that they are rather the result of mechanical pasting together than a spontaneous product from the crucible of genius. For this reason Jean Paul finds it necessary, in order continually to present new effects, to drag into books differing wholly in kind, botanical, legal and philosophical disquisitions, no less than descriptions of travel; whatever whim in fact may strike his fancy at the time is promptly inserted. Even when his subject relates to scientific discovery he will run together the most heterogeneous material such as a collection of Brazilian plants and observations upon the old imperial chamber[435].
There are people who will praise a motley of this kind as original. But it is really precisely the kind of caprice which originality of the genuine stamp excludes.
While we are on this topic it will not be out of place to add some further remarks upon irony, which particularly prides itself upon presenting us with the very flower of originality on just those occasions when it has ceased to treat any artistic material with seriousness and converts the whole affair into a subject of witticism, only worth notice for the sake of the wit it suggests. Looked at from another point of view this irony rakes together a lot of things which are quite foreign to the essence of the matter in hand, things the deeper significance of which the poet keeps to himself, and his notion seems to be that by this subtle exercise of his powers the imagination will be enlarged. And it is just in external associations of this sort that we get what we have already described as the poetry of a poetry, wherein everything that is deepest and most excellent is concealed from us for no other reason than this, that we must not be allowed to look at it because it is so profound. And we really find in Friedrich von Schlegel's poetry, more particularly when he became vain over his title to the rank of poet, that which clearly is set forth as the aroma of all is just that which is never expressed: no wonder this poetry of poetry turns out to be the flattest prose.
(_γ_) A genuine work of art must consequently be held intact from all originality of this perverse type. True originality will be asserted throughout by this and this alone, that the work has the appearance of being the unique creation of _one_ individual mind, which does not go about picking up scraps from around it and then make thereof a patchwork, but permits the material of that work, in complete accordance with the unity most congenial to its own substance, to bind itself together in a whole all parts of which are strictly related, as truly stamped with one mint as the founder's cast. When we find scenes and motives introduced upon grounds that are foreign to the real artistic purpose, that is to say, which do not directly grow out of the true subject, we must inevitably lose that subtle and necessary connection of all the parts which create this unity, and what we thus interpolate will unavoidably impress us as something fortuitously attached by personal caprice. Much in this way it has been the fashion to give exceptional praise to the "Götz von Berlichingen" of Goethe on the grounds of its great originality. No doubt it is true enough, as we have above remarked, that in this drama Goethe has with much intrepidity given the lie direct to and turned his back upon all that had been taken as the established principles of the aesthetic science of his age; the execution of this work, however, does not bear the stamp of genuine originality. One finds, on the contrary, in this youthful production indications of the poverty of the material upon which it is founded, so that many traits and entire scenes appear to have been raked together and united by connections foreign to the subject from material of an interest contemporary with that of the artist's life instead of being the genuine elaboration of the fundamental subject-matter. The scene, for example, between Götz and brother Martin, where Martin Luther is clearly suggested, contains ideas which Goethe could only have borrowed from a time such as his own when people began once more to wail over the conditions of monastic life, how they durst not drink wine, could only sleep off their meals, were at the mercy of evil desires and generally must submit to the three intolerable vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Brother Martin, on the other hand, grows enthusiastic over the knightly life of Götz, how he recalled to memory the load of booty he took from his foe, whom he ran through with lance on horseback before he could shoot, then tumbled over, horse and all, and finally returned to his castle and wife. Whereupon the good monk drinks the health of the dame Elizabeth, wiping his eyes the while. With mundane reflections of this sort Luther never started on his journey, but rather as a pious monk who had penetrated to their depths the religious conceptions and convictions of Augustine, another source altogether. Subject to precisely similar defects are the pedagogical references to that period which occur in the following scene and for which Vasedow is mainly responsible. We are informed that children of that age are taught much that is unintelligible, that the true method of instruction should rather educate their minds through the senses and experience. Karl, for example, repeats phrases to his father by heart precisely similar to those current in Goethe's own younger days: "Junthausen is a village and castle on the Junt and for two hundred years has been the ancestral property of the lords of Berlichingen." When Götz asks him if he knows any lord of Berlichingen personally the lad stares blankly at him and through sheer over-teaching does not know his own father. Götz declares that he knew every path and road in the country before he knew the names of a single river, village, or mountain. All this kind of thing is mere literary stucco which has nothing to do with the actual subject at all. And when an occasion does arise in which we ought to find some really characteristic grip of the very marrow of the subject, as in the conversations between Götz and Weisslingen, we get nothing more than cold reflections upon the times.
