JOHANN LUDWIG TIECK

(1773-1853)

MONG the poets of the romantic movement in German literature,- idealists who sought the blue flower, and reviving the native literary past, found their inspiration in mediæval mysticism or Catholicism, or in the airy fields of pure imagination, -Ludwig Tieck occupies an honorable place. Indeed, he is often referred to as the father of the older romanticism in Germany,- that of the first quarter of our century. Certainly he was foremost in developing and applying principles earlier laid down by Goethe and Schiller. His many-sided literary and intellectual activity was remarkable. As poet, story-teller, translator, critic, essayist, and editor, he did work all of which was able and interesting, and some of it of rare and high merit. Tieck was a scholar with a touch of genius; a poet, as Carlyle said of him long ago, "born as well as made." He belonged in the circle of which Novalis, Brentano, and the brothers Schlegel were other members, and his position in it is not far from the centre.

Johann Ludwig Tieck was the son of a

rope-maker, and was born at Berlin, May JOHANN LUDWIG TIECK 31st, 1773. He attended a good gymnasium,

and prosecuted his studies further in Halle, Göttingen, and Erlangen; giving special attention to history, philology, and literature, ancient and modern. He then returned to Berlin, and began his career as a writer, first publishing tales and romances which showed the influence of the Storm and Stress atmosphere: 'Peter Lebrecht' (1795) and 'William Lovell (1795-6) are novels typical of this phase, which does not stand for Tieck's most representative work. This found its expression in his use of the mediæval legends and fairy tales. In this genre he was pre-eminently successful: however light and fantastic, the conception is, poetical; and delicate fancy mingles with playful irony to make his prose stories delightful reading. A wonder-tale like 'The Fair-haired Eckbert' is a little masterpiece. The unfinished 'Sternbald's Travels,' the Blue Beard,' and the 'Puss in Boots,' are

further well-known examples of his adaptation or rehabilitation of popular traditions. The old märchen becomes another but a very beautiful thing in his hands. In the Phantasus' (1812-17) are gathered tales, sketches, and plays, mostly of this sort, but with less of mysticism and more of satiric intent. Tieck's revival of folk traditions pleased the public, while it revealed his own romantic tendencies; he was hailed as a leader of that movement, and with over-generous laudation, compared favorably with Goethe himself.

Tieck resided in Jena from 1799 to 1800, on terms of friendship with the brothers Schlegel, Novalis, Brentano, Fichte, and Schelling, making the acquaintance too of the literary gods, Goethe and Schiller. In 1801, in company with Frederick von Schlegel, he moved to Dresden; but the next year settled on a friend's estate near Frankforton-the-Oder. He made many journeys to Italy, as he did to various German cities, in order to consult the libraries. Poetry, translation, fiction, criticism, and drama, came from him rapidly. His services as a translator were conspicuous. He made a masterly rendering of 'Don Quixote' in 1799-1801, translated the 'Minnesongs' in 1803, and in his Old English Theatre' in 1811 gave a German version of the plays doubtfully ascribed to Shakespeare, who was a lifelong object of Tieck's devoted study. In the same year appeared the SchlegelTieck translation of the dramas of the greatest of English poets, Tieck editing and completing the mighty work done by August von Schlegel; the version remains the standard one in that tongue, and puts all German lovers of Shakespeare under a lasting obligation to the collaborating authors. It is now known, however, that much of the actual translating of the dramas not done by Schlegel was the work of Tieck's gifted daughter, Dorothea. But his name will always be associated with this great Shakespeare version.

Tieck left his country residence in 1819, settling in Dresden; where he became a director of the court theatre, and drew around him a group of admirers who swore by his views, and were antagonized by a counter party. His literary activity during the Dresden sojourn was constant and fruitful, many of his strongest novels and most alluring tales being composed between the date of his arrival and his removal to Berlin in 1841, on the invitation of King William IV. Such productions as The Pictures,' The Betrothal,' 'The Travelers,' 'Luck Brings Brains,' 'The Old Book,' The Scarecrow,' 'The Revolt in the Cevennes,' 'Witch's Sabbath,' and 'Vittoria Accorombona,' are prominent among them; and several volumes of critical studies and a sort of biography of Shakespeare swell the list. Tieck's collected poems appeared in 1821: they contain many charming lyrics, but as a rule they are reflective and cultivated rather than creative. He was in his prose fairy tales in the broad sense a poet; that is, a

writer of imaginative literature (what the Germans call dichter), and found in those tales his truest medium. The faults of Tieck's idyls and fantasies are those of construction: he lacked condensation and the sense of plastic form. His work as editor, in rehabilitating the literary past, or in introducing comparatively unknown figures, continued to be vigorous,—one of his main services being the editing of the complete works of the great dramatist Heinrich von Kleist. Tieck was one of the most fecund and polydextrous writers of his time.

