Aesthetical Essays of Friedrich Schiller
to overstep this sphere, but rather not to fill it entirely, giving too
much scope to external necessity, to accidental wants, at the expense of
the inner necessity. The danger for the sentimental genius is, on the
other hand, by trying to remove all limits, of nullifying human nature
absolutely, and not only rising, as is its right and duty, beyond finite
and determinate reality, as far as absolute possibility, or in other
terms to idealize; but of passing even beyond possibility, or, in other
words, dreaming. This fault--overstraining--is precisely dependent on
the specific property of the sentimental process, as the opposite defect,
inertia, depends on the peculiar operation of the simple genius. The
simple genius lets nature dominate, without restricting it; and as nature
in her particular phenomena is always subject to some want, it follows
that the simple sentiment will not be always exalted enough to resist the
accidental limitations of the present hour. The sentimental genius, on
the contrary, leaves aside the real world, to rise to the ideal and to
command its matter with free spontaneity. But while reason, according to
law, aspires always to the unconditional, so the sentimental genius will
not always remain calm enough to restrain itself uniformly and without
interruption within the conditions implied by the idea of human nature,
and to which reason must always, even in its freest acts, remain
attached. He could only confine himself in these conditions by help of a
receptivity proportioned to his free activity; but most commonly the
activity predominates over receptivity in the sentimental poet, as much
as receptivity over activity in the simple poet. Hence, in the
productions of simple genius, if sometimes inspiration is wanting, so
also in works of sentimental poetry the object is often missed. Thus,
though they proceed in opposite ways, they will both fall into a vacuum,
for before the aesthetic judgment an object without inspiration, and
inspiration without an object, are both negations.
The poets who borrow their matter too much from thought, and rather
conceive poetic pictures by the internal abundance of ideas than by the
suggestions of feeling, are more or less likely to be addicted to go thus
astray. In their creations reason makes too little of the limits of the
sensuous world, and thought is always carried too far for experience to
follow it. Now, when the idea is carried so far that not only no
experience corresponds to it--as is the case in the beau ideal--but also
that it is repugnant to the conditions of all possible experience, so
that, in order to realize it, one must leave human nature altogether, it
is no longer a poetic but an exaggerated thought; that is, supposing it
claims to be representable and poetical, for otherwise it is enough if it
is not self-contradictory. If thought is contradictory it is not
exaggeration, but nonsense; for what does not exist cannot exceed. But
when the thought is not an object proposed to the fancy, we are just as
little justified in calling it exaggerated. For simple thought is
infinite, and what is limitless also cannot exceed. Exaggeration,
therefore, is only that which wounds, not logical truth, but sensuous
truth, and what pretends to be sensuous truth. Consequently, if a poet
has the unhappy chance to choose for his picture certain natures that are
merely superhuman and cannot possibly be represented, he can only avoid
exaggeration by ceasing to be a poet, and not trusting the theme to his
imagination. Otherwise one of two things would happen: either
imagination, applying its limits to the object, would make a limited and
merely human object of an absolute object--which happened with the gods
of Greece--or the object would take away limits from fancy, that is,
would render it null and void, and this is precisely exaggeration.
Extravagance of feeling should be distinguished from extravagance of
portraiture; we are speaking of the former. The object of the feeling
may be unnatural, but the feeling itself is natural, and ought
accordingly to be shadowed forth in the language of nature. While
extravagant feelings may issue from a warm heart and a really poetic
nature, extravagance of portraiture always displays a cold heart, and
very often a want of poetic capacity. Therefore this is not a danger for
the sentimental poet, but only for the imitator, who has no vocation; it
is therefore often found with platitude, insipidity, and even baseness.
