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GERMANY'S LITERARY 
 DEBT TO FRANCE. 
 
GERMANY'S LITERARY 
 DEBT TO FRANCE. 
 
 BY 
 
 JESSIE L. JWESTON. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 DAVID NUTT 
 
 17 GRAPE STREET j EDITORIAL: 
 NEW OXFORD STREET | 6 BLOOMSBURY STREET 
 W.C. 
 
 1915 
 
PRESERVATION 
 COPY ADDED 
 
 c i liilti) 
 
Germany's Literary Debt to France. 
 
 ONE of the most remarkable, and indeed, 
 unparalleled, features in this present lament- 
 able war has been the clamorous, and insistent 
 assertion on the part of Germany of her 
 possession of a culture, of a national develop- 
 ment, at once moral, literary, and scientific, 
 so superior to that of other nations that she is 
 justified in endeavouring by force of arms to 
 impose this "culture" upon the rest of 
 Europe. 
 
 I am aware that an attempt has been made 
 (with a view to lessen the monstrous absurdity 
 of this claim) to distinguish Kultur as made, 
 and spelt, in Germany, from our usual concep- 
 tion of the term, but the Germans themselves 
 know no such distinction. I was in Germany 
 at the outbreak of the war, and when England 
 finally declared herself upon the side of France 
 and Russia it was pointed out to me what a 
 sin we, as a folk akin to the Germans, sharing 
 the same "kultur" (Wir sind zivei Kultur- 
 Volk I was reminded) the same traditions, the 
 
 398061 
 
2 GERMANY'S LITERARY 
 
 same literature (!), were committing in ranging 
 ourselves on the side of a barbarous people like 
 the Russians. 
 
 It is a proverbial saying that (t The world 
 takes you at your own valuation/' and Ger- 
 many's vociferous iterations of her culture 
 claims seem to have exercised a mesmeric effect 
 upon some minds ; there were certain English 
 professors who did not hesitate to sign a protest 
 against war with a country to which we owed 
 so deep an intellectual debt. It has probably 
 not yet dawned upon these serious, and un- 
 imaginative, gentlemen that the principle 
 enunciated was capable of another and wider 
 application. 
 
 No such protest came from French scholars ; 
 not that they are, as a body, less " cultured " 
 than their English confreres; not that they are 
 less ready to acknowledge the value of work 
 done in other lands, probably no body of men 
 is so free from a taint of false nationalism, or 
 so ready to accept good work on its own merit, 
 no matter who may be the author, but precisely 
 because, possessed of a keener critical faculty, 
 they have a j uster appreciation of the real 
 value of German research. I suspect also 
 that, being gifted with a lively sense of humour, 
 the extravagant claims of Germany have served 
 
DEBT TO FRANCE. 3 
 
 to cast a gleam of amusement athwart the 
 blackness of the War cloud. 
 
 Why, indeed, should France trouble to 
 dispute the claims of a culture based upon a 
 borrowed foundation, the materials for which 
 were a loan from her ? 
 
 It is an old story now, and what Germany 
 has contrived to forget. England, for the most 
 part, never knew, but France remembers and 
 smiles. 
 
 It was towards the latter part of the twelfth 
 century, under the influence of chivalry, an 
 institution which, as all the world knows, owes 
 its development, as it does its name, to the 
 French culture whose wide -spread and bene- 
 ficent effects the Middle Ages, at least, did 
 not disdain to admit, that Germany first 
 possessed a conscious literature. Previous to 
 that date we have only such fragments as 
 the HildeI)r<ui(k-Lied, the Walth<trinx } and 
 sundry Prayers, and Spells, such as form the 
 earliest remains of all literatures. Man at 
 first takes more interest in his relation to 
 the unseen Powers which can help, or harm, 
 him, than he does in his dealings with his 
 fellow men. Also, till the influence of chivalry 
 and conrtoiwc had created a "milieu" for the 
 enjoyment of literature, literature could not 
 
