31. Fraeulein Else
1. k. 6 u in . Kn en eln en aen .
box 5/1
336
GERMAN LETTER
metamorphosis of individual destiny into the tragedy of the times¬
and simultancously with the transition of the novel from pro¬
vincial intimacy into subjects broadly European—the heightened
pathos and heightened artistic instrumentation, are magnificent. I
regret that I have not space in which to give a real analysis and
description of this extraordinary book; but I do truly hope that an
interest in it need not be restricted to the country of its origin.
The most accomplisbed thing in it is the story of the friendship
of two men whose interlocking destinies are infected with the
melancholy of contradictory ideas and of human shortcomings.
A few brilliant scenes are devoted to William II himself—in
which the hysteria and perilous half-genius of this puffed-up and
lamentable sovereign are perfectly depicted. They take place in
the house of Prince Lana, a character which, based mere or less
upon Prince von Bülow, becomes the most significant figure of the
book, partly by reason of his shrewdness and hard-headedness,
partly by reason of a flaccid concessiveness which makes him in
the last analysis unable really, to come to grips with evil.
Whatever one may think in the abstract of an aesthetic hierarchy,
the novel is that literary art-form in which the plastic and the
critical, the imaginative and the practical, the 'naive' and the
“sentimental“ elements interpenetrate each other in the easiest and
happiest manner. No wonder that in these times of turbulence
and spiritual impoverishment the prose epic has become the really
modern, prevailing form of literary self-expression—even in Ger¬
many, where theoretically and thanks to the propaganda of two
imposing and triumphant theatrical geniuses (Schiller and Wag¬
ner) the drama had passed until recently for the leading literary
art. As a result of all the mental upheavals, all the social and
moral reverses to which we have been exposed, the novelist can
now occupy among us, a position which until a short time ago,
was ieserved for the dramatist alone. When, before the war, I
anticipated and described in Death in Venice, national great¬
ness on the part of a prose writer, it was pointed out to me that
my concept was not plausible, since in Germany the novelist, the
poet’s half-brother'’ as Schiller puts it, could never enjoy a posi¬
tion of honour such as I have ascribed to Gustav von Aschenbach.
To-day this possibility has become a reality—the concomitant of
Published in Tur Diar in March, April, and May, 1924.
1. k. 6 u in . Kn en eln en aen .
box 5/1
336
GERMAN LETTER
metamorphosis of individual destiny into the tragedy of the times¬
and simultancously with the transition of the novel from pro¬
vincial intimacy into subjects broadly European—the heightened
pathos and heightened artistic instrumentation, are magnificent. I
regret that I have not space in which to give a real analysis and
description of this extraordinary book; but I do truly hope that an
interest in it need not be restricted to the country of its origin.
The most accomplisbed thing in it is the story of the friendship
of two men whose interlocking destinies are infected with the
melancholy of contradictory ideas and of human shortcomings.
A few brilliant scenes are devoted to William II himself—in
which the hysteria and perilous half-genius of this puffed-up and
lamentable sovereign are perfectly depicted. They take place in
the house of Prince Lana, a character which, based mere or less
upon Prince von Bülow, becomes the most significant figure of the
book, partly by reason of his shrewdness and hard-headedness,
partly by reason of a flaccid concessiveness which makes him in
the last analysis unable really, to come to grips with evil.
Whatever one may think in the abstract of an aesthetic hierarchy,
the novel is that literary art-form in which the plastic and the
critical, the imaginative and the practical, the 'naive' and the
“sentimental“ elements interpenetrate each other in the easiest and
happiest manner. No wonder that in these times of turbulence
and spiritual impoverishment the prose epic has become the really
modern, prevailing form of literary self-expression—even in Ger¬
many, where theoretically and thanks to the propaganda of two
imposing and triumphant theatrical geniuses (Schiller and Wag¬
ner) the drama had passed until recently for the leading literary
art. As a result of all the mental upheavals, all the social and
moral reverses to which we have been exposed, the novelist can
now occupy among us, a position which until a short time ago,
was ieserved for the dramatist alone. When, before the war, I
anticipated and described in Death in Venice, national great¬
ness on the part of a prose writer, it was pointed out to me that
my concept was not plausible, since in Germany the novelist, the
poet’s half-brother'’ as Schiller puts it, could never enjoy a posi¬
tion of honour such as I have ascribed to Gustav von Aschenbach.
To-day this possibility has become a reality—the concomitant of
Published in Tur Diar in March, April, and May, 1924.