Читать книгу Eminent Authors of the Nineteenth Century: Literary Portraits - Георг Брандес - Страница 14

Meanwhile, ready as I am to recognize the significance of this sharp profile as the individual characteristic of the Heyse "novelle," and its significance for the novel in general as a work of art, it is equally hard for me to allow this to pass as the decisive norm for the estimation of individual stories.

The novel is, indeed, as every work of art, an organism in which beautiful proportions, relatively independent of one another and of a totally dissimilar character, contribute to produce a combined impression. We have been dwelling upon the characterizations, and the action; style is the third element. According to my convictions, these three elements are not subordinate one to the other, but co-ordinate; and each one of them, when developed in a masterly way, affords the reader an equally perfect enjoyment.

It is very certain, as Heyse makes evident, that a one-sided development of diction leads to clever capriciousness without any scheme; whoever places too great importance on "the plot" is in danger, on the other hand, of retrograding into mere sensational literature.

"Spring Floods," by Turgenief, is a novel whose action moves on in an unsatisfactory manner—of the style, in the stricter sense of the word, I cannot judge, as I have never read the story in the original—but is this lack of much importance in such a masterwork of individual characterization? Does not the description of the Italian family, in and by itself, outweigh every imperfection in the plan of occurrences? What matters it if the reader would rather have had the end somewhat different, and cannot read it a second time, even though he may read three-quarters of the novel over and over again with unchanged enjoyment?

Blicher's "Diary of a Village Sexton" is a novel in which the action is of but little moment, and most of the characters are absolutely repellant, on account of their coarseness; but it is, nevertheless, a work of the highest artistic worth; its main strength lies in its style, in the masterly execution of the honest sexton's language, which belongs to a period of almost two hundred years past. This language is a guarantee for the cutting truth of the narrative, a truth which is not reached by the path of idealism, and which, therefore, is neither sought nor found by Heyse; I mean that truth which by the French is designated "la vérité vraie."

And cannot Heyse be attacked with his own weapons? I think he can. By the stress he lays on what the novel within the novel is, he seems to oppose alike the overestimation of style, and of ideal purport. But of all his "novellen" in verse "Der Salamander" (The Salamander) appears to me to stand the highest; of his prose works "Der letzte Centaur" (The Last Centaur) is one of my favorites. The first of these seems to me to bear off the palm on account of the diction; the last, on account of the idea.

There is no need of taking pains to seek for a "falcon" in Salamander; there is no plot in it, the characters have no development worth mentioning, and yet every reader of any susceptibility will experience such lively enjoyment under the influence of the magic of these terzettos, that it will seem to him as if this poem, in addition to its own merits, possessed also all those which it lacks. Of the epic repose, of the objective style, which is Heyse's precise ideal in the domain of the "novelle," not much will here be found. This epic repose is perhaps less adapted on the whole to the restless spirit of our time. The realization of this ideal of Heyse's has, properly speaking, only perfectly succeeded in the few prose "novellen," which do not touch upon the civilization of modern society, as in those genial pasticcios of the olden time: "Die Stickerin von Treviso" and "Geoffroy und Garcinde," where the noble, simple style of the old Italian or Provençal form of narrative is idealized, or when the materials are taken from the life of the people in Italy or Tyrol; for the people in those lands are themselves a simple piece of the Middle Ages cast in a form. Such a story as that little jewel "L' Arrabbiata," which was the foundation of Heyse's fame, actually attains its rights through its plain, rigid setting; adorned with the decorations of style, or with psychologically polished facets, it would lose its entire beauty, if not become impossible. In the same way "Die Stickerin von Treviso," which probably, next to the work just named, has reaped the greatest harvest of applause, in its touching simplicity and grandeur, is so thoroughly one with its chronicle form, that it cannot be conceived of without this. But in instances where scenes from purely modern civilization are described, the style cannot be too individual and nervous. Heyse himself cannot avoid making his aim in this respect proportionate to his materials; how feverish is the recital in the pretty invalid story in letters "Unheilbar" (Incurable.) However, it is apparently with the utmost reluctance, and without the free exercise of his will, that he permits himself to be carried away into such a passionately surging and trembling style as in "Salamander." This creation is pure style, its beauty depends wholly and entirely on the captivating charm of its metric diction, and yet throughout not a word will be found that is not to the purpose. The entire work teems with active life, every change in style is deeply felt and transparent; the struggling soul of the writer lies like an open book before the reader. The situations are insignificant and commonplace; no Bengal illumination, not even a final tableau. But these remarkable, incredibly beautiful, unnaturally easy, nervously passionate terzettos, which question and answer, jest, sing and lament, invest the theatrical, the enamored yet thoroughly composed blasé coquette, the heroine, and the passion she inspires, with such a charm that no exciting story, with crisis and pole, could be more captivating. Toward the close of the poem the glorious terzettos, which throughout have been transformed into quite a new species of metre, ring out in a manner as surprising as it is genial and bold, in the chords of a triple ritornelle, invested with all the freshness of nature. Such a poem as this will maintain its place in spite of all theories.

