{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_11066/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_11066","id":"gutenberg_11066","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11066","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: German Literature","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Legends -- Germany","Loeben, Otto Heinrich, Graf von, 1786-1825"],"text":"The images were generously made available by the Biblioth\u00e8que\nnationale de France (BnF/Gallica)\nat http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/ConsultationTout.exe?O=N061319\n\n\n\n\n\nModern Philology\n\nVOLUME XIII     October 1915     NUMBER 6     (pp. 65-92)\n\n\n\nALLEN WILSON PORTERFIELD\n\nGRAF VON LOEBEN AND THE LEGEND OF LORELEI\n\n\n\n\nI\n\n\nThe devotees of Apollo have to give a good account of themselves in\nOlympia before, they can become _persona grata_ on Olympus. They spend\ntheir lives, more or less, at the various games of poetry. Some, like\nGoethe, win in the majority of trials, and then we study all of their\nrecords regardless of their individual excellence. Some like Immermann\nin _Oberhof_, win only once, but this is sufficient to insure\nimmortality. Some play and joust, run and wrestle with constancy and\ngrace; their records, just after starting and just before finishing,\nare interesting, but in the end they are always defeated. And when\nthis is the case, posterity, lay and initiated, forgets their names\nand concerns itself in no wise with their records, unless it be for\nstatistical purposes. It is to the latter class that Graf von\nLoeben[1] belongs. For twenty-five years he was a perpetual,\nloyal, chivalric contestant in the Olympic vale of poetry. His running\nwas interesting, but he never won; he never wrote a single thing that\neverybody still reads for its own sake.\n\nAside from his connection with the Lorelei-matter, Graf von Loeben is,\ntherefore, at present, a wholly obscure, indeed unknown, Poet. The\nlarge _Konversations-Lexikons_[2] of Meyer and Brockhaus say nothing\nabout him, unless it be in the discussion of some other poet with whom\nhe associated. Of the twenty best-known histories of German\nliterature, some of which treat nothing but the nineteenth century,\nonly six contain his name, and these simply mention him either as a\nmember of the Dresden group of pseudo-romanticists, or as one of those\n_Afterromantiker_ who did yeoman service by way of bringing real\nromanticism into disrepute through their unsubstantial, imitative, and\nformless works. And this is true despite the fact that Loeben was an\nexceedingly prolific writer and a very popular and influential man in.\nhis day. Concerning his personality, Muncker says: \"Die Tiefe und\nW\u00e4rme seines leicht erregbaren Gem\u00fcthes, seine Herzensreinheit, seine\nschw\u00e4rmerische Hingabe an alles Sch\u00f6ne und Edle sowie sein zartes\nTactgef\u00fchl erwarben ihm bei Freunden und Bekannten das Lob einer\nsch\u00f6nen Seele in des Wortes sch\u00f6nster Bedeutung.\"[3]\n\nAs to his poetic ability from the point of view of quantity, one can\nonly marvel at the amount he produced in the time at his disposal; his\ncreative works cover all types and sorts of literature.[4] He is best\nknown for his numerous poems and his _magnus opus_, _Guido_, a novel\nof 360 pages, written under the pen-name of \"Isidorus Orientalis,\" and\nintended as a continuation of Novalis' _Ofterdingen_; he used Tieck's\nnotes for this purpose. He wrote also a great number of letters,\nbetween 60 and 70 elaborate reviews, and some critical essays, the\nbest of which seems to be his commentary to Madame de Sta\u00ebl's _De\nl'Allemagne_, while he translated from Anacreon, Dante, Guarini,\nHorace, Ovid, Petrarch, Vergil, and others, and left a number of\nfragments including the outline of a pretentious novel of which\nHeinrich von Veldeke, whom he looked upon as \"der Heilige des\nEnthusiasmus,\" was to be the hero. And he was, incidentally, an\nomnivorous reader, for, as he na\u00efvely said:\n\n    Viele B\u00fccher muss ich kennen,\n    Denn die Menschen kenn' ich gern.[5]\n\nAs to his originality, another confession is significant:\n\n    Ja, es gibt nur wenig Leute,\n    Deren Sch\u00fcler ich nicht bin.[6]\n\nNo attempt, however, has as yet been made at even an eclectic edition\nof his numerous finished works, a few of which are still unpublished,\nmany of which are now rare.[7]\n\nAs to his standing with his literary contemporaries, Eichendorff\nadmitted[8] that Loeben influenced him as a man and as a poet; it was\nhe who induced Eichendorff to write some of his earlier works under\nthe pen-name of \"Florens.\" And Eichendorff in turn credited Goethe\nwith the remark[9] that \"Loeben war der vorz\u00fcglichste Dichter jener\nZeit.\" His influence on Platen[10] is not quite so certain; Loeben was\nPlaten's senior by ten years, and they resembled each other in their\nability to employ difficult verse and strophe forms, and Platen read\nLoeben in 1824. Kleist interested himself in Loeben sufficiently to\npublish one of his short stories in his _Abendbl\u00e4tter_, but only after\nhe had so thoroughly revised it that Reinhold Steig says: \"Ich w\u00fcrde\nals Herausgeber die Erz\u00e4hlung sogar unter Kleists _Parerga_\naufnehmen.\"[11] His connection with, and influence upon, the Dresden\ngroup of romanticists, including Tieck, is a matter of record,[12] and\nFouqu\u00e9 looked upon him as a poet of uncommon ability.[13]\n\nBut let no one on this account believe that Loeben was a great poet\nand that the silence concerning him is therefore grimly unjust.\nGoethe, whether he made the foregoing remark or not, at least\nreceived[14] Loeben kindly; but he received others in the same way who\nwere not poets at all. Eichendorff said: \"Loeben. Wunderbar poetische\nNatur in stiller Verkl\u00e4rung.\"[15] But Eichendorff was then only\nnineteen years old, and he later took this back. Herder was moved to\ntears[16] on reading Loeben's _Maria_, but Herder was easily moved,\nand he died soon after; he would in all probability have changed his\nmind too. Friedrich Schlegel, on the other hand, was not justified in\ncalling[17] the pastoral poems in _Arkadien_ \"Schafpoesie.\" Uhland\npraised[18] these same poems; but he reminded Loeben in no uncertain\nterms, that the chief characteristic of southern poetry was\n\"Phantasie,\" while that of the northern poets was \"Gem\u00fcth,\" and that\nthe attempt to revive the spirit of Guarini, Cervantes, and their kind\nwas not well taken.\n\nThat Loeben has been so totally neglected by historians and\nencyclopedists is simply a case of that disproportion that so\nfrequently characterizes general treatises. Loeben is entitled to some\nspace in large works on German literature; but he was, like many\nanother who has been given space, a weak poet. And the sort of\nweakness, with which he was endowed can be brought out by a discussion\nof two of his novelettes, _Das weisse Ross,_[19] and _Leda,_ neither\nof which is by any means his best work, and neither of which seems to\nbe his worst. But, to judge from what has been said of his prose works\nin general, both are quite typical.\n\nThe plot so far as the action[20] is concerned is as follows: Otto\nowes the victory he won at a tournament in N\u00fcrnberg largely to the\nbeauty and agility of his great white horse Bellerophon. Siegenot von\nder Aue had seen him and his horse perform and determined to obtain\nBellerophon, if possible, for, owing to a curse pronounced on his\nfamily by a remote ancestor, Siegenot must either win at the next\ntournament or become a monk, which he does not wish to do. Both he and\nOtto love Felicitas, the niece of Graf Berthald. Siegenot secures\nBellerophon, is victorious at the tournament, though seriously\nwounded, and is nursed back to health by Otto and Felicitas. It is\nOtto, however, who wins Felicitas through his chivalric treatment of\nhis rival. The two are married, while Siegenot rides away on the great\nwhite horse Bellerophon.