We find much the same association of irrelevant matter in the same poet's "Wahlverwandschaften."[436] The laying out of pleasure grounds, the living pictures, the observations upon pendulum oscillations, the testing of metals, the headaches, the entire description of elective affinities, which is borrowed straight from chemical science, are all of this category. It may, of course, be freely admitted that in a romance, referring to an essentially prosaic age, such things are _prima facie_ admissible, and more particularly so when we have a Goethe to introduce them so cleverly and apply them so charmingly; moreover no work of art of any kind can be kept wholly unaffected by the culture of the artist's own age. It is one thing to allow the reflection of contemporary culture to appear as part of the artistic whole, quite another to bring together such material of research in a way that places it as something wholly outside and independent of the genuine substance of the composition. For the true originality of the artist no less than that of his work consists exclusively in their being vitally bound up with that which is only intelligible as part of the real subject-matter treated. When the artist has fully Appropriated this objective reason, without mixing up with it, to the detriment of its clarity, details he may have borrowed from his personal experience or other sources which do not strictly belong to it; in that case alone will he stamp the material with the genuine mark of his own artistic mintage. This personal effect upon his work merely serves him as a bridge of Life over which he passes to secure a work of art wholly complete in itself, just as in all genuine thought and action true freedom consists in allowing that which is of essential significance to assert itself without restraint, so that it becomes itself the force which dominates both the particular thought and volition of the man who thus appropriates it, and by so doing reconciles every vestige of opposition. In this way the originality of art absorbs every accidental trait peculiar to a given personality; but it only absorbs it that the artist may follow without reserve the impulse and bent of his genius as inspired through every fibre of the material he moulds, and instead of reflecting a purely barren wilfulness and caprice of his own may give an objective form to his true artistic individuality conjoined with consummate accomplishment. To have no "manner" was ever the one great "manner," and in this sense alone can we ascribe originality to Homer, Sophocles, Rafael, and Shakespeare.
[Footnote 271: _Einer specifischen Seele._ We certainly should not in ordinary speech say that inorganic objects possessed a soul. The phrase indeed is difficult to follow, except as explained by the previous technical discussion of _Einzelheit._] [Footnote 272: The expression _in dieser der Allgemeinheit entgegengehobenen Äusserlichkeit_ refers to the manifold in opposition to which the principle of universality is posited as a test for the selection of those aspects which manifest it as vital individuality.]
[Footnote 274: _Heiterkeit._ I cannot satisfy myself with one English word. It seems to combine both _blithesomeness_ and _cheerfulness_ in the literal meaning of the word.]
[Footnote 275: _In das einfache Beisichseyn._ Self-containedness would be more literal.]
[Footnote 276: _Eine Versöhnung des Gemüths._ I think this refers to the emotions of the spectators. The use of the word in the next sentence points to this.]
mode of treatment, rather this than "rigorously true," is I think the sense.]
[Footnote 278: Compare that wonderful poem of G. Meredith, "Theodolinda."]
[Footnote 280: See Introduction, pp. 86, 87.]
[Footnote 281: Such appears to me the sense of the above passage, but it is not very clearly expressed. Hegel states the case of those who contend that a picture must be a good one because the ideal element is the main thing and to get that you have merely to borrow from poetry.
He then takes an example to show this is not so.]
[Footnote 282: Here commences the more thorough exposition of the difficulty.]
[Footnote 283: _Vorstellung_, "world of ideas" would be perhaps better.]
[Footnote 284: Apart from an error in punctuation I think this sentence is not as Hegel wrote it, certainly it is not as he would have left it after revision; as it stands the grammatical construction is entirely split into two discordant sections. I have at least made it grammatical.]
[Footnote 285: _Die Vorstellung_, _i.e._, the imaginative conception.]
[Footnote 286: There is, however, the question of positive characterization imposed on the work by the artist. The work of Michelangelo is of course an extreme example. This is here rather overlooked.]