He lost his wife (who was the child of a clergyman) in 1837, his daughter Dorothea in 1840; and for the remaining dozen years lived in dignified retirement, confined much through illness but surrounded with comforts and honors. It was during his residence in Dresden that Tieck's fine dramatic powers as a reader were revealed to select circles: when he went on a visit to Weimar, Goethe listened enchanted to his recitations. Tieck's death occurred at Berlin on April 28th, 1853. A twenty-volume edition of his works was published there, 1828-46: a valuable and reliable biography is that by Köpke (1855).

Thomas Carlyle in 1827 made Tieck and other German literary leaders known to the English public by publishing his German Romance.' The poet's sister, Sophie von Knorring, was a literary woman of repute; and his brother, Christian Frederic, a distinguished sculptor.

Ludwig Tieck's was a complex nature, that felt keenly, and in turn affected, the thought tendencies of his time. Owing to this sensitiveness to the varied culture to which he subjected himself, he differed much at different points in his development: now he is rationalistic and skeptical, now sentimental and rhapsodical. He played a considerable rôle in that most interesting romantic revival in German, which was only a part of the larger European return to romanticism in reaction from the classicism, narrow formality, and prosing, of the eighteenth century. His most lasting contribution to the literature of the fatherland will be found in his noble translations, and the fantasies he wove out of the raw stuff of the old traditions and folk legends.

IN

THE FAIR-HAIRED ECKBERT

NA district of the Harz dwelt a knight, whose common designation in that quarter was the Fair-haired Eckbert. He was about forty years of age, scarcely of middle stature; and short, light-colored locks lay close and sleek round his pale and

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sunken countenance. He led a retired life, had never interfered in the feuds of his neighbors; indeed, beyond the outer wall of his castle he was seldom to be seen. His wife loved solitude as much as he; both seemed heartily attached to one another; only now and then they would lament that Heaven had not blessed their marriage with children.

Few came to visit Eckbert; and when guests did happen to be with him, their presence made but little alteration in his customary way of life: Temperance abode in his household, and Frugality herself appeared to be the mistress of the entertainment. On these occasions, Eckbert was always cheerful and lively; but when he was alone, you might observe in him a certain mild reserve-a still, retiring melancholy.

His most frequent guest was Philip Walther; a man to whom he had attached himself, from having found in him a way of thinking like his own. Walther's residence was in Franconia; but he would often stay for half a year in Eckbert's neighborhood, gathering plants and minerals and then sorting and arranging them. He lived on a small independency, and was connected with no one. Eckbert frequently attended him in his sequestered walks; year after year, a closer friendship grew betwixt them.

It was late in the autumn, when Eckbert, one cloudy evening, was sitting with his friend and his wife Bertha, by the parlor fire. The flame cast a red glimmer through the room, and sported on the ceiling; the night looked sullenly in through the windows, and the trees without rustled in wet coldness. Walther complained of the long road he had to travel; and Eckbert proposed to him to stay where he was, to while away half of the night in friendly talk, and then to take a bed in the house till morning. Walther agreed, and the whole was speedily arranged; by-and-by wine and supper were brought in; fresh wood was laid upon the fire; the talk grew livelier and more confidential.

servants gone, Eckbert "Now you must let my

The cloth being removed, and the took his friend's hand, and said to him: wife tell you the history of her youth; it is curious enough, and you should know it."-"With all my heart," said Walther; and the party again drew round the hearth.

It was now midnight; the moon looked fitfully through the breaks of the driving clouds. "You must not reckon me a

babbler," began the lady. "My husband says you have so generous a mind that it is not right in us to hide aught from you. Only do not take my narrative for a fable, however strangely it may sound.

"I was born in a little village; my father was a poor herdsman. Our circumstances were not of the best: often we knew not where to find our daily bread. But what grieved me more than this were the quarrels which my father and mother often had about their poverty, and the bitter reproaches they cast on one another. Of myself too I heard nothing said but ill: they were forever telling me I was a silly, stupid child, that I could not do the simplest turn of work; and in truth I was extremely inexpert and helpless: I let things fall, I neither learned to sew nor spin, I could be of no use to my parents; only their straits I understood too well. Often I would sit in a corner and fill my little heart with dreams how I would help them if I should all at once grow rich; how I would overflow them with silver and gold, and feast myself on their amazement; and then spirits came hovering up, and showed me buried treasures, or gave me little pebbles which changed into precious stones. In short, the strangest fancies occupied me; and when I had to rise and help with anything, my inexpertness was still greater, as my head was giddy with these motley visions.

"My father in particular was always very cross to me: he scolded me for being such a burden to the house; indeed he often used me rather cruelly, and it was very seldom that I got a friendly word from him. In this way I had struggled on to near the end of my eighth year; and now it was seriously fixed that I should begin to do or learn something. My father still maintained that it was nothing but caprice in me, or a lazy wish to pass my days in idleness; accordingly he set upon me with furious threats, and as these made no improvement, he one day gave me a most cruel chastisement, and added that the same should be repeated day after day, since I was nothing but a useless sluggard.

"That whole night I wept abundantly: I felt myself so utterly forsaken; I had such a sympathy with myself that I even longed to die. I dreaded the break of day; I knew not on earth what I was to do or try. I wished from my very heart to be clever, and could not understand how I should be worse than the other children of the place. I was on the border of despair.