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[Footnote 69: See Auserlesene Bibliothek der neuesten deutschen Litteratur, VII, p.
England’s leadership in narrative fiction, the superiority of the English novel, especially the humorous novel, which was tacitly acknowledged by these successive periods of imitation, when not actually declared by the acclaim of the critic and the preference of the reading public, has been attributed quite generally to the freedom of life in England and the comparative thraldom in Germany. Gervinus enlarges upon this point, the possibility in Britain of individual development in character and in action as compared with the constraint obtaining in Germany, where originality, banished from life, was permissible only in opinion. His ideas are substantially identical with those expressed many years before in an article in the Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften entitled “Ueber die Laune.” Lichtenberg in his brief essay, “Ueber den deutschen Roman,” is undoubtedly more than half serious in his arraignment of the German novel and his acknowledgment of the English novelist’s advantage: the trend of this satirical skit coincides with the opinion above outlined, the points he makes being characteristic of his own humorous bent. That the English sleep in separate apartments, with big chimneys in their bedchambers, that they have comfortable post-chaises with seats facing one another, where all sorts of things may happen, and merry inns for the accommodation of the traveler, these features of British life are represented as affording a grateful material to the novelist, compared with which German life offers no corresponding opportunity. Humor, as a characteristic element of the English novel, has been felt to be peculiarly dependent upon the fashion of life in Britain. Blankenburg, another eighteenth-century student of German literary conditions, in his treatise on the novel , has similar theories concerning the sterility of German life as compared with English, especially in the production of humorous characters . He asserts theoretically that humor (Laune) should never be employed in a novel of German life, because “Germany’s political institutions and laws, and our nice Frenchified customs would not permit this humor.” “On the one side,” he goes on to say, “is Gothic formality; on the other, frivolity.” Later in the volume (p.
The first two parts were reviewed in the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek. The length of the review is testimony to the interest in the book, and the tone of the article, though frankly unfavorable, is not so emphatically censorious as the one first noted. It is observed that Schummel has attempted the impossible, the adoption of another’s “Laune,” and hence his failure.
The same year Benzler issued a similar revision of the Sentimental Journey, printing again on the title page “newly translated into German.” The Neue Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek greets this attempt with a similar tart review, containing parallel quotations as before, proving Benzler’s inconsiderate presumption.
Naturally Sterne’s letters found readers in Germany, the Yorick-Eliza correspondence being especially calculated to awaken response. The English edition of the “Letters from Yorick to Eliza” was reviewed in the Neue Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften, with a hint that the warmth of the letters might easily lead to a suspicion of unseemly relationship, but the reviewer contends that virtue and rectitude are preserved in the midst of such extraordinary tenderness, so that one may interpret it as a Platonic rather than a sensual affection. Yet this review cannot be designated as distinctive of German opinion, for it contains no opinion not directly to be derived from the editor’s foreword, and that alone; indeed, the wording suggests decidedly that source. The Gothaische Gelehrte Zeitung for April 15, 1775, reviews the same English edition, but the notice consists of an introductory statement of Eliza’s identity and translation of parts of three letters, the “Lord Bathurst letter,” the letter involving the criticism of Eliza’s portraits, and the last letter to Eliza. The translation is very weak, abounding in elementary errors; for example, “She has got your picture and likes it” becomes “Sie hat Ihr Bildniss gemacht, es ist ähnlich,” and “I
The idea of the book is to present “merry observations” for every day in the year. With the end of the fourth volume the author has reached March 17, and, according to the Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek, the sixth volume includes May 22. The present writer was unable to examine the last volume to discover whether the year was rounded out in this way.
[Footnote 21: XXVIII, 1, pp. 199 ff. Reviewed also in Auserlesene Bibliothek der neusten deutschen Litteratur, Lemgo, VII, p.
In 1767, the year before the publication of the Sentimental Journey, we find three notices of Tristram Shandy. In the Deutsche Bibliothek der schönen Wissenschaften is a very brief but, in the main, commendatory review of the Zückert translation, coupled with the statement that the last parts are not by Sterne, but with the claim that the humor of the original is fairly well maintained. The review is signed “Dtsh.” Another Halle periodical, the Hallische Neue Gelehrte Zeitungen, in the issue for August 10, 1767 reviews the same volumes with a much more decided acknowledgment of merit. It is claimed that the difference is not noticeable, and that the ninth part is almost more droll than all the others, an opinion which is noteworthy testimony to its originator’s utter lack of comprehension of the whole work and of the inanity of this spurious last volume. The statement by both of these papers that the last three volumes, parts VII, VIII and IX, of the Zückert translation, rest on spurious English originals, is, of course, false as far as VII and VIII are concerned, and is true only of
Probably the first German book to bear the name Yorick in its title was a short satirical sketch entitled, “Yorick und die Bibliothek der elenden Scribenten, an Hrn. ” 1768,
The Allgemeine deutsche Bibliothek reviews both the Bode and Mittelstedt renderings, together with Bode’s translation of Stevenson’s continuation, in the second volume of the Anhang to Volumes I-XII. The critique of Bode’s work defines, largely in the words of the book itself, the peculiar purpose and method of the Journey, and comments briefly but with frank enthusiasm on the various touching incidents of the narrative: “Nur ein von der Natur verwahrloseter bleibt dabei kalt und gleichgültig,” remarks the reviewer. The conception of Yorick’s personal character, which prevailed in Germany, obtained by a process of elimination and misunderstanding, is represented by this critic when he records without modifying his statement: “Various times Yorick shows himself as the most genuine foe of self-seeking, of immoral double entendre, and particularly of assumed seriousness, and he scourges them emphatically.” The review of the third and fourth parts contains a similar and perhaps even more significant passage illustrating the view of Yorick’s character held by those who did not know him and had the privilege of admiring him only in his writings and at a safe distance. “Yorick,” he says, “although he sometimes brings an event, so to speak, to the brink of an indecorous issue, manages to turn it at once with the greatest delicacy to a decorous termination. Or he leaves it incomplete under such circumstances that the reader is impressed by the rare delicacy of mind of the author, and can never suspect that such a man, who never allows a double entendre to enter his mind without a blush, has entertained an indecent idea.” This view is derived from a somewhat short-sighted reading of the Sentimental Journey: the obvious Sterne of Tristram Shandy, and the more insidiously concealed creator of the Journey could hardly be characterized discriminatingly by such a statement. Sterne’s cleverness consists not in suggesting his own innocence of imagination, but in the skill with which he assures his reader that he is master of the situation, and that no possible interpretation of the passage has escaped his intelligence. To the Mittelstedt translation is accorded in this review the distinction of being, in the rendering of certain passages, more correct than Bode’s. A
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