[Footnote 287: That is to say, it remains the potency of many forms; it is left in its abstract formality to be variously formed by limbs in their motion and not cut into the forms devised by a tailor.]
[Footnote 288: Infinite, of course, not in the sense of extension, but because it is a constituent of the universal medium of thought, infinite as the judgment is so.]
[Footnote 289: This analysis of Dutch painting is remarkable for its insight and impartiality, and may be contrasted in this respect with the writings of Ruskin.]
[Footnote 290: _Die höhere Seele._ The ideal atmosphere throughout.]
[Footnote 291: It will be recalled that it was precisely this picture, or one much resembling, that Ruskin, with less sympathy, criticized severely.]
[Footnote 292: No doubt these were other pictures in the exhibition of pictures contemporary with the date of Hegel's lecture.]
[Footnote 293: Ideal.]
[Footnote 294: _Auf willkürlich festgesetzten Zeichen_.]
[Footnote 295: Not a very lucid sentence. I presume the words _bei deren Anblick_ refer, to the forms, not to the beauty which reposes on them. The abstractness of such a point of view is obvious.]
[Footnote 296: I think _sein eigenes Wollen_ must practically amount to this. But it is all very vague.]
[Footnote 297: _Handlung._ See below.]
[Footnote 298: _Vollbringen des Menschen._ The bringing up to fuller content.]
[Footnote 299: Lit., "turned outside upon to confront, like a coat turned inside out that the inside may face external facts."]
[Footnote 300: The German term is _Selbständigkeit._ It may often be better translated by "independence."]
[Footnote 301: _Durchgreifende._ That which penetrates the whole as the _causa efficiens._ The whole passage is difficult and technical.]
[Footnote 302: _Für sich selbst._ That is to say, a substance that is not dependent on another for its reality but is explicit as such out of its own resources.]
[Footnote 304: _In einer Nacht._ A condensed description of the true story apparently.]
[Footnote 305: That is to say, it is made up of units all ready to pull in different directions.]
[Footnote 306: A remarkable instance of the type in our own days was General Gordon. A perusal of his correspondence from Khartoum makes it sufficiently clear that he considered it his duty to remain despite all orders to the contrary, so long as the garrison remained unwithdrawn; no doubt he considered the reverse course dishonourable to England, but first of all it was dishonourable to himself.]
[Footnote 308: _Das Vornehme._ There is probably here a further allusion to the respectability associated with grandeur. The same is true of the compositions of the great Italian painters.]
[Footnote 309: _Ausgebildeten._ I have hesitated to translate this "cultivated" as the context appears to suggest rather the kind of _regime_ we find in the highly official centralization of such a monarchy as that of Prussia in Hegel's time or the artificial eighteenth century. But the whole passage rings rather strangely to modern ideas, or at least to English notions of democracy.]
[Footnote 310: _Götz von Berlichengen_ was Goethe's first drama, published in the year 1773, though the first version of it was written in 1771.]
[Footnote 311: _Das Waltende_, _e.g._, a force which is predominant.]
[Footnote 312: _Gehalt_, content, that is, in its configurative energy.]
[Footnote 313: _Sichverwirklichen_, that is, objective self-realization.]
[Footnote 314: The whole of this passage is difficult to follow and translate, and has roots, no doubt, in some of the most disputed positions in Hegelian philosophy, such as the independent reality of Nature, and the use that Hegel makes of such conceptions as Chance (_Zufälligkeit_) in his explanation of it. All that can be attempted here is to give some kind of intelligible interpretation of the expressions employed literally. The student will do well to consult Professor A. C. Bradley's criticism of Hegel's Idea of tragedy in his "Lectures on Poetry."]
[Footnote 315: The situation without defined situation.]
[Footnote 316: _Festigkeit._ Staunchness is perhaps better.]
[Footnote 317: _Harmlosigkeit_, _e.g._, its inability to cause conflict.]
[Footnote 318: Such as painting and sculpture.]
[Footnote 319: By positive he means that in themselves they are not actually discordant or negative but only render such discordance possible in their relation to spirit.]
[Footnote 320: That is, where a collision depends upon natural causes.]
[Footnote 321: Positive, that is, relative to a particular concrete condition.]
