"Art" and "Nature" in German Barock

"Art" and "Nature" in German BarockAuthor(s): R. PascalSource: The Modern Language Review, Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jul., 1934), pp. 311-319Published by: Modern Humanities Research AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3715487 .

Accessed: 24/06/2014 20:44

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Modern Humanities Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend accessto The Modern Language Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.134 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 20:44:42 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=mhra

http://www.jstor.org/stable/3715487?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


'ART' AND 'NATURE' IN GERMAN BAROCK

THE meaning of the concepts 'Kunst' and 'Natur,' and their relation-

ship, present one of the most complicated problems in the aesthetic theory of the seventeenth century in Germany. It is a commonplace of the time that art consists in the imitation of nature; it is a common-

place too that art is the direct opposite of nature. Borinski, in his excellent account of the literary theory of the Renaissancel, points out

many of the difficulties and anomalies involved in the use of these con-

cepts. Later writers on the Barock age, however, tend to ignore the

problem. Cysarz, for instance2, over-stresses the emotive intensity of the Barock age to the point of disdaining the intellectual structure it created; and Ermatinger3, in his attempt at giving a unified picture of the 'Wesen' of this period, glosses over its contradictions, its struggles. But to understand the 'Wesen' of any age we must understand the

relationship of its thought to its artistic expression, we must understand the principles upon which concepts are assimilated and adapted to its needs. This is especially true of the Barock age. For the culture and the art of this period were based largely on conscious imitation of foreign cultures. The culture of the German Barock affirmed itself only slowly as a result of the assimilation of models. And less than other cultural

epochs did it achieve a definable unity. The heterogeneity of its elements demands that we should examine with the greatest care what was the

significance for the contemporaries of the terms they used. Their vague and uncertain use of the terms 'art' and 'nature' gives us, for example, a valuable opportunity for examining the true 'Wesen' of the Barock age.

In Opitz we have an extreme case of the purely formal, perfunctory use of concepts forged by others. At the outset of his Poetics he states that the art of poetry has already been adequately defined by Aristotle, Horace, and Scaliger, and restricts his task to putting together a few remarks culled from them4. So he takes over, without further considera- tion, such ideas as 'die Poeterey war eine verborgene Theologie.' But such borrowing does not take place without distortions, conscious or unconscious. This is nowhere more evident than where Opitz writes of

poetical invention. Ronsard, from whom he largely quotes, had written: 'le but du Poete (est) d'imiter, inventer, et representer les choses qui

1 Karl Borinski, Poetik der Renaissance, Berlin, 1886. 2 H. Cysarz, Deutsche Barockdichtung, Leipzig, 1924. 3 E. Ermatinger, Barock und Rokoko in der deutschen Dichtung, Leipzig, 1928. 4 Opitz, Buch von der Deutschen Poeterey, 1624 (in Braune's Neudrucke), p. 8.



' Art' and ' Nature' in German Barock

sont, qui peuvent estre, ou que les Anciens ont estimees comme veritablesl.'

Scaliger had understood invention in the sense of the imitation of the ideas of things. But Opitz introduces a new idea when he says that 'die gantze Poeterey im nachaffen der Natur bestehe, und die Dinge nicht so sehr beschreibe wie sie sein, als wie sie etwan sein kondten oder solten2.' These latter words contradict any naturalistic interpretation of the idea 'imitation of nature'; and the word 'solten' introduces a different principle from that involved in the conceptual interpretation of nature. According to what idealistic principle are we to create 'things as they ought to be'? Opitz does not say. We can understand, however, from his whole critical work that art is fundamentally to be distinguished from nature, the prosody of poetry different from that of prose, the elements of poetry gathered from some other realm than that of ex-

perience. Opitz' work was authoritatively to initiate the new poetry, to justify

poetry morally, and to define literary genres. The critics who followed him saw the need of clarifying some of the problems raised, and came nearer to dealing with questions of aesthetics. August Buchner, the close friend and admirer of Opitz, deals more carefully than his friend with

poetical invention3. The Platonic influence visible in Scaliger is evident in him too. Poetical creation reflects the ideas of things. But the function of poetry lies essentially in the representation of these ideas. Thus he refers to the Aristotelian distinction between the poet, the orator, and the historian, and makes the characteristic of the poet the method of

invention, the decoration ('Schmuck'). We prefer, he says, the imitation to the real thing; aesthetic pleasure arises from the perception that the work of art is an artificial creation. Thus the stress is transferred from the naturalness of the work to the intellectual activity to which it owes its origin. This change of stress is of the utmost significance for Barock

poetry and corresponds to the delight in ornament which is one of its main characteristics. The method by which Buchner comes to this theoretical justification of ornament upon the basis of the statement that art is the imitation of nature is also characteristic of the method of Barock thought. Actually Buchner's application of this theory shows us how he justified it. By 'nature' Buchner thought of moral truth. The 'ideas of things' h. understood as a moral statement. This forms the basis of a work of art. The peculiar function of the artist is then to

1 Ronsard, Abrege de l'Art Poetique Francois, 1565. 2 Opitz, op. cit., p. 13. 8 August Buchner, Kurzer Wegweiser zur deutschen Dichtkunst, Jena, 1663, based on

first (lost) version of 1632-4 (see Borinski, op. cit., p. 133).