4 GERMANY'S LITERARY 
 
 exist, the demand creates the supply. But 
 in extraordinary and startling contrast to 
 the paucity of literary monuments previous to 
 this period, is the number and high quality of 
 the works, the composition of which falls 
 within certain well-defined dates. A German 
 writer describes the age as one which displays 
 "a high degree of aesthetic culture, such as was 
 not attained again till 600 years later." It is 
 denied by no literary critic, German, or other, 
 that with the death of the Landgrave Hermann 
 of Thuringia, in the early part of the 13th cen- 
 tury, the golden age of German literature closed, 
 it relapsed into a mediocrity from which it was 
 only rescued by the intelligent patronage ot 
 German princes in the 18th century, 
 
 How is such a phenomenon to be accounted 
 for? 
 
 If we examine the works of the period, and 
 find that their inspiration came t /ro7ft the out- 
 side, we are, I think, driven to the conclusion 
 that this people which now makes such over- 
 whelming claims upon our admiration, was, in 
 reality, singularly deficient in original inspira- 
 tion, or power of independent construction, 
 but was dependent upon foreign inspiration, 
 and foreign models, to a degree unknown in 
 any other literature. 
 
DEBT TO FRANCE 5 
 
 That this is no prejudiced assertion, but a 
 simple, and moderate, statement of fact, will 
 be apparent if we examine the " provenance" 
 of those works which, by universal consent, 
 rank as the classics of Mediaeval German 
 Literature. 
 
 Heinrich v. Veldeke, who is termed by 
 modern Germans "the father of artistic 
 chivalric poetry," admittedly grew up "in an 
 environment especially strongly influenced 
 by French culture" (I am quoting throughout 
 from the standard German literary text-books). 
 His first successful work, Ttie Aeneid, was 
 inspired, "not by Virgil, but by a French 
 poem," probably Benoit de Saint Maur's 
 Raman d? Aeneas. The success of the poem 
 was so great that, at the request of the 
 Landgrave Hermann, above referred to, 
 Herbot v. Fritslar undertook the translation 
 of the earlier period of the Trojan War, by 
 rendering into German verse Benoit's Roman 
 de Troie. 
 
 It is worthy of note here that, while the 
 German writers simply translated French 
 into German verse, the French author drew his 
 material from an interpolation in the Latin of 
 Cornelius Nepos, expanding the bare incidents 
 of the original recital into romantic French 
 
6 GERMANY'S LITERARY 
 
 verse. Thus, alike in classical knowledge, 
 and inventive faculty, the French writer had 
 the advantage. 
 
 That he also possessed the advantage of a 
 higher standard of conduct and manners is 
 evident from a remark in Paul's Grundriss 
 der Germanischen Philologie, where the 
 writer admits that where v. Fritslar departed 
 from his model by introducing realistic descrip- 
 tions, he oversteps the bounds " not merely of 
 courtly convention, but of good taste." 
 
 A much more famous writer than v. Fritslar, 
 or even than v. Veldeke, was Hartmann v. Aue, 
 whose work is referred to in eulogistic terms by 
 contemporary, and following, German writers. 
 Of the four romantic poems we possess from 
 his pen, three are certainly translations from 
 the French; Erec, and Iwein, are versions of 
 romances of the same name by the famous 
 French poet, Chretien de Troyes ; Gregorius 
 is also taken from the French of an unknown 
 writer. The fourth poem, Der arme Heinrich, 
 is a version of a tale found in the Lege?ida 
 Aurea, but we do not know Hartmann J s direct 
 source. The Lanzelet of Ulrich v. Zatzikhoven, 
 a poem interesting rather on account of its 
 subject-matter than its literary merit it 
 contains a version of the Lancelot story earlier 
 
DEBT TO FRANCE. 7 
 
 than any other which we now possess was 
 derived from a French book in the possession 
 of Hugo de Morville, one of the hostages who 
 replaced Richard Cceur de Lion in his German 
 prison in 1194. It is quite possible that this 
 poem may have been the original Lancelot of 
 Walter Map, and that in this, as in other, cases, 
 the German source, written in French, was 
 composed in England. 
 