[Footnote 322: Perhaps _Erfindung_ would here be better translated with "invention." Both processes are involved in the word.]
[Footnote 323: _Auf den natürlichen äusserlichen Verlauf._] [Footnote 324: This must be implied, for it can only be asserted with qualification of sculpture and it is not true of music.]
[Footnote 325: _In betreff seiner Besinnung._ _Besinnung_ suggests, no doubt, something more of mind than _Gemüth._ It is the entire content of self-consciousness on its sensuous side.]
[Footnote 326: _Die allgemeinen Mächte._ This phrase is explained in the paragraph which follows.]
[Footnote 327: _Die Bethätigung._ The actualization would be a better word perhaps.]
[Footnote 328: It may surprise some readers in such a context suddenly to be confronted with such serious matters. But with Hegel such surprises must be expected. With him the root of all spiritual activity is never far absent, and the relation of the State is founded on the same basis as that of the Church. And if we mean anything by the phrase of the Divine Immanence we shall at least be able to follow him.]
[Footnote 329: _Die ewigen._ Eternal because essentially belonging to the explication of reason.]
[Footnote 330: _Würde._ Worthiness of personal characteristics, _i.e._, ethical character.]
[Footnote 331: _Das nur äuserlich Feststehende_. The organizations of Spirit are the most permanent realities is, I think, the meaning.]
[Footnote 332: _Etwas bizarres oder widriges_, _i.e._, that which is arbitrary and merely awakes curiosity or excites a feeling of repulsion.]
[Footnote 333: There is obviously a symbolic meaning in this poem of Hartmann which Hegel appears to have overlooked, the sacrifice which the monks prescribed not necessarily involving a physical sacrifice, but merely the gift of a love which would be equal to such a sacrifice.]
[Footnote 334: This passage is not easy to follow. I think _der innre Begriff_ must mean the entire notion of the personality evolved in the action as distinct from all particular aspects which are negative and evil. The main difficulty of the passage consists in the abstract conception of evil or the negative upon which Hegel centres the attention.]
[Footnote 336: _Die innre haltlose Zerrissenkeit._] individuality.]
[Footnote 338: _Zur subjektiven Innerlichkeit._ That is to say, the entire self-concentration on the spiritual centre of conscious life.]
[Footnote 339: Lit., Their individuality remains rather external form, in such a way that it fails to penetrate through to absolutely inward subjectivity.]
[Footnote 340: _Noth_, the constraint of necessary conditions.]
[Footnote 341: _Mit der Bestimmten_, _i.e._, with the definite subject-matter of temporal life.]
[Footnote 342: In the conception, that is to say, which is at the root of the Greek idea of Divinity.]
[Footnote 343: I presume what Hegel means is as individual gods.]
[Footnote 344: _Er nicht mit seinem eigenen Selbst dabei ist._ He fails to obtain the determinate freedom of the self-excluding subject.]
[Footnote 345: _I.e._, between gods and men.]
[Footnote 346: _Ganz prosaisch._ Viewed practically, that is to say, rather than metaphysically. The examples explain the meaning.]
[Footnote 347: _Das Thun geht stets herüber und hinüber._ Is a skein in which the threads run over and under one another.]
[Footnote 349: This view may be well contrasted with the less vital criticism of Schiller on this subject, which induced him actually to exclude the feature from his amended edition of the play. In fact Hegel shows more insight here than Coleridge.]
[Footnote 350: _Nicht über Hamlet haltlos verfügt._ It is also obvious, I think, that such a passage need not necessarily be opposed to Goethe's main conception. Such ideas may readily be explained as the excuses of a man who inherently shrinks from forming a grave resolve of vigorous action. No doubts are suggested when Hamlet sees the ghost.]
[Footnote 351: _Den eigentlichen Mittelpunkt._ Between what? I think the examples show that it is both between a work of human art and Nature and between the work of art itself and those to whom it is addressed.]
[Footnote 352: Lit., Screws itself like a corkscrew into.]
[Footnote 353: _Ausmalung_. The metaphor is taken from the art of painting and technically refers to the finish of the same in all its details. It is here used generally.]
[Footnote 354: Vol. i, p. 153. I do not know the book.]
[Footnote 355: _Als bewegendes Pathos._ This may mean "as the motive principle of pathos," but I incline to the interpretation "as the pathos which affects others."]