312



hink out a scene, an action, which illustrates this moral statement; the work of art is the illustration, the ornament. When the actual problem of the relationship of the elements of description to natural objects obtrudes itself, Buchner tends to balk the issue by referring to pictorial art-imitation being there understood as the 'counterfeiting' of objects of experience'. This type of theory of art finds its most apt counterpart in the Emblemata of the time. The emblems illustrate some statement, and consist of natural and artificial elements (ships, armorial bearings,

etc.) combined in a rationalistic but often completely unnatural way2. No one in the Barock age treats of the relationship of art and nature

more explicitly than Schottel in his gigantic work, the Teutsche Haubt-

Sprache3. In his magisterially vigorous language he defines the task of the poet-firstly, the aim, the formation of a literary language, the

opposite of natural speech (Kunstgebau, Kunstworter); secondly, the

method, which is based on the use of natural elements. Here is expressed the realisation that the culture and poetry aimed at were art not because

they were founded on imitation of nature, not because they illustrated a moral truth, but because they were the opposite of nature. But to achieve this art it is necessary to imitate nature. What is meant by nature? Schottel arrives nearer than most of his contemporaries to

explaining this riddle. It is as a philologist that he tackles the problem. His immediate aim

is to create a poetic language. Many of his principles he takes from Ronsard-the use of technical expressions taken from common occupa- tions, from law, etc.; the rediscovery of ancient terms. He makes a

dictionary of words used by recognised German authors-he pays great reverence to Luther. But he differs from his foreign predecessors, as from Luther (whose Sendbrief vom Dolmetschen he admires), in his attitude to custom ('l'usage'). Luther had culled his literary language from the mouths of the common people, from the artisans and housewives; Malherbe had recommended his disciples to learn of the porters. Schottel's method was quite contrary. He reckons up the number of dialects, of modifications and mixtures of these dialects, in Germany. Custom shows itself a misleading guide, it is 'blind' and 'wanckelnd.' He adduces in favour of his argument the fact that no one criticises Cicero or Virgil

1 'Poema est loquens pictura; pictura est tacitum poema' is the matter prefixed to his manual of poetry. This confusion was general at the time. Authors did not tire of prescribing subjects for painters in the greatest detail. Cf. Zesen's Die adriatiscie Rosemund, Harsdorffer in many works, etc.

' Cf. many of the Emblemata in Justus Reiffenberg, Emblemata Politica, 1632. 3 Justus-Georgius Schottelius, Ausfiihrliche Arbeit von der Teutschen Haubt-Sprache,

1663. The first part appeared 1643.

313 R. PASCAL



'Art' and 'Nature' in German Barock

because they did not imitate in their style the speech of peasants. We must fashion a model, he says; create 'der gute Gebrauch' in place of 'der Gebrauch.' It must be 'fest und kinstlich gepflantzetl.'

How is this to be done? We must brush aside what custom seems to make necessary--'die Zwanggrenze seiner vermeinten Notwendigkeit,' as he vigorously puts it. We must not take language at its face value, but analyse it and lay bare its 'Haubtgesetze.' Custom we can accept, except where it infringes a 'Haubtgesetz,' for then it is a 'missbrauch- liche Verfalschung,' not a 'Gebrauch2.' Good language is to be deduced from the 'Wurtzelen der Sprache'-we must penetrate to the roots. Thus Schottel's main task was to compile a grammar of the German language, to define the methods of forming words and sentences. The German

language, he does not tire of telling us, is full of art and subtleties; these we must understand before we can claim to make any judgment (Schottel has a pedantic intolerance of ignorance). And he says outright, no judgment can stand against reason. We must understand the natural laws of language, to which we arrive by reason. Imitation of nature means for him acting in accordance with reason3. Schottel does not extend his

theory from language to poetry, and thus he is spared the difficulties which arise. But he is a firmer thinker than most of his contemporaries, in

spite of the many assumptions on which his conception of 'reason' rested. In Harsd6rffer, the most artificial of the Barock poets, the contem-

porary conceptions of art and nature are expressed in their most crass form. He was more conscious than the others of building a new society- he attempted to introduce the ritual of a new society, the Italian cere- monial, into the 'Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft,' and his Frauenzimmer-

