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Updated: May 17, 2025
It may be readily imagined that Heine, with so large a share of the Gallic element as he has in his composition, was soon at his ease in Parisian society, and the years here were bright with intellectual activity and social enjoyment. “His wit,” wrote August Lewald, “is a perpetual gushing fountain; he throws off the most delicious descriptions with amazing facility, and sketches the most comic characters in conversations.” Such a man could not be neglected in Paris, and Heine was sought on all sides—as a guest in distinguished salons, as a possible proselyte in the circle of the Saint Simonians. His literary productiveness seems to have been furthered by his congenial life, which, however, was soon to some extent embittered by the sense of exile; for since 1835 both his works and his person have been the object of denunciation by the German governments. Between 1833 and 1845 appeared the four volumes of the “Salon,” “Die Romantische Schule” (both written, in the first instance, in French), the book on Börne, “Atta Troll,” a romantic poem, “Deutschland,” an exquisitely humorous poem, describing his last visit to Germany, and containing some grand passages of serious writing; and the “Neue Gedichte,” a collection of lyrical poems. Among the most interesting of his prose works are the second volume of the “Salon,” which contains a survey of religion and philosophy in Germany, and the “Romantische Schule,” a delightful introduction to that phase of German literature known as the Romantic school. The book on Börne, which appeared in 1840, two years after the death of that writer, excited great indignation in Germany, as a wreaking of vengeance on the dead, an insult to the memory of a man who had worked and suffered in the cause of freedom—a cause which was Heine’s own. Börne, we may observe parenthetically for the information of those who are not familiar with recent German literature, was a remarkable political writer of the ultra-liberal party in Germany, who resided in Paris at the same time with Heine: a man of stern, uncompromising partisanship and bitter humor. Without justifying Heine’s production of this book, we see excuses for him which should temper the condemnation passed on it. There was a radical opposition of nature between him and Börne; to use his own distinction, Heine is a Hellene—sensuous, realistic, exquisitely alive to the beautiful; while Börne was a Nazarene—ascetic, spiritualistic, despising the pure artist as destitute of earnestness. Heine has too keen a perception of practical absurdities and damaging exaggerations ever to become a thoroughgoing partisan; and with a love of freedom, a faith in the ultimate triumph of democratic principles, of which we see no just reason to doubt the genuineness and consistency, he has been unable to satisfy more zealous and one-sided liberals by giving his adhesion to their views and measures, or by adopting a denunciatory tone against those in the opposite ranks. Börne could not forgive what he regarded as Heine’s epicurean indifference and artistic dalliance, and he at length gave vent to his antipathy in savage attacks on him through the press, accusing him of utterly lacking character and principle, and even of writing under the influence of venal motives. To these attacks Heine remained absolutely mute—from contempt according to his own account; but the retort, which he resolutely refrained from making during Börne’s life, comes in this volume published after his death with the concentrated force of long-gathering thunder. The utterly inexcusable part of the book is the caricature of Börne’s friend, Madame Wohl, and the scurrilous insinuations concerning Börne’s domestic life. It is said, we know not with how much truth, that Heine had to answer for these in a duel with Madame Wohl’s husband, and that, after receiving a serious wound, he promised to withdraw the offensive matter from a future edition. That edition, however, has not been called for. Whatever else we may think of the book, it is impossible to deny its transcendent talent—the dramatic vigor with which Börne is made present to us, the critical acumen with which he is characterized, and the wonderful play of wit, pathos, and thought which runs through the whole. But we will let Heine speak for himself, and first we will give part of his graphic description of the way in which Börne’s mind and manners grated on his taste: “To the disgust which, in intercourse with Börne, I was in danger of feeling toward those who surrounded him, was added the annoyance I felt from his perpetual talk about politics. Nothing but political argument, and again political argument, even at table, where he managed to hunt me out. At dinner, when I so gladly forget all the vexations of the world, he spoiled the best dishes for me by his patriotic gall, which he poured as a bitter sauce over everything. Calf’s feet,
Professor Kennedy's acid voice broke in "So you're still in the 1830 Romantische Schule period, are you, Reinhardt?" He went on to Mrs. Marshall-Smith: "But there is something in that sort of talk.
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 für Heine."
Not indeed that it was with Werther the movement ended: it was continued in Byron: it was perhaps the most important element in what the Germans call specifically their Romantische Schule, and in the work of the French Romantic artists from Chateaubriand to Alfred de Musset.
It was published in 1810, to introduce to French readers a new school of writers the romantic school, from beyond the Rhine; and it was followed, twenty-three years later, by Heine's Romantische Schule, as at once a supplement and a correction.
Ratsch, who had also, however, listened with attention; 'romantische Musik! That's all the fashion nowadays. Only, why not play correctly? Eh? Put your finger on two notes at once what's that for? Eh? To be sure, all we care for is to go quickly, quickly! Turns it out hotter, eh? Hot pancakes! he bawled like a street seller. Susanna turned slightly towards Mr. Ratsch.
The higher law everywhere suffers disturbances, from the resistance of the lower forces, which cannot be entirely conquered. It is Schleiermacher's determinism which leads him, in view of the parallelism of the two legislations, to overlook their essential distinction. Cf. also Dilthey's briefer account in the Allgemeine deutsche Biographie, and Haym's Romantische Schule, 1870.
In the second volume of the “Salon,” and in the “Romantische Schule,” written in 1834 and ’35, the doctrine of Pantheism is dwelt on with a fervor and unmixed seriousness which show that Pantheism was then an animating faith to Heine, and he attacks what he considers the false spiritualism and asceticism of Christianity as the enemy of true beauty in Art, and of social well-being.
The novel became a rare and unread book until Anselm Ruest brought out a new edition with a critical and appreciative introduction in 1906. Diel and Kreiten say "es ging fast spurlos vorüber." Heine does not mention it in his Romantische Schule, which was, however, written ten years after he had finished his "Die Lorelei."
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