[Footnote 356: This appears at first sight to be somewhat contrary to the statement made above (p. 309) that "We cannot affirm pathos of the gods." But if my translation in the above passage is the right one _Die Götter werden zum menschlichen Pathos_, I think we must understand _Die Götter_ here in a more universal sense of the Divine than in the former passage, and find the emphasis here is laid upon the word _menschlichen._ It is, in fact, but another way of stating the incarnation of the Divine in humanity.]
[Footnote 357: _Als totale Individualität_, _i.e._, all that is comprised in its essential notion.]
[Footnote 358: _Der handelnden Character_, _i.e._, Character manifest in the action.]
[Footnote 359: _Ausser sich_, "goes to the dogs," as we say in vulgar parlance, _i.e._, ceases to be character in the true sense at all.]
[Footnote 360: This example shows us that by the expression _früheren Götter_ above Hegel must be referring to prehistoric times and quite archaic conceptions of Greek godhead.]
[Footnote 361: _Eines in sick gebildeten Innern. Gebildet_ here used in the sense of perfected, rounded to a co-ordinated content.]
[Footnote 362: _Hineingegraben_, lit., buried in.]
[Footnote 363: I am unable to express in two words the contrast presented by the German _tragen_ and _ertragen._] [Footnote 364: It is not easy to strike the exact interpretation of such a word as _Quetschlichkeit._ Apparently this or the more usual term _Quabbelig_ have the sense of "shaking." I believe there is a synonym for quaker's grass, viz., quatch-grass.]
[Footnote 365: _Und durch sie sich hindurchziehen._ The most obvious sense of these words would be: and (_i.e._, the threads) carry themselves on through it (_i.e._, externality). Perhaps the meaning is that the relations in question not merely unite the Ideal to the world but are carried beyond (with the Ideal) the natural external world into that higher plane of the objective spiritual world. In my translation I have practically evaded the difficulty and assumed there is either something missing, or we must understand, I admit, a very harsh change of subject.]
[Footnote 366: Through self-consciousness he is both the individual subject and the form of an infinite content.]
[Footnote 368: I have amplified this sentence to make it quite clear to which of the three worlds, viz., (_a_) the subjective world in its abstraction, (_b_) the external world in its abstraction or, finally, the world of reality, in which _a_ and _b_ are mutually related, the writer here refers.]
[Footnote 369: _In welche die in sick totale Einheit des Ideals nicht mehr ihrer konkreten Geistigkeit nach hineinzuscheinen befähigt ist._ Lit., Into which the self-complete unity of the Ideal is no longer capable of penetrating by virtue of the concrete spirituality which it essentially is.]
[Footnote 370: An obvious distinction between the arts of architecture and garden-construction is that in the former all the materials used have been already informed by human hands at least where building is in any advanced stage.]
[Footnote 371: Hegel's actual words would seem to imply that the fact a garden is created for use and enjoyment is detrimental to its beauty.]
[Footnote 372: It must be admitted that this summary treatment of gardens is not very satisfactory. No doubt the best authorities concur in the view that the formal garden is more artistic than the landscape, but hardly on the main ground given here. Landscape gardening such as we find it in our great English country houses has a real justification of its own. And with regard to the reason given that a garden should be entirely subordinate to the human object do we not strike here upon a weakness which is to a certain extent apparent also in Hegel's theory of the artistic purpose of architecture. I think it must be admitted that though it is true the object of both these arts is not entirely for their own beauty, and in certain cases, not even primarily so, as in the case of a senate-house or ordinary garden, yet where the artistic purpose is manifested throughout with great deliberation they may be essentially an independent work of art; take the case,.of a cathedral, for example, or a really beautiful and homogeneous formal garden.]
[Footnote 373: _Element_, subject-matter would be really a better word.]
[Footnote 374: _Kein bloss quantatives._ They are not like a heap of stones, for example, but they possess relations which qualify each other, as of course the heap of stones will do in so far as it is distinguished by diversity of colour.]
[Footnote 375: I think this must be the meaning of the words _noch ah blass aufgelöste Gegensätze auftreten._] [Footnote 376: _Grau_ is the word Hegel uses, but I think he must use it in the sense I have translated it. Gray in itself is a very beautiful compound, and the subtlety of its use is that which is one of the distinguishing characteristics of the very greatest colourists such as Turner and Velazquez.]