\n\nIt is such creations that make us turn away from Loeben. Alas for\nGerman romanticism if this story were wholly typical of it! It\ncontains the traditional conceits of the orthodox romanticists, but\napplied in such a sweet, lovely, pretty fashion! One woman is placed\nbetween two men, for in that way Loeben could best bring out his\nphilosophy of friendship. The only change, it seems, that he ever made\nin this arrangement was to place one man between two women. The\nsick-bed is poetized as the cradle of knowledge, for in it, or on it,\nwe become introspective and learn life. Old chronicles, tournaments,\njewelry, precious stones, Maryism, nature from every conceivable point\nof view, dreams and premonitions, visions and hallucinations, religion\nof the renunciatory type, the pain that clarifies, the friendship that\nweeps, Catholic painting and lute music, and love--human and\ndivine--these are the main themes in this tale. Lyrics and episodic\nstories are interpolated, obsolete words and stylistic archaisms\noccur. In short, the novelette reads like an amalgamation of Novalis\nwithout his philosophy, Waekenroder without his suggestiveness, and\nTieck without his constructive ability.\n\nThe story[21] entitled Leda is again typical of Loeben. Briefly\nstated, the plot is as follows: Leda, the daughter of a Roman duke,\nloves Cephalo, who is a gentleman but not a nobleman, and is loved by\nhim. Her father, however, has forced her to become engaged to Alberto,\na man of high degree, whom she does not love. The wedding is imminent,\nand Leda is sorely perplexed. Her father does not know why she is so\nindifferent to the approaching event and accordingly sends her to a\ndistant and lonely castle in the hope that she may become interested,\nat least, in her own nuptials. While there she drowns herself in the\nswan lake. Alberto drops out of the story, and Cephalo becomes the\nintimate friend of the duke. Previous to this Alberto had ordered a\ncertain painter to paint a picture of \"Leda and the Swan.\" Danae, the\ndaughter of an old, unscrupulous antiquarian, was seen by Cephalo\nwhile posing as a model for Leda. Enraged at this, she tells her\nfather that she will not be appeased until married to Cephalo. But she\nloses her life through the falling of an old, dilapidated castle\nwherein she has been keeping an unconventional tryst, and Cephalo\nbecomes the intimate friend of the painter.\n\nLoeben's ideas and technique stand out in every line of this story.\nOne woman is placed between two men, unexpected friendships are\ndeveloped, the lute and the zither are played in the moonlight, love\nand longing abound, nature is made a confidant, _der Zaubern der\nKunst_ is overdone, familiar stories--Leda and the Swan, Actaeon and\nDanae--are interwoven, there are manifest reminiscences of _Emilia\nGalotti_ and _Ofterdingen_, and the prose is uncommonly fluent. The\nonly character in the entire narrative who has any virility is the\nantiquarian, and he is one of the meanest Loeben ever drew. Alberto\nhas no will at all, Leda not much, Cephalo less than Leda, and Danae\nis without character. In short, the only valuable, part of the story\nlies in its approach to a development of the psychology of love in\nart. But it is only an approach; and it does not make one feel\ninclined to read a vast deal more of the prose works of Graf von\nLoeben.\n\nAs to Loeben's lyrics,[22] they are irregular, inconsistent, and odd\nas to orthography,[23] melodious and flowing in form, poor in ideas,\nrich in feeling that frequently sounds forced, representative of\nnearly all the important Germanic, Romance, and Oriental verse and\nstrophe forms, reminiscent of his reading[24] in many instances, and\nromantic as a whole, especially in their constant portrayal of\nlonging. Loeben was the poet of _Sehnsucht_. He tried always _das Nahe\nzu entfernen und das Ferne sich nahe zu bringen_. With a few\nconspicuous exceptions, his lyrics resemble those of Geibel somewhat\nin form and treatment. Poetry and individual poets receive grateful\nconsideration, the seasons are overworked, love rarely fails and\nnature never, wine and the Rhine are not forgotten, and the South is\npoetized as the land of undying inspiration. Of their kind, and in\ntheir way, Loeben's poems are nearly perfect.[25] There are no\nexpressions that repel, no verses that jar, no poems that wholly lack\nfancy, and there are occasional evidences of the inspiration that\nrebounds. It would be presumptuous to ask for a more amiable poem than\n\"Fr\u00fchlingstrost\" (46), or for a neater one than \"Der Nichterh\u00f6rte\"\n(121), or for a more gently roguish one than the triolett[26] entitled\n\"Frage\" (55).\n\nBut be his poems never so good, there is no reason why Loeben should\nbe revived for the general reader. His prose works lack artistic\nmeasure and objective plausibility; his lyrics lack clarity and\nvirility; his creations in general lack the story-telling property\nthat holds attention and the human-interest touches that move the\nsoul. His thirty-nine years were too empty of real experience;[27] his\nworks are not filled with the matter that endures. And it is for this\nreason that they ceased to live after their author had died. His\nconnection with this earth was always just at the snapping-point. His\nworks constitute, in many instances, a poetic rearrangement of what he\nhad just latterly read. And when he is original he is vacuous. To\nemphasize his works for their own sake would consequently be to set up\nfalse values. Loeben can be studied with profit only by those people\nwho believe that great poets can be better understood and appreciated\nby a study of the literary than by a study of the economic background.\nTo know Loeben[28] throws light on some of his much greater\ncontemporaries--Goethe, Eichendorff, Kleist, Novalis, Arnim, Brentano,\nUhland, G\u00f6rres, Tieck, and possibly Heine.\n\n\n\n\nII\n\n\nBut it is not so much the purpose of this paper to evaluate Loeben's\ncreations as to locate him in the development of the Lorelei-legend,\nand to prove, or disprove, Heine's indebtedness to him in the case of\nhis own poem of like name. The facts are these:\n\nIn 1801 Clemens Brentano published at Bremen the first volume of his\n__Godwi_ and in 1802 the second volume at the same place.[29] He had\nfinished the novel early in 1799--he was then twenty-one years old.\nWieland was instrumental in securing a publisher.[30] Near the close\nof the second volume, Violette sings the song beginning:\n\n    Zu Bacharach am Rheine\n    Wohnt eine Zauberin.\n\nThat this now well-known ballad of the Lorelei was invented by\nBrentano is proved, not so much by his own statement to that effect as\nby the fact that the erudite and diligent Grimm brothers, the friends\nof Brentano, did not include the Lorelei-legend in their collection of\n_579 Deutsche Sagen_, 1816. The name of his heroine Brentano took from\nthe famous echo-rock near St. Goar, with which locality he became\nthoroughly familiar during the years 1780-89. No romanticist knew the\nRhine better or loved it more than Brentano. \"Lore\" means[31] a small,\nsquinting elf; and is connected with the verb \"lauern.\" The oldest\nform of the word is found in the _Codex Annales Fuldenses_, which goes\nback to the year 858, and was first applied to the region around the\nmodern Kempten near Bingen. \"Lei\" means a rock; \"Loreley\" means then\n\"Elbfels.\" And what Brentano and his followers have done is to apply\nthe name of a place to a person.\n\nIn _Urania: Taschenbuch auf das Jahr 1821_, Graf von Loebcn published\nhis \"Loreley: Eine Sage vom Rhein.