 The Din Krone of Heinrich v. dem Tiirlin, 
 again, a long rambling compilation of tales 
 centring round Gawain, has an unknown 
 French source, the writer professes to be 
 following Chretien de Troyes, but he has 
 borrowed little from that writer. 
 
 The Wigaloisot Wirnt v. Gravenburg, again, 
 is a free rendering of the Eel Inconnu of 
 Renaud de Beaujeu, known to the German 
 author by oral transmission. 
 
 Even the two greatest poets, and most 
 original minds of the period, Wolfram v. 
 Eschenbach, and Gottfried v. Strassburg, owe 
 their fame to translations from the French. 
 The exact source of Wolfram's Pur-Jrcil has 
 not been definitely determined, but whether 
 that source was by Chretien de Troyes, or by 
 Guiot, le Provencal, (as Wolfram himself 
 asserts) there can be no doubt as to the 
 
8 GERMANY'S LITERARY 
 
 language of the original. The hero is Angevin 
 on the father's side, Galois, (Welsh) on that 
 of the mother he is no German ! Indeed, the 
 obvious aim of the writer is the glorification 
 of the house of Anjou ! 
 
 Nor is the case otherwise with Wolfram's 
 later work, Willehalm, which is derived from 
 the well-known Chanson de Geste, Aliscans. 
 
 The connection of the Swan-Knight story 
 with the Grail theme, a connection which has 
 become familiar to modern music lovers 
 through Wagner's Lohengrin, is not, as has 
 been supposed, Wolfram's invention, but is 
 found in two French versions. The earliest 
 literary treatment of the Swan-Knight theme 
 is the Chevalier au Cygne, of an unknown 
 French writer, and the legend is frequently 
 referred to in the 12th century in connection 
 with Godefroi de Bouillon, the conqueror of 
 the Holy Sepulchre, who was traditionally 
 supposed to be the lineal descendant of the 
 mysterious knight. The German Lohengrin is 
 a late version, based upon the poem of 
 Wolfram, and the original Swan- Knight tale. 
 The original is to be located on the Lower 
 (Dutch) rather than on the Upper (German) 
 Rhine. 
 
 Perhaps the most brilliant name in this long 
 
DEBT TO FRANCE. 9 
 
 list of German poets who drew their material 
 from French sources, is that of Gottfried v. 
 Strassburg, whose Tristan und Isolde is a 
 translation of the Tristan of Thomas of Brit- 
 tany. Here, as in the case of Wolfram, we have 
 the work of a genuine poet translated by a 
 poet, and the result is a monument of litera- 
 ture. 
 
 Gottfried was a master of literary style, and 
 his poem is certainly the most artistic version 
 of the Tristan story now extant. 
 
 The work of Eilhart v. Oberge, who drew 
 from the same source as the fragments by 
 Berol, is much inferior in literary merit to 
 that of Gottfried, but is equally dependent 
 upon a French original. 
 
 So far were the German writers of the 
 day from considering such dependence a 
 thing to be denied, or ignored, that they 
 asserted it in cases where there is reason to 
 believe the attribution to be fictitious. Thus 
 Strieker in his Daniel, a confused medley 
 of knightly adventures, belonging to the 
 decadent period of chivalric romance, claims 
 as his authority Alberic de Besancon, the 
 author of a poem dealing with Charlemagne, 
 of which only a fragment has been preserved. 
 Alberic lived at the very beginning of the 12th 
 
10 GERMANY'S LITERARY 
 
 century, before the Arthurian legend had been 
 adopted as a popular literary theme, and such 
 a work as the Daniel cannot possibly be from 
 his pen. 
 
