cf. GOerres’ edition, pp. 94-108.
[93] Cf. ibid., pp. 128-40, and 228-44.
It is in this
MAerchen (p. 231) that
Herzeleid sings Goethe’s “Wer nie
sein Brod in ThrAenon asz.”
[94] Cf. GOerres’ edition, pp. 247-57.
There are a number of details in
this MAerchen that
remind strongly of Fouque’s Undine,
which Brentano knew.
[95] In his Die MAerchen Clemens Brentanos,
KOeln, 1895,
H. Cardauns gives an admirable
study of Brentano’s MAerchen,
covering the entire ground
concerning the question whether
Brentano’s ballad was
original and pointing out the sources and
the value of his, RheinmAerchen.
Cardauns comes to the only
conclusion that can be reached:
Brentano located his ballad in a
region replete with legends,
but there is no positive evidence
that he did not wholly invent
his own ballad. The story that
Hermann Bender tells about
having found an old MS dating back to
the year 1650 and containing
[96] P. 224.
[97] In Geibel’s Gesammelte Werke, VI.
106-74, Geibel wrote the
libretto for Felix Mendelssohn
in 1846. Mendelssohn died before
finishing it; Max Bruch completed
the opera independently in
1863. It has also been
set to music by two obscure composers. Karl
Goedeke gives a very unsatisfactory
discussion of the matter in
Emanuel Geibel, Stuttgart,
1860. pp. 307 ff.
[98] Hermann Seeliger says (p. 73): “Zu
den Bearbeitungen, die sich an
die Ballade von Brentano anlehnen,
gehOeren die Dichtungen von
Geibel, Mohr, Roquette, Hillemacher,
Fiebach und Sommer.” Seeliger
wrote his study for musicians,
and his statement may be correct.
[99] Aside from the treatises on the Lorelei already
mentioned, there
are the following: Zu
Heines Balladen und Romanzen, by
Oskar Netoliczka, Kronstadt,
1891; this study does not treat the
Lorelei; Die Lurleisage,
by F. Rehorn, Frankfurt am Main,
1891; Sagen und Geschichten
des Rheinlandes, by Karl Geib,
Mannheim, 1836; the work is
naturally long since superseded;
KOelnische Zeitung
of July 12, 1867, by H. Grieben;
KOelnische Zeitung
of 1855, by H. DUentzer; H. Heine, ein
Vortrag, by H. Sintenis,
pp. 21-26; Die Lorelei: Die
Loreleidichtungen mit besonderer
RUecksicht auf die Ballade von
Heinr. Heine, by
C. L. Leimbach, WolfenbUettel, 1879. The last
six of these works were not
accessible, but, since they are quoted
by the accessible studies,
it seems that they offer nothing
new. (The writer has since
secured Leimbach’s treatise of 50 small
pages. It offers nothing
new.)
[100] Adolf Seybert in his Die Loreleisage,
Wiesbaden, 1863 and
1872 (Programm), contends
that Frau Holla and the Lorelei are
related. Fritz Strich
in his Die Mythologie in der deutschen
Literatur von Klopstock bis
Wagner, Halle, 1910, says
(pp. 307-9) that Brentano’s
ballad is “eine mythologische
Erfindung Brentanos, zu der
ihn der echoreiche Felsen dieses
Namens bei Bacharach anregte.”
He also says: “Ob nicht Heines Lied
auf Brentanos Phantasie zurUeckgewirkt
haben mag?” The reference is
to Brentano’s MAerchen.
Strich’s book contains a detailed
account of the use of mythology
in Heine, Loeben, and Brentano.
[101] Hermann Seeliger says (p. 8): “Ich
meine, die ganze romantische
Schule hAette ohne den Stoff
vom Volke zu bekommen, ein Gedicht von
solcher SchOenheit wie das
von Brentano weder gemacht noch machen
kOennen.” Vis-a-vis
such a statement, sociability ceases.