\" The following ballad introduces\nthe saga in prose. Heine's ballad is set opposite for the sake of\ncomparison.[32]\n\n  Da wo der Mondschein blitzet         Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten\n  Um's h\u00f6chste Felsgestein,            Dass ich so traurig bin;\n  Das Zauberfr\u00e4ulein sitzet            Ein M\u00e4rchen aus alten Zeiten,\n  Und schauet auf den Rhein.           Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.\n\n  Es schauet her\u00fcber, hin\u00fcber,         Die Luft ist k\u00fchl und es dunkelt,\n  Es schauet hinab, hinauf,            Und ruhig fliesst der Rhein;\n  Die Schifflein ziehn vor\u00fcber,        Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt\n  Lieb' Knabe, sieh nicht auf!         Im Abendsonnenschein.\n\n  Sie singt dir hold zum Ohre,         Die sch\u00f6nste Jungfrau sitzet\n  Sie blickt dich th\u00f6richt an,         Dort oben wunderbar,\n  Sie ist die sch\u00f6ne Lore,             Ihr goldenes Geschmeide blitzet,\n  Sie hat dir's angethan.              Sie k\u00e4mmt ihr goldenes Haar.\n\n  Sie schaut wohl nach dem Rheine,     Sie k\u00e4mmt es mit goldenem Kamme,\n  Als schaute sie nach dir,            Und singt ein Lied dabei;\n  Glaub's nicht, dass sie dich meine,  Das hat eine wundersame\n  Sich nicht, horch nicht nach ihr!    Gewaltige Melodei.\n\n  So blickt sie wohl nach allen        Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe\n  Mit ihrer Augen Glanz,               Ergreift es mit wildem Weh;\n  L\u00e4sst her die Locken wallen          Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe,\n  Im wilden goldnen Tanz.              Er schaut nur hinauf in die H\u00f6h'.\n\n  Doch wogt in ihrem Blicke            Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen\n  Nur blauer Wellen Spiel,             Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn;\n  Drum scheu die Wassert\u00fccke,          Und das hat mit ihrem Singen\n  Denn Flut bleibt falsch und k\u00fchl!    Die Lorelei gethan.\n\nThe following saga then relates how an old hunter sings this song to a\nyoung man in a boat on the Rhine, warning him against the allurements\nof the Lorelei on the rock above. The hunter's good intentions are\nfruitless, the young man is drowned.\n\nIn the autumn of 1823, Heine wrote, while at Luneburg, his \"Die\nLorelei.\" It was first published[33] in the _Gesellschafter,_ March\n26, 1824. Commentators refer to the verse, \"Ein M\u00e4rchen aus alten\nZeiten,\" as a bit of fiction, adding that it is not a title of olden\ntimes, but one invented by Brentano about 1800. The statement is true\nbut misleading, for we naturally infer that Heine derived his initial\ninspiration from Brentano's ballad. Concerning this matter there are\nthree points of view: Some editors and historians point out Brentano's\npriority and list his successors without committing[34] themselves as\nto intervening influence. This has only bibliographical value and for\nour purpose may be omitted. Some trace Heine's ballad direct to\nBrentano, some direct to Loeben. Which of these two points of view has\nthe more argument in its favor and can there be still a third?\n\nIn the first place, Heine never knew Brentano personally, and never\nmentions him in his letters previous to 1824, nor in his letters[35]\nthat have thus far been published after 1824. _Godwi_ was repudiated\nsoon after its publicatipn by Brentano himself, who said[36] there was\nonly one good thing about it, the title, for, after people had said\n\"Godwi,\" they could just keep on talking and say, \"Godwi, dumm.\" On\nits account, Caroline called him Demens Brentano, while Dorothea\ndubbed him \"Angebrenntano.\" The novel became a rare and unread book\nuntil Anselm Ruest brought out a new edition[37] with a critical and\nappreciative introduction in 1906. Diel and Kreiten say \"es ging fast\nspurlos vor\u00fcber.\" It was not included in his _Gesammelte Schriften_\n(1852-55), though the ballad[38] was. Heine does not mention it in his\n_Romantische Schule_, which was, however, written ten years after he\nhad finished his \"Die Lorelei.\" And as to the contents of Brentano's\nballad, there is precious little in it that resembles Heine's ballad,\naside from the name of the heroine, and even here the similarity is\nfar from striking.\n\nAnd yet, despite all this, commentators continue to say that Heine\ndrew the initial inspiration for his \"Lorelei\" from Brentano. They may\nbe right, but no one of them has thus far produced any tenable\nargument, to say nothing of positive proof. The most recent supporter\nof Brentano's claim is Eduard Thorn[39] (1913), who reasons as\nfollows:\n\nHeine knew Brentano's works in 1824, for in that year he borrowed\n_Wunderhorn_ and _Tr\u00f6steinsamkeit_ from the library at G\u00f6ttingen.\nThese have, however, nothing to do with Brentano's ballad, and it is\none year too late for Heine's ballad. All of Thorn's references to\nHeine's _Romantische Schule_, wherein _Godwi_, incidentally, is not\nmentioned, though other works are, collapse, for this was written ten\nyears too late. And then, to quote Thorn: \"Loeben's Gedicht lieferte\ndas direkte Vorbild f\u00fcr Heine.\" He offers no proof except the\nstatements of Strodtmann, Hessel, and Elster to this effect.\n\nAnd again: \"Der Name Lorelay findet sich bei Loeben nicht als\nEigenname, wenn er auch das Gedicht, 'Der Lurleifels' \u00fcberschreibt.\"\nBut the name Loreley does occur[40] twice on the same page on which\nthe last strophe of the ballad is published in _Urania_, and here the\nballad is not entitled \"Der Lurleifels,\" but simply \"Loreley.\" Now,\neven granting that Loeben entitled his ballad one way in the MS and\nBrockhaus published it in another way in _Urania_, it is wholly\nimprobable that Heine saw Loeben's MS previous to 1823.\n\nAnd then, after contending that Brentano's _Rheinm\u00e4rchen_,[41] which,\nthough written before 1823, were not published until 1846, must have\ngiven Heine the hair-combing motif, Thorn says: \"Also kann nur\nBrentano das Vorbild geliefert haben.\" This cannot be correct. What\nis, on the contrary, at least possible is that Heine influenced\nBrentano.[42] The _Rheinm\u00e4rchen_ were finished, in first form, in\n1816. And Guido G\u00f6rres, to whom Brentano willed them, and who first\npublished them, tells us how Brentano carried them around with him in\nhis satchel and changed them and polished them as opportunity was\noffered and inspiration came. It is therefore reasonable to believe\nthat Heine helped Brentano to metamorphose his Lorelei of the ballad,\nwhere she is wholly human, into the superhuman Lorelei of the\n_Rheinm\u00e4rchen_ where she does, as a matter of fact, comb her hair with\na golden comb.[43]\n\nAnd now as to Loeben: Did Heine know and borrow from his ballad? Aside\nfrom the few who do not commit themselves, and those who trace Heine's\npoem direct to Brentano, and Oscar F. Walzel to be referred to later,\nall commentators, so far as I have looked into the matter, say that he\ndid. Adolf Strodtmann said[44] it first (1868), in the following\nwords: \"Es leidet wohl keinen Zweifel, dass Heine dies Loeben'sche\nBallade gekannt und bei Abfassung seiner Lorelei-Ballade benutzt hat.\"\nBut he produces no proof except similarity of form and content. Of the\nothers who have followed his lead, ten, for particular reasons, should\nbe authorities: Franz Muncker,[45] Karl Hessel,[46] Karl Goedeke,[47]\nWilhelm Scherer,[48] Georg M\u00fccke,[49] Wilhelm Hertz,[50] Ernst\nElster,[51] Georg Brandes,[52] Heinrich Spiess,[53] and Herrn. Anders\nKr\u00fcger.[54] But no one of them offers any proof except Strodtmann's\nstatement to this effect.