 When we turn from the great romantic 
 works of the Classical period to the lyrical 
 poetry we are still confronted with evidence 
 of French influence. Lyric verse, which is 
 primarily the expression of personal feeling 
 and sentiment, is naturally, and inevitably, 
 marked by the individuality of the writer in 
 a degree absent from epic, or narrative, poetry, 
 the effect of foreign influence is more general, 
 there is less direct borrowing. But that the 
 famous German Minnesdnger belong to the 
 same family as the French, or more correctly 
 speaking Provencal, Troubadours, and owed 
 their initial impulse to that specific relation of 
 the poet to the lady he served which was a 
 development of the chivalric tradition, is 
 undoubted. To quote Grober (Grundriss der 
 Romanischen Philologie) " Even as the 
 institution of knighthood took, not only very 
 early, but very deep, root in the south of 
 France, so also was the art of Lyrical Poetry 
 cultivated with a specially loving care. As 
 the other nations of the West adopted the 
 institution of knighthood as their own, so, at 
 
DKBT TO FRANCE. 11 
 
 the same time, they took over this special 
 form of chivalric activity, and that in prac- 
 tically the same shape as it had assumed in its 
 original home." 
 
 In fact we have certain instances of not 
 merely an imitation of form, as in the case of 
 the Tage, or IVachtcr, Lieder, which are 
 derived from the French Aubadc, but of 
 actual borrowing of content. 
 
 No serious writer on the subject can have 
 any desire to minimize the value of Mediaeval 
 German poetry, certain of the writers, such as 
 Wolfram v. Eschenbach, \Yalther v. der 
 Vogelweide,and Gottfried v. Strassburg, belong 
 by universal consent to the first rank of 
 Mediaeval poets, but this does not alter the 
 fact that so far as form and subject-matter are 
 concerned they are followers, not initiators. 
 The French were the pioneers alike in social 
 organisation and literary development. 
 
 German critics to-day, must, perforce, own 
 this, but they endeavour to nullify the effect 
 of their admission by claiming that "while 
 mediaeval knighthood owed its formal develop- 
 ment to the French that development, in 
 Germany, received a special impress from the 
 deeper national character, and specially Ger- 
 manic conception of Loyalty, Chastity, and 
 
12 GERMANY'S LITERARY 
 
 Honour." If this were indeed the case we 
 might well cry to-day, " Quantum mutatum ab 
 illo ! " I suspect, however, that quite as much 
 is due to the French preference for keeping 
 different styles of literary composition apart, 
 and treating a tale as a tale, while the Germans 
 have an inherent fondness for the Tendenz- 
 Schrift. 
 
 As undeniable as the fact of their initial debt 
 to France is the fact that with the death of the 
 princely patron Hermann of Thuringia, German 
 literature fell from its high estate, and only 
 regained an analogous position under similar 
 courtly encouragement in the 18th century. 
 Nor can we forget that when the prince who 
 must be considered as the founder of modern 
 Germany, Frederick the Great, of Prussia, 
 desired to introduce literary culture into his 
 kingdom, it was again to France, in the 
 person of Voltaire, that he turned. 
 
 The whole literary history of Germany is 
 exceedingly curious, no other country presents 
 a similar problem ; with France and England, 
 for instance, the process of evolution is con- 
 tinuous, some periods are more prolific than 
 others but there is no hiatus. With Germany 
 we have a period of spasmodic brilliance and 
 then silence. Some may , of course, point to the 
 
DEBT TO FRANCE. 13 
 
 wars and divisions of mediaeval Germany as 
 affording adequate explanation of this lack of 
 literary activity, but the argument will not 
 hold good ; it was precisely when their res- 
 pective countries were torn by conflict, and 
 seething with internal dissension , that Dante and 
 Langland produced the Divina Commedia, 
 and Piers Plowman, two of the most 
 individual, and characteristic, works in all 
 literature. No, the German is not a sponta- 
 neous creator ; he requires, in the first instance, 
 encouragement and direction from above ; in 
 the second, his " forte" lies rather in annexa- 
 tion than in invention. 
 
 But is there not something humorous in 
 the fact that it was precisely to a body of 
 literature essentially foreign in origin and 
 inspiration that Wagner turned for the 
 material upon which to build up his National 
 Drama? 
 