Upon the whole, however, it seems to me that Heyse has formed an incorrect conception of the significance of poetic style. Theoretically, he fears its independent development, and cannot tolerate any works which are "mere diction and style." Nevertheless, in such poems as "Das Feenkind" (The Fairy Child), and still more in such poems as "Frauenemancipation" (Female Emancipation), he has himself furnished productions of this kind. The first of these poems is refined and graceful, but the raillery in it is of too ample length—we do not care to eat an undue amount of whipped cream; the other, whose tendency, however, is the best, suffers from a loquacity without any salt. But a distinctly marked style is by no means the same thing as the formal virtuosoship of diction. That an artist of language like Heyse, the translator of Giusti, of the troubadours, of Italian and Spanish folk-songs, must possess this in the fullest degree, is understood as a matter of course. And yet the truly artistic style is not that formal grace which spreads uniformly over everything. Style, in the highest sense of the word, is fulfilment, a form completed from every point of view. Where the coloring of language, the phraseology, diction, and personal accent, still possess a certain abstract homogeneousness, where the author has failed to mirror the character at every essential point in all the outer forms, the drapery of language, of however light a texture it may consist, will hang stiff and dead about the personality of the speaker. The perfect modern style, on the contrary, envelops it as the flowing robe envelops the form of the Grecian orator, serving to relieve the attitude of the body and every movement. The diction of the mere virtuoso, even when "brilliant," may be traditional and trivial; genuine style is never so. With the mode of narration of Heyse's "novellen," I have not much fault to find; his dramatic diction, on the contrary, does not please me so well.

There are no doubt many who think that if Heyse's historic dramas have not gained the recognition accorded his "novellen," it is because they are invested with too little action, and too much style. If the word style, however, be understood as I have here defined it, it should certainly rather be asserted that the iambic form used was worn threadbare, and that these works have not style enough. The diction in "Elizabeth Charlotte," for example, neither sufficiently bears the coloring of the period in which the scenes are laid, nor of the persons who speak. Only compare it with the dry posthumous memoirs of the princess. The poet who, with his fabulous facility for orienting himself in every poetic form, can produce a drama as easily as he can tell a story, has taken his task almost too easily. The little tragedy "Maria Moroni," a drama which may be ranked next to his "novellen," through its plan as well as through its characterization, might worthily stand side by side with the Italian dramas of Alfred de Musset, of which it reminds us, were not its language-coloring by far too dull and cold. The dialogues of Musset not only sparkle with wit, but glow with ardor and with life. In his dramas Heyse is not personally present with his whole soul at every point. And yet this "at every point" is the style.

Inasmuch, therefore, as I have placed the highest estimate on "Salamander," of all the versified "novellen," on account of its excellence of diction, so for the sake of its idea I would give a high place to the prose narrative, "Der letzte Centaur" (The Last Centaur), although the latter is, at the same time, farthest removed from the requirements of the definition. It does not treat of an occurrence or a conflict in a defined sphere of life, nor of any especial psychologic instance, but of life itself; it permits the entire modern life to be mirrored at once within a narrow frame. A shot at the central point is so refreshing; why deny it? The peripheric character of some others of Heyse's works is to blame for their not being of greater interest. After reading through a long series of "novellen" one cannot help longing for an art form which is capable of embracing the more significant, universally current ideas and problems in poetic form.