\n\nNow their contention may be substantially correct; but their method of\ncontending is scientifically wrong. To accept, where verification is\nnecessary, the unverified statement of any man is wrong. And, that is\nthe case here. Elster's note is of peculiar interest. He says: \"Heine\nschloss sich am n\u00e4chsten an die Bearbeitung eines Stoffs an, die ein\nGraf L\u00f6ben 1821 ver\u00f6ffentlichte.\" The expression \"ein Graf L\u00f6ben\" is\ngrammatical evidence, though not proof, of one of two things: that\nLoeben was to Elster himself in 1890 a mere name, or that Elster knew\nLoeben would be this to the readers of his edition of Heine's works.\nBrandes says: \"Die Nachahmung ist unzweifelhaft.\"[55] His proof is\nStrodtmann's statement, and similarity of content and form, with\nspecial reference to the two rhymes \"sitzet-blitzet\" that occur in\nboth. But this was a very common rhyme with both Heine and Loeben in\nother poems. How much importance can be attached then to similarity of\ncontent and form?\n\nThe verse and strophe form, the rhyme scheme, the accent, the melody,\nexcept for Heine's superiority, are the same in both. As to length,\nthe two poems are exactly equal, each containing, by an unimportant\nbut interesting coincidence, precisely 117 words.[56] But the contents\nof the two poems are not nearly so similar as they apparently seemed,\nat first blush, to Adolf Strodtmann. The melodious singing, the golden\nhair and the golden comb and the use that is made of both, the\nirresistibly sweet sadness, the time, \"Aus alten Zeiten,\" and the\nsubjectivity--Heine himself recites his poem--these indispensable\nessentials in Heine's poem are not in Loeben's. Indeed as to content\nand of course as to merit, the two poems are far removed from each\nother.\n\nAnd, moreover, literary parallels are the ancestors of that undocile\nchild, Conjecture. We must remember that sirenic and echo poetry are\nalmost as old as the tide of the sea, certainly as old as the hills,\nwhile as to the general situation, there is a passage in Milton's\n_Comus_ (ll. 880-84) analogous to Heine's ballad, as follows:\n\n    And fair Ligea's golden comb,\n    Wherewith she sits on diamond rocks,\n    Sleeking her soft alluring locks,\n    By all the nymphs that nightly dance\n    Upon thy streams with wily glance,\n\nand so on. And as to the pronounced similarity of form, we must\nremember that Heine was here employing his favorite measure, while\nLoeben was almost the equal of Ruckert in regard to the number of\nverse and strophe forms he effectively and easily controlled. In\nshort, striking similarity in content is lacking, and as to the same\nsort of similarity in form to this but little if any significance can\nbe attached.\n\nAnd if the internal evidence is thin, the external is invisible,\nexcept for the fact that Loeben's ballad was published by Brockhaus,\nwhom Heine knew by correspondence. But between the years 1818 and\n1847, Heine never published anything in _Urania_,[57] which was used\nby so many of his contemporaries. Heine and Loeben never knew each\nother personally, and between the years 1821 and 1823 they were never\nregionally close together.[58] Heine never mentions Loeben in his\nletters; nor does he refer to him in his creative works, despite the\nfact that he had a habit of alluding to his brothers in Apollo, even\nin his poems.[59]\n\nAnd therefore, though it is fashionable to say that Heine knew\nLoeben's ballad in 1823, and though the contention is plausible, it is\nimpossible to prove it. Impossible also for this reason: Karl Simrock,\nHeine's intimate friend, included in his _Rheinsagen_ (1836, 1837,\n1841)[60] the ballads on the Lorelei by Brentano, Eichendorff, Heine,\nand himself. Why did he exclude the one by Loeben? He made an ardent\nappeal in his preface to his colleagues to inform him of any other\nballads that had been written on these themes. The question must be\nreferred to those who like to skate on flabby ice in things literary.\n\nThe most plausible theory in regard to the source of Heine's ballad is\nthe one proposed by Oscar F. Walzel, who says: \"Heine hat den Stoff\nwahrscheinlich aus dem ihm wohlbekannten _Handbuch f\u00fcr Reisende am\nRhein_ von Aloys Schreiber \u00fcbernommen.\"[61] The only proof that Walzel\ngives that Heine knew Schreiber's manual is a reference[62] to it in\n_Lutetia_. But this was written in 1843, and proves nothing as to\n1823. His contention, however, that Heine borrowed from Schreiber[63]\nhas everything in its favor, from the point of view of both external\nand internal evidence and deserves, therefore, detailed elaboration.\n\nAs to internal evidence, there is only one slight difference between\nHeine's ballad and Schreiber's saga: where Heine's Lorelei combs her\nhair with a golden comb and has golden jewelry, Schreiber's \"bindet\neinen Kranz f\u00fcr ihre goldenen Locken\" and \"hat eine Schnur von\nBernstein in der Hand.\" Even here the color scheme is the same;\notherwise there is no difference: time, place, and events are\nprecisely the same in both. The mood and style are especially similar.\nThe only words in Heine not found in Schreiber are \"Kamm\" and\n\"bedeuten.\" Schreiber goes, to be sure, farther than does Heine: he\ncontinues the story after the death of the hero.[64] This, however, is\nof no significance, for Heine was simply interested in his favorite\ntheme of unrequited or hindered love.\n\nNow Heine must have derived his plot from somewhere, else this would\nbe an uncanny case of coincidence. And the two expressions, \"Aus alten\nZeiten,\" and \"Mit ihrem Singen,\" the latter of which is so important,\nHeine could have derived only from Schreiber. Heine was not jesting\nwhen he said it was a fairy tale from the days of old; he was\nfollowing, it seems, Schreiber's saga, the first sentence of which\nreads as follows: \"In alten Zeiten liess sich manchmal auf dem Lureloy\num die Abendd\u00e4mmerung und beym Mondschein eine Jungfrau sehen, die mit\nso anmuthiger Stimme sang, dass alle, die es h\u00f6rten, davon bezaubert\nwurden.\" But Brentano's Lorelei does not sing at all, and Loeben's\njust a little, \"Sie singt dir hold zum Ohre,\" while Heine, like\nSchreiber, puts his heroine in the prima donna class, and has her work\nher charms through her singing. And it seems that Heine was following\nSchreiber when the latter wrote as follows: \"Viele, die\nvor\u00fcberschifften, gingen am Felsenriff oder im Strudel zu Grunde, weil\nsie nicht mehr auf den Lauf des Fahrzeugs achteten, sondern von den\nhimmlischen T\u00f6nen der wunderbaren Jungfrau gleichsam vom Leben\nabgel\u00f6st wurden, wie das zarte Leben der Blume sich im s\u00fcssen Duft\nverhaucht.\"\n\nAnd as to her personal appearance, Brentano and Loeben simply tell us\nthat she was beautiful, Brentano employing the Homeric method of\nproving her beauty by its effects. Heine and Schreiber not only\ncomment upon her physical beauty, they also tell us how she enhanced\nher natural charms by zealously attending to her hair and her jewelry\nand religiously guarding the color scheme in so doing. In brief, the\nsimilarity is so striking that, if we can prove that Heine knew\nSchreiber in 1823, we can definitely assert that Schreiber[65] was his\nmain, if not his unique, source.\n\nLet us take up the various arguments in favor of the contention that\nHeine knew Schreiber's Handbuch in 1823, beginning with the least\nconvincing. If Heine read Loeben's ballad and saga in \"_Urania_ f\u00fcr\n1821,\" he could thereby have learned also of Schreiber's _Rheinsagen_,\nfor, by a peculiar coincidence for our purpose, Brockhaus\ndiscusses[66] these in the introduction in connection with a tragedy\nby W. Usener, entitled Die Br\u00fcder, and based upon one of Schreiber's\n_Sagen_. Proof, then, that Heine knew Loeben in 1823 is almost proof\nthat he also knew Schreiber.