Gesprechspiele gave the definition and model of a new social culture. Art was, he saw, the basic principle of the society he aimed at, and thus he

continually felt the need for defining and justifying art. We find in Harsdorffer, of course, the usual perfunctory acceptance of traditional statements. 'Der Poet beschreibt was wiirklich ist, und was seyn k6nnte und der Wahrheit ahnlich ist4.' But it is significant that his artistic

prescriptions are taken usually either from the realm of pictorial art

(allegorical pictures, emblems), or from the theatre. The theatre is indeed his happiest example. Here we take a moral statement, and illustrate it with real men. Thus he solves the problem of the naturalism of art!

Scarcely ever, in discussing pictorial art, the theatre, or poetry, does 1 Schottel, op. cit., p. 10. 2 Schottel, op. cit., p. 8. 3 This outspoken rationalism explains Schottel's long popularity and authority. 4 Frauenzimmer-Gesprechspiele, v, cciv, Niirnberg, 1641-9.

314



he even recognise the existence of problems of style or form. Words, he

says, are the equivalent of colours. There is no distinction made between the techniques of the various arts. This blurring over of essential dif- ferences is proof of the lack of earnestness with which Harsdorffer considered the 'imitation of nature' theory.

But, in proportion as Harsdorffer ignores the aspect of this theory which deals with imitation, he develops more and more fully the aspect which deals with invention. The change of stress pointed out in Buchner's case becomes here more marked. What is now important is not invention as contributing to the illustration of truth, but invention for its own sake, as the specific poetic faculty. Thus in a passage distinguishing the poet from the orator, he says the orator only has the aim of convincing us of a truth, while the poet, on the other hand, aims at giving us a

lively image of itl. Poetry is no longer even in theory a 'verborgene Theologie,' but a method of dealing with truths so that they will please.

In the Poetischer Trichter, written some years later than the Frauen-

zimmer-Gesprechspiele, Harsd6rffer develops further his own point of view, without respect for the Ancients. At the beginning he says that

poetry teaches us 'eine Sache mit vielen Worten nachdriicklich vor-

bringen2.' The poet must please and dazzle us-'Der Poet erzahlet alles mit bunten und glatten Worten und machet das Sch6ne schoner, das Abscheuliche abscheulicher, als es an ihm selbsten ist.' His definition of tragedy is characteristic: 'Das Trauerspiel ist eine ernstliche und prachtige Vorstellung einer traurigen Geschichte3'-the emphasis is all on the adjectives. Decoration is all-important, truth is its servant. HarsdSrffer makes his most illuminating statements when he distinguishes the poet from the orator and the philosopher. In the 6te Stunde he says: the philosopher aims at being understood, and so uses simple words; the orator uses embellishments in order to persuade us; the poet, on the other hand, has no thesis to drive home, but is characterised in that he 'etwas aus nichts bildet,' i.e., creates freely. In Part 11, 7te Stunde, he states: 'Der Redner geht, der Poet tanzt,' i.e., the poet acts according to intellectual, not natural laws. And in Part III, when Harsdorffer returns again to this vexed question of the difference between the orator and the poet, we find the most striking formulation: 'Der Redner fiihret die Warheit im Schilde,' in contrast to 'die aufgeblasene, hochtrabende, und mit vielen Figuren verkiinstelte Poeterey, die sich

1 Ibid., v, cciv. 2 G. P. Harsdorffer, Poetischer Trichter....1648-53, I, Vorrede. 8 Ibid., II, 11. Borinski points out that this is taken almost word for word from La

Podtique of La Mesnardiere.

315 R. PASCAL



'Art' and 'Nature' in German Barock

vielmehr bemiihet, das natiirliche Wesenbild zu verstellen als vorzustellen; ja die Sachen anderst aus zu dichten, als sie nicht sind, und das zu erfinden, was nirgendwo befindlich istl.' He goes on, the poet describes his Kunstgedanken, his artificial thoughts, in similar terms to those used

by the orator to represent his thoughts. Poetry differs from rhetoric in being essentially unconnected with reality. Or, as Krapp puts it, orator and poet do not differ in their technique, but in their personality2.

