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Behmer analyzes from this standpoint the following works: “Beiträge zur geheimen Geschichte des menschlichen Verstandes und Herzens;” “Sokrates Mainomenos oder die Dialogen des Diogenes von Sinope;” “Der neue Amadis;” “Der goldene Spiegel;” “Geschichte des Philosophen Danischmende;” “Gedanken über eine alte Aufschrift;” “Geschichte der Abderiten.”
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
A few words of comment upon Behmer’s work will be in place. He accepts as genuine the two added volumes of the Sentimental Journey and the Koran, though he admits that the former were published by a friend, not “without additions of his own,” and he uses these volumes directly at least in one instance in establishing his parallels, the rescue of the naked woman from the fire in the third volume of the Journey, and the similar rescue from the waters in the “Nachlass des Diogenes.” That Sterne had any connection with these volumes is improbable, and the Koran is surely a pure fabrication. Behmer seeks in a few words to deny the reproach cast upon Sterne that he had no understanding of the beauties of nature, but Behmer is certainly claiming too much when he speaks of the “Farbenprächtige Schilderungen der ihm ungewohnten sonnenverklärten Landschaft,” which Sterne gives us “repeatedly” in the Sentimental Journey, and he finds his most secure evidence for Yorick’s “genuine and pure” feeling for nature in the oft-quoted passage beginning, “I
[Footnote 9: Behmer (L. Sterne und C. M. Wieland, p.
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 .
But several facts, which Behmer does not note, remarks of his own and of his contemporaries, point to more than an undefined general purpose on his part; it is not improbable that considerable work was done.
[Footnote 54: Behmer, “Laurence Sterne und C.
Behmer finds no demonstrable evidence of Sterne’s influence in Wieland’s work prior to two poems of the year 1768, “Endymions Traum” and “Chloe;” but in the works of the years immediately following there is abundant evidence both in style and in subject matter, in the fund of allusion and illustration, to establish the author’s indebtedness to Sterne.
His reason for abandoning the idea, and the amount of work done, the length of time he spent upon the project, cannot be determined from his correspondence and must, as Behmer implies, be left in doubt.
[Footnote 28: “Laurence Sterne und C. M. Wieland, von Karl August Behmer, Forschungen zur neueren Litteraturgeschichte IX. München, 1899. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung fremder Einflüsse auf Wieland’s Dichtung.” To this reference has been made. There is also another briefer study of this connection: a
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