\n\nBut there is better proof than this. In Elementargeister[67], we find\nthis sentence: \"Ganz genau habe ich die Geschichte nicht im Kopfe;\nwenn ich nicht irre, wird sie in Schreibers _Rheinischen Sagen_ aufs\numst\u00e4ndlichste erz\u00e4hlt. Es ist die Sage vom Wisperthal, welches unweit\nLorch am Rheine gelegen ist.\" And then Heine tells the same story that\nis told by Schreiber. It is the eighth of the seventeen _Sagen_ in\nquestion. This, then, is proof that Heine knew Schreiber so long\nbefore 1835 that he was no longer sure he could depend upon his\nmemory. But it is impossible to say whether Heine's memory was good\nfor twelve years, or more, or less.\n\nBut there is better evidence than this. Heine's _Der Rabbi von\nBacharach_ reaches far back into his life. That he intended to write\nthis sort of work before 1823 has been proved;[68] just when he\nactually began to write this particular work is not so clear, but we\nknow that he did much preliminary reading by way of preparing himself\nfor its composition. And the region around and above and below\nBacharach comes in for detailed discussion and elaborate description\nin Schreiber's _Rheinsagen_. The crusades, the _Sankt-Wernerskirchen_,\nLorch, the _Fischfang_, Hatto's _M\u00e4useturm_, the maelstrom at Bingen,\nthe _Kedrich_, the story of the _Kecker Reuter_ who liberated the maid\nthat had been abducted by dwarfs, and again, and this is irrefutable,\nthe story \"von dem wunderlicheft Wisperthale dr\u00fcben, wo die V\u00f6gel ganz\nvern\u00fcnftig sprechen,\" all of these and others play a large role in\nSchreiber's sagas and in Heine's _Rabbi_. No one can read Schreiber's\n_Handbuch_ and Heine's _Rabbi_ without being convinced that the former\nstood sponsor for the latter.\n\nAnd lastly, Heine wrote before 1821 his poem entitled \"Die zwei\nBr\u00fcder.\"[69] It is the tenth of the seventeen _Volkssagen_ by\nSchreiber, the same theme as the one treated by W. Usener already\nreferrred to. It is an old story,[70] and Heine could have derived his\nmaterial from a number of places, but not from Grimm's _Deutsche_\n_Sagen_, indeed from no place so convenient as Schreiber. Heine knew\nSchreiber's _Handbuch_[71] in 1823.\n\nThe situation, then, is as follows: Heine had to have a source or\nsources, There are three candidates for Heine honors; Brentano,\nLoeben, Schreiber. Brentano has a number of supporters, though the\nevidence, external and internal, is wholly lacking. It would seem that\nlack of attention to chronology has misled investigators. Brentano's\nballad can now be read in many places, but between about 1815 and 1823\nit was safely concealed in the pages of an unread and unknown novel.\nLoeben[72] has many supporters, though the external evidence, except\nfor the fact that Heine corresponded with Brockhaus, is wholly\nlacking, and the internal weakens on careful study. It would seem that\nthe striking similarity in form has misled investigators. Schreiber\nhas only one supporter, despite the fact that the evidence, external\nand internal, is as strong as it can be without Heine's ever having\nmade some such remark as the following: \"Yes, in 1823 I knew _only_\nSchreiber's saga and borrowed from it.\" But Heine never made any such\nstatement. It would seem that the strong assertions of so many\ninvestigators in favor of Brentano and Loeben have made careful study\nof the matter appear not worth while; the problem was apparently\nsolved. And since Heine never committed himself in this connection,\nthe matter will, in all probability, remain forever conjectural. This\nmuch, however, is irrefutable: even if Heine knew in 1823 the five\n_Loreleidichtungen_, that had then been written, those by Brentano,\nNiklas Vogt, Eichendorff, Schreiber, and Loeben, and if he borrowed\nwhat he needed from all of them, he borrowed more from Schreiber[73]\nthan from the other four combined.[74]\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\n\nWhore Brentano sowed, many have reaped. Since the publication of his\n_Godwi_, about sixty-five _Loreleidichtungen_[75] have been written in\nGerman, the most important being those by Brentano (1810-16), Niklas\nVogt[76] (1811), Eichendorff (_ca._ 1812), Loeben (1821), Heine\n(1823), Simrock (1837, 1840), Otto Ludwig (1838), Geibel (1834, 1846),\nW. M\u00fcller von K\u00f6nigswinter (1851), Carmen Sylva, (_ca._ 1885), A.\nL'Arronge (1886), Julius Wolff (1886), and Otto Roquette (1889). In\naddition[77] to these, the story has been retold[78] many times, with\nslight alterations of the \"original\" versions, by compilers of\nchrestomathies, and parodies have been written on it. There is hardly\na conceivable interpretation that has not been placed upon the\nlegend.[79] The Lorelei has been made by some the evil spirit that\nentices men into hazardous games of chance, by others, she is the\nlofty incarnation of a desire to live and be blessed with the love\nthat knows no turning away. The story has also wandered to Italy,\nFrance, England, Scotland, Scandinavia, and the United States,[80] and\nthe heroine has proved a grateful theme for painters and sculptors. Of\nthe epic works, that by Julius Wolff is of interest because of the\npopularity it has enjoyed. First published in 1886, it had reached the\nforty-sixth thousand in 1898. Of the dramas that by L'Arronge should\nbe valuable, but it has apparently never been published; nor has Otto\nLudwig's operatic fragment,[81] unless recently. Aside from Geibel,\nOtto Roquette is the most interesting librettist. Of the forty-odd\n(there were forty-two in 1898) composers of Heine's ballad, the\ngreatest are Schumann, Raff, and Liszt, and in this case Friedrich\nSucher,[82] who married the ballad to its now undivorceable melody.\n\nThough Brentano created[83] the story of his ballad, he located it in\na region rich in legendary material, and it was the echo-motif of\nwhich he made especial use, and traces of this can be found in German\nliterature as early as the thirteenth century.[84] The first real poet\nto borrow from Brentano was Eichendorff,[85] in whose _Ahnung und\nGegenwart_ we have the poem since published separately under the title\nof \"Waldgespr\u00e4ch,\" and familiar to many through Schumann's\ncomposition.[86] That Eichendorff's Lorelei operates the forest is\nonly to be expected of the author of so many _Waldlieder_. Even if\nHeine had known it he could have borrowed nothing from it except the\nname of his heroine.[87]\n\nAs to Loeben's saga, there can be but little doubt that he derived his\ninitial inspiration from Schreiber, with whom he became intimately\nacquainted[88] at Heidelberg during the winter of 1807-8. This, of\ncourse, is not to say that Heine borrowed from Loeben. Indeed, one of\nthe strongest proofs that Heine borrowed from Schreiber rather than\nfrom Loeben is the clarity and brevity, ease and poetry of Schreiber's\nsaga as over against the obscurity and diffuseness, clumsiness and\nwoodenness of Loeben's saga,[89] the plot of which, so far as the\naction is concerned, is as follows: Hugbert von Stahleck, the son of\nthe Palsgrave, falls in love with the Lorelei and rows out in the\nnight to her seat by the Rhine. In landing, he falls into the stream,\nthe Lorelei dives after him and brings him to the surface. The old\nPalsgrave has, in the meanwhile, sent a knight and two servants to\ncapture the Lorelei. They climb the lofty rock and hang a stone around\nthe enchantress' neck, when she voluntarily leaps from the cliff into\nthe Rhine below and is drowned.\n\nThe one episode in Loeben not found in any of Schreiber's _Rheinsagen_\nis the story of the castaway ring miraculously restored from the\nstomach of the fish. This Loeben could have taken from \"Magelone\" by\nTieck, or \"Polykrates\" by Schiller, both of whom he revered as men and\nwith whose works he was thoroughly familiar. But there is nothing in\nLoeben that Heine could not have derived in more inspiring form from\nSchreiber; and Schreiber contains essentials not in Loeben at all.