In complete harmony with this type of statement is HarsdSrffer's conception of the mystifying role of the poet. Ronsard, Scaliger, Opitz and the school of Renaissance critics had defined poetry as an 'allegorical theology' in the sense that the poet explains in an image what, in its naked, abstract form, is too difficult for men to understand. Harsdorffer

changes this idea into its opposite. 'Der Poeten Fabeln sind vielmehr Ratsele, mit welchen die Weissheit und Erkantnis natiirlicher Sachen zu dem Ende verborgen, dass sie von dem gemeinen Mann aufzul6sen, schwer fallen sollen3.' Or he talks of the aim of poetry as being the invention of 'kiinstlich verborgene Gleichnisse.' Eccentric phantasy is the hall-mark of poetry; its function is to erect defensive barriers round an exclusive, cultured society.

Side by side with this theory of the artificiality of poetry there go, as I have said, certain attempts at conforming to the conventional naturalistic theory. Harsdorffer admired the theatre because real men and women were the actors on the stage. He was a great admirer of

onomatopeia, and the most virtuose experimenter in onomatopeic words and sounds. It seems that he felt the inconsistency of his attitude, for in one place he tries to differentiate between non-naturalistic and naturalistic arts. Some arts, he says, are essentially different from nature, such as churches, clothing, etc.; in other arts the highest praise that can be given to them is that they reach to nature, e.g. painting4. But his confusion can hardly be better summed up than by the illustration in the xvIIth Gesprechspiel. Here is a drawing of a woman modelled on a

poetical description. Harsdorffer paints lilies on her cheeks, a little

Cupid on her brow, etc.; he enjoys the ignorance of those who cannot

G. P. Harsdorffer, Poetischer Trichter... 1648-53, III, Vorrede. Cf. a similar formulation in Gesprechsp. v, cciv: 'Der Poet...handelt von allen denen Sachen, die sind, und auch nicht sind.' J. Balthasar Kinderman suggested that Harsdorffer was bordering on blas- phemy, and corrected him from a theological though not an aesthetic point of view:- " Est ist aber dichten nicht, aus einem Nichts etwas machen, welches allein Gott zustehet, sondern aus einem geringen oder ungestalten Dinge etwas herrlich, ansehnlich, geist- und lob-reich ausarbeiten." Der deutsche Poet. Wittenberg. 1664.

2 A. Krapp, Die dsthetischen Tendenzen Harsd6rffers, Berlin, 1903, p. 14. It is curious how Harsdorffer inverts the normal and traditional definitions of the poet and the orator.

3 Frauenzimmer-Gesprechspiele, I, xlvii. 4 Oesprechsp. I, xv.

316



differentiate the techniques of poet and painter. Yet he himself is under the impression that the poetical metaphors 'lilies,' 'Cupid,' etc., are naturalistic! Consciously or unconsciously Harsdorffer remained securely within an exclusive world of symbols.

Harsdorffer's theory is so eclectic and confused that it would not be of

great significance for the historian, were it the isolated and eccentric

product of one man. But, as I have tried to point out, tendencies towards this type of theory are noticeable in the earlier German critics of this age. And, in particular, it seems that Harsd6rffer's theories apply more

exactly than those of any other critic to the poetical creations of the Barock period. Especially of Barock poetry is it true to say, with Vi6tor: in poetry 'herrscht eine ganz andere Bewusstheit und Kunst der sprach- lichen Formung...als in der Umgangssprachel.' In the forties and fifties of the seventeenth century Complimentierbiicher abounded, and these manuals of polite conversation and behaviour (the Gesprechspiele are the most imposing of them all) were considered as an aspect of

poetical production. But even the traditional genres of poetry approxi- mate in the Barock period to the Complimentierbiicher. When Harsdorffer discusses tragedy he makes of course the conventional statement that it must be based on a moral truth. But when analysing the advantages of the stage he insists on its importance in teaching deportment-the actors 'werden behertzt in dem Reden, hoflich in den Geberden, fahig in dem Verstiindnis, iiben das Gedichtnis...' etc.2 The novel, too, is a school of manners in this epoch. As Anton Ulrich von Braunschweig Nwrote of the novel-'Sie ist nicht im Schulstaub, sondern zu Hof erwachsen. Sie ist auch nicht mit Gesellschaft des Pobels bestaubet, sondern redet hochst hoflich und recht fiirstlich von fiirstlichen Ge- schichten3.' In this sense only is the conventional novel of the time to be called idealistic, in that it describes ideal modes of behaviour, ideal

characters. It is noticeable that when dealing with the less highly-born, an author such as Ziegler borders on the satirical4. Even lyrical poetry is conceived in general by this age as being a fixed mode of describing certain fixed relationships which are indispensable to the cultured man.