[Footnote 377: I am not quite sure that Hegel means this exactly, but it is no doubt what an artist would mean and in water-colour especially it is of the utmost importance. Compare the flesh colour of the artists such as our Watts or Titian with that of Leighton. One of the most marvellous examples I know is a small picture of Titian, the subject of which is Herodias with the head of John the Baptist, in one of the palaces at Rome. But a modern critic would, apart from the question of dirtiness, about which there can be no doubt, say that Hegel insists too much, precisely as Ruskin does, on the superiority of the pure single colour.]
[Footnote 378: Hegel appears to be himself slightly incorrect here.
No doubt a string may ring false if it is not tightly fastened or if too slack or too long it may produce sounds the human ear is unable to appreciate. But primarily what musicians mean by a string ringing false, with wolf notes and so on, is due to the bad material or false composition of the string itself.]
[Footnote 379: _Disparat_, _i.e._, composed of different elements, not merely separate in position.]
[Footnote 380: I think the expression _ein blosses an-sich_ must mean this here. Of course the usual meaning is that of something potential, unrealized, but here I think it rather signifies "not objectively or really valid." No doubt in relation to the heads of discussion it is potential also.]
[Footnote 381: _Die traurige Bünkelsängerei._ I think the adjective must here rather refer to the contrast than to the nature of the poetry. I presume the Minnesingers are referred to.]
[Footnote 382: I do not know what book this is, nor have I ever heard of a hero with the name of _Otnith._] [Footnote 383: Or rather by virtue both of its medium and object.
_Ihrer Natur nach_ are Hegel's words.]
[Footnote 384: _Jenem ersten Ansichseyenden._ That is to say, a relation indefinite, but essentially implying a further realization.]
[Footnote 385: _Es nur eine unwahre Abstraction bezeigen würde._ "Lack of comprehensiveness" would, of course, be more literal.]
[Footnote 386: _In ihrem abstracten Gehalt._ That is, regarded simply as the opinions of a private individual, and apart from all that may be implied in it under more universal relations.]
[Footnote 387: _Der Zustand der allgemeinen Bildung_, not an easy phrase to translate: the "Culture-State" perhaps sums it up most completely. "The state of universal education" is too indefinite or goes too far.]
[Footnote 388: The whole spirit of this passage is a striking witness to Hegel's admiration for classical art. Whether the arguments brought forward are wholly sound when we consider them in connection with the Elizabethan drama, for example, may readily admit of a question. At the same time, as Hegel himself points out, Shakespeare unquestionably throws the time back to what is practically a mythical age in at least three of his greatest tragedies, "Hamlet," "Macbeth," and above all "King Lear."]
[Footnote 389: For the element of beauty implied in ordinary craftsmanship, and the modern view, pressed so strongly by William Morris and others, of this aspect of art and its modern necessity, the reader should peruse Professor Bosanquet's valuable "Three Lectures on Aesthetic" (see particularly Lecture II, p. 61 _et seq._).]
[Footnote 390: Even an admirer of our author must admit, I think, here that the argument is somewhat overstrained. That Hegel possessed real humour and yet more irony few will deny who have studied him, but at times "the man with a theory" rather tends, as is so frequently the case with our German cousins, Goethe himself not excepted, to swallow up such sanative juices altogether.]
[Footnote 391: I presume the meaning is that the poem in the shape we now have it dates some 400 years after the Trojan war. But it is not very clear from Hegel's language whether he regards Homer as the poet who, as in the case of his example of the poet of the Niebelungenlied, fused that together or no. For if he did how could he have lived through the poems, an expression itself which is rather vague, more particularly as the better opinion is that they represent a different age themselves.]
[Footnote 392: _Vernürnbergert._ A word of course coined by Hegel. Made them, that is to say, at home in the Nuremberg of Hans Sachs.]
[Footnote 393: "Best of all things water." Compare Meredith's exquisite poem "Phoebus with Admetus," "Water, first of singers o'er rocky mount and mead," etc., stanza 3.]
[Footnote 394: The drama of Racine.]
[Footnote 395: What this word means I do not know--possibly quill-feathers.]