\nIndeed, a general study of Schreiber's manuals leads one to believe\nthat the influence of them, as a whole, on Heine would be a most\ngrateful theme: there is not one Germanic legend referred to in Heine\nthat is not contained in Schreiber. And as a prose writer, Heine's\nfame rests largely on his travel pictures.[90]\n\nThe points of similarity between Loeben's ballad and saga and the\nballads and M\u00e4rchen of Brentano, all of which Loeben knew in 1821, are\nwholly negligible. It remains,[91] therefore, simply to point out some\nof the peculiarities of Brentano's \"Loreley\" as protrayed in the\n_Rheinm\u00e4rchen_--peculiarities that are interesting in themselves and\nthat may have played a part in the development of the legend since\n1846.\n\nIn \"Das M\u00e4rchen von dem Rhein und dem M\u00fcller Radlauf,\"[92] Loreley is\nportrayed in a sevenfold capacity, as it were: seven archways lead to\nseven doors that open onto seven stairways that lead to a large hall\nin which Frau Lureley sits on a sevenfold throne with seven crowns\nupon her head and her seven daughters around her. This makes\ninteresting reading for children, but Brentano did not lose sight of\nadults, including those who like to speculate as to the origin of the\nlegend. He says: \"Sie [Lorelei] ist eine Tochter der Phantasie,\nwelches eine ber\u00fchmte Eigenschaft ist, die bei Erschaffung der Welt\nmitarbeitete und das Allerbeste dabei that; als sie unter der Arbeit\nein sch\u00f6nes Lied sang, h\u00f6rte sie es immer wiederholen und fand endlich\nden Wiederhall, einen sch\u00f6nen J\u00fcngling in einem Felsen sitzen, mit dem\nsie sich verheiratete und mit ihm die Frau Lureley erzeugte; sie\nhatten auch noch viele andere Kinder, zum Beispiel: die Echo, den\nAkkord, den Reim, deren Nachkommen sich noch auf der Welt\nherumtreiben.\"\n\nJust as Frau Lureley closes the first _M\u00e4rchen_, so does she begin the\nsecond: \"Von dem Hause Staarenberg und den Ahnen des M\u00fcllers\nRadlauf.\"[93] Here she creates, or motivates, the other characters.\nHer seven daughters appear with her, as follows: Herzeleid,\nLiebesleid, Liebeseid, Liebesneid, Liebesfreud, Reu und Leid, and\nMildigkeit. She reappears then with her seven daughters at the close\nof the _M\u00e4rchen_, and each sings a beautiful song, while Frau Lureley,\nthe mother of Radlauf, proves to be a most beneficent creature.\nImaginative as Brentano was, he rarely rose to such heights as in this\nand the next, \"M\u00e4rchen vom Murmelthier,\"[94] in which Frau Lureley\ncontinues her great work of love and kindness. She rights all wrongs,\nrewards the just, corrects the unjust, and leads a most remarkable\nlife whether among the poor on land or in her element in the water.\nAll of which is poles removed from Loeben's saga, though he knew these\n_M\u00e4rchen_,[95] for they were written when Brentano was his intimate\nfriend.\n\nAs to the importance of Loeben's saga, Wilhelm Hertz says: \"Fast alle\nj\u00fcngeren Dichter kn\u00fcpfen an seinen Erfindungen an, so besonders die\nzahlreichen musikdramatischen Bearbeitungen.\"[96] It is extremely\ndoubtful that this statement is correct. It is plain that many of the\nlyric writers leaned on Schreiber, and the librettists could have done\nthe same; or they could have derived their initial suggestion in more\nattractive form than that offered by Loeben. It seems, however, that\nGeibel[97] knew Loeben's saga. Though his individual poems on the\nLorelei betray the influence of Heine, and though his drama resembles\nBrentano's ballad in mood and in unimportant details, it contains the\nsame proper names of persons and places that are found in Loeben. And\nwhat is more significant, it contains two important events that are\nnot found in any of the other versions of the saga: the scene with the\nwine-growers and the story of the castaway ring. The latter is an old\ntheme, but that they both occur in Loeben and in Geibel would argue\nthat the latter took them from the former. It is largely a question as\nto whether a poet like Geibel has to have a source for everything that\nis not absolutely abstract. The entire matter is complicated.[98] The\npaths of the Lorelei have crossed each other many times since Brentano\nstarted her on her wanderings. To draw up a map of her complete\ncourse, showing just who influenced whom, would be a task more\ndifficult than grateful.[99]\n\nAs to Brentano's original ballad,[100] try as we may to depreciate the\nvalue of his creation by tracing it back to echo-poetry and by\ncoupling it with older legends, such as that of Frau Holla, we are\nforced to give him credit for having not simply revived but for having\ncreated a legend that is beautiful in itself and that has found a host\nof imitators, direct and indirect, the world over, including one of\nthe world's greatest lyric writers. This then is just one of the many\nthings that the German romanticists started; it is just one of their\nmany contributions to the literature that lasts. And for the\nperpetuation of this one, students of German literature have, it\nseems, given the obscure Graf von Loeben entirely too much credit. But\nwho will give the oft-scolded Clemens Brentano too little credit? Only\nthose who dislike romanticism on general principles and who will not\nbe convinced that the romanticists could be original.[101]\n\n\n                               ALLEN WILSON PORTERFIELD\n\nCOLUMBIA UNIVERSITY\n\nNEW YORK CITY\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n\n[1] Ferdinand August Otto Heinrich Graf von Loeben, the scion of an\n    old, aristocratic, Protestant family, was born at Dresden, August\n    18, 1786. He received his first instruction from private\n    tutors. For three years from 1804 on, he unsuccessfully, because\n    unwillingly, studied law at the University of Wittenberg. In 1807\n    he entered, to his profound delight, the University of Heidelberg,\n    where, in association with Arnim, Brentano, and G\u00f6rres, he\n    satisfied his longing for literature and art. Beginning with 1808\n    he lived alternately at Wien, Dresden, and Berlin and with Fouqu\u00e9\n    at Nennhausen.  He took an active part in the campaign of 1813-14,\n    marched to Paris, and returned after his company had been\n    disbanded, to Dresden, where, in 1817, he married Johanna Victoria\n    Gottliebe _geb._ von Bressler and established there his\n    permanent abode. In 1822 he suffered a stroke of apoplexy from\n    which he never recovered: even the magnetic treatment given him by\n    Justinus Kerner proved of no avail. He died at Dresden, April 3,\n    1825. See _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, XIX, 40-45. The\n    article is by Professor Muncker. Wilhelm M\u00fcller also wrote an\n    article full of lavish praise of Loeben in _Neuer Nekrolog der\n    Deutschen_, III, Jahrg. 1824, Ilmenau, 1827.\n\n[2] Meyer (6th ed.) does not mention Loeben even in the articles on\n    Fouqu\u00e9 and Malsburg, two of Loeben's best friends; Brockhaus\n    (Jubilee ed.) mentions him as one of Eichendorff's friends in the\n    article on Eichendorff, but neither has an independent note on\n    Loeben. Nor is he mentioned in such compendious works on the\n    nineteenth century as those by Gottschall, R.M. Meyer\n    (_Grundriss_ and _Geschichte_), and Fr. Kummer. Biese\n    says (_Deutsche Literaturgeschichte_, II. 436) of him: \"Auch\n    ein so ausgesprochenes Talent, wie es Graf von Loeben war, entging\n    nicht der Gefahr, die Romantik in ihre Karikatur zu verzerren.\"\n\n[3] Cf. _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, XIX, 42.\n\n[4] Partial lists of his works are given in: Goedeke,\n    _Grundriss_, VI, 108-10 (2nd ed.): _Allgemeine deutsche\n    Biographie_, XIX. 40-45; the sole monograph on Loeben by\n    Raimund Pissin. _Otto Heinrich Graf von Loeben, sein Leben und\n    seine Werke_, Berlin, 1905, 326 pages.  