 There is no doubt that to his fellow country- 
 men to-day the heroes of the Wagner drama 
 are one and all echt Deutsch. I have, on many 
 occasions, derived extreme amusement from 
 the perusal of articles in the Geiman papers 
 fulminating against the iniquity of entrusting 
 such roles as Tristan and Parsifal (both of 
 whom were, of course, Celts), to other than 
 
14 GERMANY'S LITERARY 
 
 German artists ! Or when I have read of the 
 impossibility of a Dane, and a Swede, 
 adequately representing Siegfried and Briinn- 
 hilde whose original home was not on the 
 banks of the Rhine (as in the Nibelungen-lied) 
 but in the far Scandinavian North of the 
 Volmnga-saga. It was even more delightful 
 when an enthusiastic German lady informed 
 me solemnly that a certain famous Belgian 
 tenor, not being a German, was quite 
 unacceptable as Lohengrin. He hailed from 
 the very home of the Swan- Knight ! No, the 
 modern German has certainly no sense of 
 humour ; and as a Culture-hero I hold him to 
 be sadly out of place. 
 
 In all seriousness, if an appeal based on our 
 supposed intellectual debt to Germany could 
 fairly be addressed to the English public, 
 before provoking a war with France might 
 not a similar appeal, and that with tenfold 
 more reason, have been made by German 
 professors to their own countrymen ? There 
 can be no doubt of the immense debt which 
 civilization in general owes to France ; 
 Germany's share of that debt is no small one. 
 
 Personally, I am sceptical as to the 
 indebtedness of modern England to modern 
 Germany ; that individual scholars may have 
 
DEBT TO FRANCE. 15 
 
 ground for gratitude I can understand, 
 although, so far as my own branch of research 
 is concerned, I have always combatted, and 
 shall continue to combat, the undue value 
 placed upon the results of German research. 
 I believe English scholars are too prone to 
 undervalue their own achievements, and to 
 not merely overvalue, but to make an actual 
 Fetich of German scholarship. 
 
 But even if modern civilization has owed, in 
 the past, a debt to Germany, she herself has 
 liquidated that debt in blood and fire you 
 cannot murder your debtor and expect to 
 receive payment from the corpse ! 
 
 An article contributed by the famous 
 German chemist, Professor Ostwald, to the 
 Swedish paper Dagen casts a lurid light upon 
 the present situation. 
 
 The learned Professor asserts that German 
 militarism is simply an expression of the organ- 
 izing genius of the German nation, by means of 
 which it has reached a higher stage of civili- 
 zation than that attained by other nations, 
 "The French and English have reached that 
 stage of cultured development we ourselves 
 left over fifty years ago. That stage was the 
 one of Individualism. But above this stage 
 is found the stage of Organization, and that is 
 
16 GERMANY'S LITERARY DEBT. 
 
 what Germany has attained to-day. You ask 
 me what Germany wants ? Well, Germany 
 wishes to organize Europe because up till now 
 Europe has never been organized." 
 
 Professor Ostwald may be theoretically 
 right, and collective Organization may be a 
 higher stage of civilization than Individualism, 
 but each stage must complete its own process 
 of evolution before it can pass to a higher. 
 Before the individual is fit for organization he 
 must be truly civilized, that is, he must be 
 master of himself, of his desires, his passions, 
 his appetites, or else the imposition of a strict 
 external discipline only makes him a slave. 
 Also, while respecting himself as a man, he 
 must understand the claims to respect of 
 others. 
 
 The organization of civilized men, for pur- 
 poses of civilization, may be a benefit to man- 
 kind ; the organization of masses of imperfectly 
 civilized units, subject only to discipline from 
 the outside, and possessing no inner rule of 
 conduct, and that for purposes of aggression, 
 is, on the contrary, the most appalling danger 
 which civilization has ever been called upon 
 to face. 
 
 JESSIE L. WESTON. 
 
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