[Footnote 396: _Eine grosse Genialität._ "First-rate genius" is rather too strong, "talents of the highest rank" would be more literal. We have no word that expresses _Genialität._ As the passage is ironical I have allowed "genius" to pass.]
[Footnote 397: _Wir haben schlecht gestanden._ Literally, "there is some mistake between us." But the idiomatic sense I presume is, "You've made a bad shot this time."]
[Footnote 398: What would Hegel have said of the first scene in the "Merchant of Venice"? No doubt Shakespeare's play contains very much more than such scenes, and there is a profound significance in that opening scene, for it at once emphasizes the collision of families upon which the entire tragedy turns. But is such a defence needed? There appears to be indubitably a certain deficiency in the above criticism.
There is no reason that a scene in which a couple of peasants and two troopers are the _dramatis personae_ should not be infinitely amusing provided a Shakespeare, or even a Goethe, when he is not in one of his dull moods, performs the office of teaching them how to speak.]
[Footnote 399: This surely goes too far unless "interest" is taken strictly to mean artistic interest which would appear to be so from the context. Everything that has once interested or affected mankind, however remote, has at heart an historical and antiquarian interest, and I am not sure that we should not be right in adding a general human interest. At least such is almost a dogma with a poet of the type of Browning.]
[Footnote 400: I do not know the Teutonic poem here referred to. But what about Wagner's famous tetralogy? The above arguments, though containing much that is true, appear to overlook for one thing the symbolic significance of mythological history, and in a certain sense to be lacking in sympathy for everything that is not modern or Hellenic. How very differently Carlyle, for example, referred to this very mythology, and his learning was not profound in the German sense.]
[Footnote 401: The intention of Aeschylus went, of course, much farther than this, and the entire play is essentially one written by a staunch conservative against modern innovation.]
[Footnote 402: It is strange that Hegel should have ventured such a generalization in the face of his old friend Holderlein's poetry.
In England some fine poems have been written such as Lady Margaret Sackville's hymn to Dionysus and Swinburne's to Proserpine. But for a good essay in support of the main contention I know none equal to Russell Lowell's Essay on Swinburne's "Atalanta." I think that both our author and the critic who supports him somewhat fail to recognize the permanent reality, whether symbolical or directly spiritual, that an increasing number of men find in these Hellenic personalities, as illustrated in the poetry of Meredith, to take the finest flavour of the type.]
[Footnote 403: I presume this is the meaning of _unserer eigenen Geliebten_, but from the example given of Petrarch's Laura one would rather have expected that it was the poet's beloved whose name was not given. In any case the sense is rather obscure.]
[Footnote 404: I think it must be admitted that Hegel goes too far in the other extreme. The best tendency of our times is to reproduce Shakespeare as near to the best authenticated text as possible.
No doubt our adaptation of French plays is in a certain sense an illustration of Hegel's contention; but generally it is recognized that where a work is great, as for example in the case of our Greek plays, it is far better to let them speak for themselves, and attempt no botching.]
[Footnote 405: Schiller's play.]
[Footnote 406: _Schiefheiten_, errors that divert truth from its path.]
[Footnote 407: We should rather have expected _Erhalt_ than _Gehalt_ here. _Gehalt_ means, therefore, the essential part of the entire manifestation.]
[Footnote 408: _Durch all das anderweitige Getriebe_, _i.e._, through all that is otherwise mechanical.]
[Footnote 409: I am not certain whether there is a definite allusion here to anything in particular, or whether the Egyptian is taken to signify any folk outside Western culture, with possibly some subtle suggestion of those who held the favoured people in bondage, Philistines in short.]
[Footnote 410: _Herausgeboren ist_, cast forth, that is to say, as the natural growth of it--as Minerva from the head of Zeus.]
[Footnote 411: Imagination appears to me the best translation of _Phantasie._ Our English word, however, seems rather to lie between it and _Vorstellung_. Practically Hegel means here what we mean when we distinguish it from fancy (_Einbildungskraft_), though in Ruskin's original and most suggestive analysis of the terms, "fancy" of course implied a limited power of creative activity or at least associative activity.]
facility of imaginative activity.]
[Footnote 413: It must not be overlooked, however, that, especially in the arts of music and painting, genius may have reached maturity