By piecing these lists\n    together--for they vary--it seems that Loeben wrote, aside from\n    the works mentioned above, the following: 1 conventional drama, 1\n    musical-romantic drama, 2 narrative poems, one of which is on\n    Ferdusi, 3 collections of poems, between 30 and 40 novelettes,\n    fairy tales and so on. and_ \"einige tausend\" aphorisms and\n    detached thoughts. It is in Pissin's monograph that Loeben's\n    position in the Heidelberg circle of 1807-8 is worked out. as\n    follows: Loeben and Eichendorff constituted one branch, Arnim and\n    Brentano the other, G\u00f6rres stood loosely between the two, and the\n    others sided now with one group, now with the other.\n\n[5] The verses are from _Gest\u00e4ndnisse_, No. 125 in Pissin's\n   collection of Loeben's poems.\n\n[6] _Gest\u00e4ndnisse_. No. 125.\n\n[7] Aside from the reviews, letters, and individual poems reprinted\n    here and there, the following works were accessible to the writer:\n    (1) _Das weisse Ross, eine altdeutsche Familienchronik; (2) Die\n    Sonnenkinder, eine Erz\u00e4hlung; (3) Die Perle und die Maiblume, eine\n    Novelle; (4) Cephalus und Procris, ein Drama; (5) Ferdusi; (6)\n    Persiens Ritter, eine Erz\u00e4hlung; (7) Die Zaubern\u00e4chte am Bosporus,\n    ein romantisches Gedicht; (8) Prinz Floridio, ein M\u00e4rchen; (9)\n    Leda; eine Erz\u00e4hlung; (10) Weinm\u00e4rchen; (11) Ges\u00e4nge._\n\n[8] Eichendorff's relation to Loeben can be studied in the edition of\n    Eichendorff's works by Wilhelm Kusch, Regensburg. Vols. III,\n    X-XIII have already appeared.  For a poetization of Loeben, see\n    _Ahnung und Gegenwart_, chap. xii, pp. 144 ff. For a\n    historical account of Loeben, see _Erlebtes_, chap. x,\n    pp. 425 ff. It is here that Eichendorff makes Goethe praise Loeben\n    in the foregoing fashion.\n\n[9] There is no positive evidence that Goethe made any such remark. In\n    his _Gespr\u00e4che_ (Biedermann. V, 270; VI, 198-99) there are\n    two references to Loeben by Goethe; they are favorable but\n    noncommittal as to his poetic ability.\n\n[10] Cf. _Die Tageb\u00fccher des Gr\u00e4fen von Platen_, Stuttgart, 1900.\n    Under date of August 14, 1824, Platen wrote: \"Es enth\u00e4lt viele\n    gute Bemerkungen, wiewohl diese Art Prosa nicht nach meinem Sinne\n    ist.\" The reference is to Loeben's commentary to Madame de Sta\u00ebls\n    _De l'Allemayne._\n\n[11] Cf. _Heinrick von Kleists Berliner K\u00e4mpfe_, Berlin, 1901, pp.\n    490-96. The story in question is \"Die furchtbare Einladung.\"\n\n[12] Cf. _Herm. Anders Kr\u00fcger, _Pseudoromantik. Friedrich Kind und der\n    Dresdener Liederkreis._ Leipzig. 1904. pp. 144-48. Kr\u00fcger also\n    discusses Loeben in his _Der junge Eichendorff._ Leipzig. 1904.\n    pp. 88 and 128.\n\n[13] Cf. Fouqu\u00e9, Apel. Miltitz. _Beitr\u00e4ge zur Geschichte der deutschen\n    Romantik_, Leipzig,1908. In a letter to his brother. Fouqu\u00e9 wrote\n    (January 6, 1813): \"Ein Dichter, meine ich, ist er allerdings, ein\n    von Gott dazu bestimmter.\" Fouqu\u00e9, however, realized Loeben's many\n    weaknesses as a poet, though at Loeben's death he wrote a poem on\n    him praising him as the master of verse technique.\n\n[14] Cf. Kosch's edition of Eichendorff. XIII. 65. Loeben says: \"In\n    Weimar war ich im vorigen Winter bei Goethe; er war mir\n    freundlich.\" The \"previous winter\" was 1813.\n\n[15] Cf. Kosch's edition, XI, 220. The remark was made in 1807.\n\n[16] Cf. Pissin. p. 25. The incident occurred in 1803 and Herder died\n    in 1804.\n\n[17] Cf. Kosch's edition, XI, 308. Lochen himself utterly condemned\n    this work later. See Pissin, pp. 238-39, 267-08. Pissin gives the\n    number of verse and strophe forms on p. 266.\n\n[18] Cf. Pissin, p. 267. Uhland made the remark in 1812--his own most\n    fruitful year as a poet.\n\n[19] The story was published in 1817. The full title is _Das weisse\n    Ross, eine altdeutsche Familienchronik in sechs und dreissig\n    Bildern._ It is 160 pages long.\n\n[20] An idea as to the lack of action in this story can be derived\n    from the following statement by Otto (pp. 127-28), the brave hero:\n    \"Was man Schicksale zu nennen pflegt, habe ich wenige gehabt, aber\n    erfahren habe ich dennoch viel und mehr als mancher durch seine\n    gl\u00e4nzenden Schicksale erfahren mag: n\u00e4mlich die F\u00fchrungen der\n    ewigen Liebe habe ich erfahren, die keinen verl\u00e4sst. und alles\n    herrlich hinausfuhrt.\" And then Siegenot, the other hero, says\n    that this is very true--whereupon they embrace each other.\n\n[21] The story was first published In Urania: Taschenbuch f\u00fcr Damen\n    auf das Jahr 1818. pp. 305-37.\n\n[22] Aside from the poems in Pissin's collection in the _D.L.D. des\n    18. u. 19. Jahr._, Ignaz Hub's _Deutschlands Balladen- und\n    Romanzen-Dichter_, Karlsruhe, 1845, contains: (1) \"Romanze von der\n    weissen Rose,\" (2) \"Der Tanz mit dem Tode,\" (3) \"Der Bergknapp,\"\n    (4) \"Das Schwanenlied.\" \"Loreley\" is also reprinted here, with\n    modifications for the worse. \"Schau', Schiffer, schau' nicht\n    hinauf,\" is certainly not an improvement on Loeben's \"Lieb Knabe,\n    sieh' nicht hinauf,\"\n\n[23] The following are common forms: \"Nez,\" \"zwey,\" \"versteken,\"\n    \"Sf\u00e4ren,\" \"Saffo,\" \"Stralenboten,\" \"Abendrothen.\" \"Uebermuth,\"\n    and so on, though the regular forms, except in the case of\n    \"Saffo,\" also occur.\n\n[24] \"Der Abend\" reminds one strongly of H\u00f6lderlin's \"Die Nacht,\"\n    while \"Tag und Nacht\" goes back undoubtedly to Novalis' \"Hymnen an\n    die Nacht,\" W. Schlegels sonnet on the sonnet stood sponsor for\n    \"Das Sonett,\" and Goethe and Tieck also reoccur in changed\n    dress. The poems on Correggio (73), Ruisdael (75), Goethe (137),\n    Tieck (138-39), and Novalis (141) sound especially like\n    W. Schlegel's poems on other poets and artists.\n\n[25] In his _Geschichte des Sonettes in der deutschen\n    Dichtung_.'Leipzig, 1884. Heinrich Weltl (pp. 210-17) criticizes\n    Loeben's sonnets most severely from the point of view of content;\n    and as to their form he says: \"Blos die Form, oder gar die blosse\n    Form der Form ist beachtenswert.\" This is unquestionably a case of\n    warping the truth in order to bring in a sort of pun.\n\n[26]  The triolett is worth quoting as a type of Loeben's prettiness:\n\n\t  Galt es mir, das s\u00fcsse Blicken\n\t  Aus dem hellen Augenpaar?\n\t  Unter'm Netz vom goldnen Haar\n\t  Galt es mir das s\u00fcsse Blicken?\n\t  Einem sprach es von Gefahr,\n\t  Einen wollt' es licht umstricken;\n\t  Galt es mir, das s\u00fcsso Blicken\n\t  Aus dem hellen Augenpaar.\n\n[27] An idea as to Loeben's temperament can he derived from the\n    following passage in a letter to Tieck: \"Gott sei mit Ihnen und\n    die heilige Muse! Oft dr\u00e4ngt es mich, niederzuknien im Schein, den\n    Albrecht D\u00fcrers und Novalis Glorie wirft, im alten frommen\n    Dom. dann denk' ich Ihrer und ich lieg' an Ihrer Seele. Ich f\u00fchle\n    Sie in mir, wie man eine Gottheit f\u00fchlt in geweihter\n    Stunde. 'Liebe denkt in sel'gen T\u00f6nen, denn Gedanken stehn zu\n    fern.\" The quotation should read \"s\u00fcssen\" instead of \"sel'gen.\"\n    See _Briefe an Tierk._ edited by Holtei, II, 266.\n\n[28] As a corrective to the monographs of Pissin on Loeben and\n    H. A. Kr\u00fcger on Eichendorff.  one should read Wilhelm Kosch's\n    article in _Euphorion_ (1907, pp. 310-20). Kosch.  contends\n    that Pissin and Kr\u00fcger have vastly overestimated Loeben's\n    influence on Eichendorff, and that Loeben in general was \"eine\n    bedeutungslose Tageserscheinung.