Exaggeration of sentiment is not without truth, and must have a real
object; as nature inspires it, it admits of simplicity of expression and
coming from the heart it goes to the heart. As its object, however, is
not in nature, but artificially produced by the understanding, it has
only a logical reality, and the feeling is not purely human. It was not
an illusion that Heloise had for Abelard, Petrarch for Laura, Saint Preux
for his Julia, Werther for his Charlotte; Agathon, Phanias, and
Peregrinus--in Wieland--for the object of their dreams: the feeling is
true, only the object is factitious and outside nature. If their thought
had kept to simple sensuous truth, it could not have taken this flight;
but on the other hand a mere play of fancy, without inner value, could
not have stirred the heart: this is only stirred by reason. Thus this
sort of exaggeration must be called to order, but it is not contemptible:
and those who ridicule it would do well to find out if the wisdom on
which they pride themselves is not want of heart, and if it is not
through want of reason that they are so acute. The exaggerated delicacy
in gallantry and honor which characterizes the chivalrous romances,
especially of Spain, is of this kind; also the refined and even
ridiculous tenderness of French and English sentimental romances of the
best kind. These sentiments are not only subjectively true, but also
objectively they are not without value; they are sound sentiments issuing
from a moral source, only reprehensible as overstepping the limits of
human truth. Without this moral reality how could they stir and touch so
powerfully? The same remark applies to moral and religious fanaticism,
patriotism, and the love of freedom when carried up to exaltation. As
the object of these sentiments is always a pure idea, and not an external
experience, imagination with its proper activity has here a dangerous
liberty, and cannot, as elsewhere, be called back to bounds by the
presence of a visible object. But neither the man nor the poet can
withdraw from the law of nature, except to submit to that of reason. He
can only abandon reality for the ideal; for liberty must hold to one or
the other of these anchors. But it is far from the real to the ideal;
and between the two is found fancy, with its arbitrary conceits and its
unbridled freedom. It must needs be, therefore, that man in general, and
the poet in particular, when he withdraws by liberty of his understanding
from the dominion of feeling, without being moved to it by the laws of
reason--that is, when he abandons nature through pure liberty--he finds
himself freed from all law, and therefore a prey to the illusions of
phantasy.
It is testified by experience that entire nations, as well as individual
men, who have parted with the safe direction of nature, are actually in
this condition; and poets have gone astray in the same manner. The true
genius of sentimental poetry, if its aim is to raise itself to the rank
of the ideal, must overstep the limits of the existing nature; but false
genius oversteps all boundaries without any discrimination, flattering
itself with the belief that the wild sport of the imagination is poetic
inspiration. A true poetical genius can never fall into this error,
because it only abandons the real for the sake of the ideal, or, at all
events, it can only do so at certain moments when the poet forgets
himself; but his main tendencies may dispose him to extravagance within
the sphere of the senses. His example may also drive others into a chase
of wild conceptions, because readers of lively fancy and weak
understanding only remark the freedom which he takes with existing
nature, and are unable to follow him in copying the elevated necessities
of his inner being. The same difficulties beset the path of the
sentimental genius in this respect, as those which afflict the career of
a genius of the simple order. If a genius of this class carries out
every work, obedient to the free and spontaneous impulses of his nature,
the man devoid of genius who seeks to imitate him is not willing to
consider his own nature a worse guide than that of the great poet. This
accounts for the fact that masterpieces of simple poetry are commonly
followed by a host of stale and unprofitable works in print, and
masterpieces of the sentimental class by wild and fanciful effusions,--a
fact that may be easily verified on questioning the history of
literature.
Two maxims are prevalent in relation to poetry, both of them quite
correct in themselves, but mutually destructive in the way in which they
are generally conceived. The first is, that "poetry serves as a means of
amusement and recreation," and we have previously observed that this
maxim is highly favorable to aridity and platitudes in poetical actions.
The other maxim, that "poetry is conducive to the moral progress of
humanity," takes under its shelter theories and views of the most wild
and extravagant character. It may be profitable to examine more
attentively these two maxims, of which so much is heard, and which are so
often imperfectly understood and falsely applied.
We say that a thing amuses us when it makes us pass from a forced state
to the state that is natural to us. The whole question here is to know
in what our natural state ought to consist, and what a forced state
means. If our natural state is made to consist merely in the free
development of all our physical powers, in emancipation from all
constraint, it follows that every act of reason by resisting what is
sensuous, is a violence we undergo, and rest of mind combined with
physical movement will be a recreation par excellence. But if we make
our natural state consist in a limitless power of human expression and of
freely disposing of all our strength, all that divides these forces will
be a forced state, and recreation will be what brings all our nature to
harmony. Thus, the first of these ideal recreations is simply determined
by the wants of our sensuous nature; the second, by the autonomous
activity of human nature. Which of these two kinds of recreation can be
demanded of the poet? Theoretically, the question is inadmissible, as no
one would put the human ideal beneath the brutal. But in practice the
requirements of a poet have been especially directed to the sensuous
ideal, and for the most part favor, though not the esteem, for these
sorts of works is regulated thereby. Men's minds are mostly engaged in a
labor that exhausts them, or an enjoyment that sets them asleep. Now
labor makes rest a sensible want, much more imperious than that of the
moral nature; for physical nature must be satisfied before the mind can
show its requirements. On the other hand, enjoyment paralyzes the moral
instinct. Hence these two dispositions common in men are very injurious
to the feeling for true beauty, and thus very few even of the best judge
soundly in aesthetics. Beauty results from the harmony between spirit
and sense; it addresses all the faculties of man, and can only be
appreciated if a man employs fully all his strength. He must bring to it
an open sense, a broad heart, a spirit full of freshness. All a man's
nature must be on the alert, and this is not the case with those divided
by abstraction, narrowed by formulas, enervated by application. They