The Dublin Review (V. 93) (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: for the " Storm and Stress" which he had gloriously exhibited in the very drama that made an end of it, in Gotz von Berlichingen. But the new extravagance was not the old, though allied to it. Freiligrath't; poetry reflected the gorgeous riot and exuberance of Nature, not the wild yearning after things impossible, or at least revolutionary, that betokened and preceded the great changes of the last century. It was, in a word, more objective than subjective, and dealt with Nature rather than man. But there is no denying that if the note that Freiligrath struck was merely picturesque, its harmonics, so to speak, were revolutionary. It proclaimed a brotherly interest in man as man, a desire to feel with the world at large, and to teach the Germans that they must look outward as well as inward if they would be truly great. This active young man at Soest, whose hands were always full whilst his head was busy with day-dreaming, had begun to look about him, to take note of human life wherever he could hear of it, nay, to glance towards the distant horizon with something of that power to gain a focus and realize the scene before him, which the Germans of all Western races seem the slowest to acquire. If he went on as he began, there was ground to prophesy that Freiligrath would one day.be a leader in the nation. Meanwhile, he has reached the age of twenty-one, and what is the prosperous uncle in Edinburgh doing ? Alas, he has ceased to be the thriving uncle of yore; times have gone hard with him, and he can offer his nephew but a share in a ruined business. Freiligrath must provide for himself elsewhere. Arthur's Seat and Holyrood, with all the magnificent scenery of the Northern Athens, he must forego, and rest content with the Dutch quaint- ness of Amsterdam instead of them. Imagine t...