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Sterne’s period of literary activity falls in the sixties, the very heyday of British supremacy in Germany. The fame of Richardson was hardly dimmed, though Musäus ridiculed his extravagances in “Grandison der Zweite” at the beginning of the decade. In 1762-66 Wieland’s Shakespeare translation appeared, and his original works of the period, “Agathon,” begun in 1761, and “Don Silvio von Rosalva,” published in 1764, betray the influence of both Richardson and Fielding. Ebert (1760 ) revised and republished his translation of Young’s “Night Thoughts,” which had attained popularity in the previous decade. Goldsmith’s “Vicar of Wakefield” aroused admiration and enthusiasm. To this time too belongs Ossian’s mighty voice. As early as 1762 the first bardic translations appeared, and Denis’s work came out in 1768. Percy’s “Reliques,” published in England in 1765, were extensively read and cited, a
[Footnote 37: Wieland’s own genuine appreciation of Sterne and understanding of his characteristics is indicated incidentally in a review of a Swedish book in the Teutscher Merkur, 1782, II, p.
Bode’s work was unfortunately not free from errors in spite of its general excellence, yet it brought the book within reach of those who were unable to read it in English, and preserved, in general with fidelity, the spirit of the original. The reviews were prodigal of praise. Wieland’s expressions of admiration were full-voiced and extensive.
By means of the Greek slaves, the Greek language and literature reached even the lower ranks, to a certain extent. “The comedies indicate that the humblest classes were familiar with a sort of Latin, which could no more be understood without a knowledge of Greek, than Wieland’s German without a knowledge of French.” Greek was undoubtedly spoken by the higher classes, as French is spoken in all the courts of Europe.
Timme’s book was sufficiently popular to demand a second edition, but it never received the critical examination its merits deserved. Wieland’s Teutscher Merkur and the Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften ignore it completely. The Gothaische Gelehrte Zeitungen announces the book in its issue of August 2, 1780, but the book itself is not reviewed in its columns. The Jenaische Zeitungen von gelehrten Sachen accords it a colorless and unappreciative review in which Timme is reproached for lack of order in his work (a
In these works, but in different measure in each, Behmer finds Sterne copied stylistically, in the constant conversations about the worth of the book, the comparative value of the different chapters and the difficulty of managing the material, in the fashion of inconsequence in unexplained beginnings and abrupt endings, in the heaping up of words of similar meaning, or similar ending, and in the frequent digressions. Sterne also is held responsible for the manner of introducing the immorally suggestive, for the introduction of learned quotations and references to authorities, for the sport made of the learned professions and the satire upon all kinds of pedantry and overwrought enthusiasm. Though the direct, demonstrable influence of Sterne upon Wieland’s literary activity dies out gradually and naturally, with the growth of his own genius, his admiration for the English favorite abides with him, passing on into succeeding periods of his development, as his former enthusiasm for Richardson failed to do. More than twenty years later, when more sober days had stilled the first unbridled outburst of sentimentalism, Wieland speaks yet of Sterne in terms of unaltered devotion: in an article published in the Merkur, Sterne is called among all authors the one “from whom I would last part,” and the subject of the article itself is an indication of his concern for the fate of Yorick among his fellow-countrymen. It is in the form of an epistle to Herr .
After a passage in which the rhymester enlarges upon the probability of distorted judgment, he closes with these lines: “Dire Fate! but for all that no worse, You shall be WIELAND’S Hobby-Horse, So to HIS candid Name, unbrib’d These meditations be inscrib’d.”
Dr. Carl Behmer, who has devoted an entire monograph to the study of Wieland’s connection with Sterne, is of the opinion, and his proofs seem conclusive, that Wieland did not know Shandy before the autumn of 1767, that is, only a few months before the publication of the Journey. But his enthusiasm was immediate. The first evidence of acquaintance with Sterne, a
This was at the time of Wieland’s early enthusiasm, when he was probably contemplating, if not actually engaged upon a translation of Tristram Shandy. “Thy fate of yore” in the second line is evidently a poetaster’s acceptation of an obvious rhyme and does not set Yorick’s German experience appreciably into the past. The translator supplies frequent footnotes explaining the allusions to things specifically English. He makes occasional comparison with German conditions, always with the claim that Germany is better off, and needs no such satire. The Hallische Neue Gelehrte Zeitungen for June 1, 1769, devotes a review of considerable length to this translation; in it the reviewer asserts that one would have recognized the father of this creation even if Yorick’s name had not stood on its forehead; that it closely resembles its fellows even if one must place it a degree below the Journey. The Allgemeine Deutsche Bibliothek throws no direct suspicion on the authenticity, but with customary insight and sanity of criticism finds in this early work “a
In 1773, when it became noised abroad that Bode, the successful and honored translator of the Sentimental Journey, was at work upon a German rendering of Shandy, Lange once more forced his wares upon the market, this time publishing the Zückert translation with the use of Wieland’s then influential name on the title page, “Auf Anrathen des Hrn.
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