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Karl Gutzkow's life-work was a struggle for freedom and truth. We recognize in the web of his serious argument familiarity with the best thought of the poets, theologians, and philosophers of his own day and of the eighteenth century.
In Gutzkow's Sword and Queue an entertaining situation at the court of Frederick William I. of Prussia is developed by a very free use of the facts of history, after the manner of the comedy of Scribe. With rare skill the different characters of the play are sketched and shown upon a background, which corresponds closely enough to historic fact to produce the illusion of reality.
It would take us too far afield to trace in detail the nature and sources of Gutzkow's writings, by which he accomplished this important result. A few suggestions, together with a reminder of his great indebtedness to the simultaneous efforts of other Young Germans, notably those of Laube and Wienbarg, must suffice.
Reimarus, from Saint Simonism, and from the sentimental tragedy of Charlotte Stieglitz in real life; Menzel's revengeful denunciation of this colorless and tedious novel, as an "outrageous attack upon ethics and the Christian religion"; the resulting verdict of the Mannheim municipal court, punishing Gutzkow by one month's imprisonment, with no allowance for a still longer detention during his trial; the official proscription of all "present and future writings" by Gutzkow, Wienbarg, Laube, Mundt, and Heine; Gutzkow's continued energetic championship of the new literary movement and editorial direction of the Frankfurt Telegraph, from 1835 to 1837, under the very eyes of the Confederate Council; his removal in 1837 to Hamburg and his gradual transformation there from a short story writer and journalist into a successful dramatist; his series of eleven plays, produced within the space of fifteen years, from 1839 to 1854; the success of his tragedy, Uriel Acosta, in 1846, and the resulting appointment of the author in the same year as playwright and critic at the Royal Theatre in Dresden; his temperate participation in the popular movement of 1848 and consequent loss of the Dresden position; the death of his wife, Amalia, in the same-year after an estrangement of seven years, due to his own infatuation for Therese von Bacharacht; his happy marriage in 1849 with Bertha Meidinger, a cousin of his first wife; the publication in 1850-51 of his first great novel of contemporary German life, entitled, Spiritual Knighthood; his continuous editorial work upon the journal, Fireside Conversations, from 1849 until the appearance of his other great contemporary novel, The Magician of Rome, 1858-61; his attack of insanity under the strain of ill health in 1865 and unsuccessful attempt at suicide; and, finally, his rapidly declining health and frequent change of residence from Berlin to Italy, thence to Heidelberg, and from there to Sachsenhausen, near Frankfurt-on-the-Main, and his tragic death there, either intentional or accidental, in the night of December fifteenth, 1878, when under the influence of chloral he upset the candle, by the light of which he had been reading, and perished in the stifling fumes of the burning room.
Among the external facts of Gutzkow's life, worth remembering in this connection, are the following: His birth on the seventeenth of March, 1811, as the son of humble parents; his precocious development in school and at the University of Berlin; his deep interest in the revolution of 1830 in Paris; his student experiments in journalism and the resulting association with the narrow-minded patriot, Wolfgang Menzel; his doctorate in Jena and subsequent study of books and men in Heidelberg, Munich, Leipzig, Berlin, and Hamburg; his association with Heine, Laube, Mundt, and Wienbarg and his journey with Laube through Austria and Italy in 1533; his breach with Menzel at the instance of Laube in the same year; his publication in 1835 of the crude sketch of an emancipation novel, Wally the Skeptic, compounded of suggestions from Lessing's Dr.
I do not trouble myself about these matters, and look forward with perfect peace of mind to the solution of these somewhat unimportant questions. Gutzkow's call to Weymar, which the papers announced several times, is not in itself unlikely, but will probably be delayed a little, as nothing definite has, as yet, been done. Farewell, and set to work at your "Valkyrie."
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