1 Karl Vietor, Probleme der deutschen Barockdichtung, Leipzig, 1928, p. 3. Even of Grimmelshausen is this true, as is pointed out by R. Alewyn (Johann Beer, Leipzig, 1932). 'Die Wirklichkeit ist ihm (Grimmelshausen) nicht Endzweck, sondern nur Anlass zur Entladung seiner leidenschaftlichen Subjektivitiit' (p. 203).

2 Trichter, i, 11. 3 Quoted by H. H. Borcherdt, Geschichte des Romans und der Novelle in Deutschland,

Leipzig, 1926, p. 197. 4 Cf. Lorangy and Scandor in A. Ziegler, Die asiatische Banise, 1688.

317 R. PASCAL



' Art' and 'Nature' in German Barock

For instance, love, instead of being a spontaneous emotion, is narrowed down in their poetry to a certain type of love (Petrarch is perhaps its

originator) which every cultured man must claim to experience. Philipp Zesen (Deutscher Helikon, Wittenberg 1649, Band II), after excusing himself for having written love-poems in his youth, goes so far as to

suggest that the poet, in order to write love-poems, should invent love- affairs with imaginary beloveds. Similarly Kinderman (op. cit.) quotes with approval the following lines of 'Betulius' of the Pegnitzschafer:

Das Hertz ist weit von dem, was eine Feder schreibet, Wir dichten ein Gedicht, dass man die Zeit vertreibet. In uns flammt keine Brunst, ob schon die Blatter brennen, Von liebender Begier. Es ist ein blosses Nennen.

Hence the dead conventionality of most Barock love-poems; they are meant to be models of love relationships, and have scarcely any relation-

ship to immediate experience, to nature1. Vietor in his outline of some of the problems facing us in German

Barock poetry says: 'Diesen gesellschaftlichen Grundcharakter (der Barockdichtung) zu fassen, scheint mir von entscheidender Bedeutung2.' The underlying meaning and intention of Barock poetry and theory of

poetry is to create and define a new, cultured society. This society, formed mainly of aristocrats and patricians, needed first and foremost to distinguish itself from the vulgar crowd3. 'Nature' was in its eyes unpleasant and coarse. It approached it only in order to affirm its own immaculateness. Social exclusiveness went hand in hand with preciosity in art. Zesen in particular distinguished himself by his ingenious locutions for 'window,' 'handkerchief,' etc. Sigmund von Birken in his Teutsche Rede-bind- und Dicht-Kunst (Niirnberg 1679) ridicules the idea of speaking of a 'schones Weitzenbrod.' Comedy, for instance, was reserved for the

description of manners and customs, and at the same time for the satire of the lower classes. It is of great significance that Grimmelshausen, one of the rare realistic writers of the time, was also one of the rare critics of

society4. Literature was for the Barock school a tool in the construction of their cultured society-and their society and culture were more insecurely founded than those of Italy and France, since they rested so much on

I Among the few exceptions to this can be mentioned Fleming in one or two of his love poems, and most strikingly Caspar Stieler in Die geharnischte Venus, 1660.

2 Karl Vi6tor, op. cit., p. 9. 3 For the changesin the social structure in Germany from the sixteenth to the seventeenth

century, and the formation of the cultured class of the Barock age, see K. Lamprecht, Deutsche Oeschichte, Freiburg, 1904, vols. v and vI.

4 Grimmelshausen also, of course, paid homage to his time. Amongst other things, his hero is of noble origin, while the heroes of the Spanish picaresque novel were all of humble birth.

318



mere imitation of those countries. It is Harsdorffer's merit to have defined more boldly than others this relationship between poetry and society. He does it in a concrete model in the Gesprechspiele. It is evident when he assigns various duties to the poet-' Ein lblicher Poet schreibet allezeit solche Gedichte, die zu Gottes Ehre zielen, grosse Herren und gelehrte Leute belustigen, die Unverstaindigen unterweisen, der Verstiindigen Nachsinnen iiben, die Einfaltigen lehren...l.' Here the social intentions of the writer determine the nature of poetry. And in the discussion of the relationship of art and nature the problem is dealt with in its most general aspect. We can see from Harsd6rffer's theory that the aim of the poet in his opinion was to establish an unreal, artificial world-'das natiirliche Wesenbild zu verstellen.' It is difficult to see how he could logically have come to such a theory; the contradictions in his own statements prove that it was not a logically thought-out system. We can understand this theory only by understanding the role of art in general social movements in the Barock age, by realising that art had fundamentally a social function, that with Opitz, Buchner, Schottel, Harsdorffer, and the poets who followed them, poetry was essentially the hall-mark of an exclusive cultured society.

R. PASCAL. CAMBRIDGE.

Trichter, I, 1.

319 R. PASCAL



Documents

"Art" and "Nature" in German Barock