\"\n\n[29] The complete title is _Godwi, oder das steinerne Bild der\n    Mutter. Ein verwilderter Roman von Maria_. The very rare first\n    edition of this novel, in two volumes, is in the Columbia\n    Library. Friedrich Wilmans was the publisher.\n\n[30] Cf. Alfred Kerr, _Godwi. Ein Kapitel deutscher\n    Romantik_. Berlin, 1898, p. 2.\n\n[31] Cf. Wilhelm Hertz, \"\u00dcber den Namen Lorelei,\" _Sitzungsberichte\n    der k.b. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu M\u00fcnchen_, Jahrgang\n    1886, pp. 217-51. For the etymologist, this is an invaluable\n    study.\n\n[32] The superficial similarity of those two poems can easily be\n    exaggerated. The rhyme \"sitzet-blitzet\" is perfectly natural: the\n    Lorelei had to be portrayed as \"sitzen\"; what is then easier than\n    \"blitzen\"? In \"Ritter Peter von Stauffenberg und die Meerfeye\"\n    (Des Knaben Wunderhorn, ed. of Eduard Grisebach, p. 277) we have\n    this couplet:\n\n\tEr sieht ein sch\u00f6nes Weib da sitzen.\n\tVon Gold und Silber herrlich blitzen.\n\n    For more detailed illustrations, see below.\n\n[33] It is worth while to note the actual date of Heine's composition\n    of his ballad, since so eminent an authority as Wilhelm Scherer\n    (_Ges. d. deut. Lit._, 8th ed., p. 662) says that Heine wrote the\n    poem in 1824. And Eduard Thorn (_Heinrich Heines Beziehungen zu\n    Clemens Brentano_, p. 90.) says that he published it in 1826.\n    This is incorrect, as is also Thorn's statement, p. 88, that\n    Brentano wrote his ballad in 1802. For the correct date of Heine's\n    ballad, see _S\u00e4mtliche Werke_, Hamburg, 1865, XV, 200.]\n\n[34] An instance of this is seen in _Selections from Heine's\n    Poems_, edited by H.S. White, D.C. Heath & Co., Boston, 1900,\n    p. 182. Professor White does, to be sure, refer to Strodtmann for\n    the details; but Strodtmann does not prove anything. And in\n    _Heines Werke in f\u00fcnfzehn Teilen_, edited by Hermann\n    Friedeman, Helene Herrmann. Erwin Kaliseher. Raimund Pissin, and\n    Veit Valentin, we have the comment by Helene Herrmann, who follows\n    Pissin: \"Die Loreleysage, erfunden von Clemens Brentano; vielfach\n    von Romantikern gestaltet. Zwischen Brentanos Romanze und Heines\n    Situationsbild steht die Behandlung durch den Grafen Loeben, einen\n    unbedeutenden romantischen Dichter.\"\n\n[35] The best finished collection of Heine's letters is the one by\n    Hans Daffis, Berlin, 1907, 2 vols. This collection will, however,\n    soon be superseded by _Heinrich Heines Briefwechsel_, edited\n    by Friedrich Hirth, M\u00fcnchen and Berlin, 1914. The first volume\n    covers Heine's life up to 1831. In neither of these collections is\n    either Brentano or Loeben mentioned. There are 643 pages in\n    Hirth's first volume.\n\n[36] For a discussion of _Godwi_, see _Clemens Brentano: Ein\n    Lebensbild_, by Johannes Baptista Diel and Wilhelm Kreiten,\n    Freiburg i.B., 1877, two volumes in one, pp. 104-25.  As to the\n    obscurity of Brentano's work, one sentence (p. 116) is\n    significant: \"_Godwi_ spukt heutzutage nur mehr in den K\u00f6pfen\n    der liberalen Literaturgeschichtsschreiber, denen er einen\n    willkommenen Vorwand an die Hand gibt, mit einigen stereotyp\n    abgeschriebenen Phrasen den Stab \u00fcber den phantastischen,\n    verschwommenen, unsittlichen u.s.w., u.s.w. Dichter zu brechen.\"\n\n[37] _Clemens Brentano: Godwi oder das steinerne Bild der\n    Mutter. Ein verwilderter.  Roman_. Herausgegeben und\n    eingeleitet von Dr. Anselm Ruest, Berlin, 1906. Ruest edited the\n    work because he thought it was worth reviving. In this edition,\n    the ballad is on pages 507-10. Bartels (Handbuch, 2d ed., p. 400)\n    lists a reprint in 1905, E.A.  Regener, Berlin.\n\n[38] II, 391-93.\n\n[39] For the various references, see Thorn's _Heinrich Heines\n    Beziehungen zu Clemens Brentano_. pp. 88-90. His study is\n    especially unsatisfactory in view of the fact that he says (p. 88)\n    in this connection: \"Wirklich Neues zu bringen ist uns nicht\n    verg\u00f6nnt, denn selbstverst\u00e4ndlich haben die Forscher dieses\n    dankbare und interessante Objekt schon in der eingehendsten Weise\n    untersucht.\" And Thorn's attempt to show that Heine knew\n    _Godwi_ early in life by pointing out similarities between\n    poems in it and poems by Heine is about as untenable as argument\n    could be, in view of the great number of poets who may have\n    influenced Heine in these instances; Thorn himself lists (p. 63)\n    B\u00fcrger, Fouqu\u00e9, Arnim, E.T.A. Hoffmann.\n\n[40] In Pissin's collection of Loeben's poems (_D.L.D_., No. 135)\n    we have a peculiar note.  After the ballad (_Anmerk._,\n    p. 161), which Pissin entitles \"Der Lurleifels,\" we read:\n    \"N.d. Hs.\" This would argue that Loeben did so entitle his ballad\n    and that Pissin had access to the original MS. But then Pissin\n    says: \"Auch, die gleichnamige Novelle einleitend, in der\n    _Urania_ auf 1821.\" But in _Urania_ the novelette is\n    entitled \"Eine Sage vom Rhein.\" and the ballad is entitled\n    \"Loreley.\" Bet him who can unravel this!\n\n[41] For the entire story of the composition and publication of the\n    _Rheinm\u00e4rchen_, see _Die M\u00e4rchen von Clemens Brentano_,\n    edited by Guido G\u00f6rres. 2 vols. in 1, Stuttgart, 1879 (2d ed.)\n    This edition contains the preface to the original edition of 1840,\n    pp. i-1.\n\n[42] Thorn, who drew on M.R. Hewelcke's _Die Loreleisage_,\n    Paderborn, 1908, makes (p. 90) this suggestion. It is impossible\n    for the writer to see how Thorn can be so positive in regard to\n    Brentano's influence on Heine. And one's faith is shaken by this\n    sentence on the same page: \"Brentano ver\u00f6ffentlichte sein\n    _Radlauf-M\u00e4rchen_ erst 1827, Heine 'Die Lorelei' schon 1826.\"\n    Both of these dates are incorrect. Guido G\u00f6rres, who must be\n    considered a final authority on this matter, says that, though\n    Brentano tried to publish his _M\u00e4rchen_ as early as 1816,\n    none of them were published until 1846, except extracts from \"Das\n    Myrtenfr\u00e4ulein,\" and a version of \"Gockel,\" neither of which bears\n    directly on the Lorelei-matter.\n\n[43] Of G\u00f6rres' second edition, I, 250: \"Nachdem Murmelthier herzlich\n    f\u00fcr diese Geschenke gedankt hatte, sagte Frau Else: 'Nun, mein\n    Kind! k\u00e4mme mir und Frau Lurley die Haare, wir wollen die deinigen\n    dann auch k\u00e4mmen'--dann gab sie ihr einen goldnen Kamm, und\n    Murmelthier k\u00e4mmte Beiden die Haare und flocht sie so sch\u00f6n, dass\n    die Wasserfrauen sehr zufrieden mit ihr waren.\"\n\n[44] In _H. Heines Leben und Werke_. Hamburg, 1884 (3d ed.),\n    Bd. I. p. 363. In the notes, Strodtmann reprints Loeben's ballad,\n    pp. 696-97. His statement is especially unsatisfactory in view of\n    the fact that he refers to the \"fast gleicher Inhalt,\" though the\n    essentials of Heine's ballad are not in Loeben's, and to\n    \"einegewisse \u00c4hnlichkeit in Form,\" though the similarity in form\n    is most pronounced.\n\n[45] In _Allgemeine deut. Biog_., XIX. 44. It is interesting to\n    see how Professor Muncker lays stress on this matter by placing in\n    parentheses the statement: \"Einige Z\u00fcge der letzten Geschichte\n    [\"Sage vom Rhein\"] regten Heine zu seinem bekannten Liede an.\"\n\n[46] In _Dichtungen von Heinrich Heine, ausgew\u00e4hlt und\n    erl\u00e4utert_, Bonn, 1887, p. 326.  Hessel's Statement is\n    peculiarly unsatisfactory, since he says (p. 309) that he is going\n    to the sources of Heine's poems, and then, after reprinting\n    Loeben's ballad, he says: \"Dieses Lied war Heines n\u00e4chstes\n    Vorbild. Ausf\u00fchrlicheres bei Strodtmann, Bd. I, S. 362.\"  And this\n    edition has been well received.\n\n[47] In _Grundriss, VI, 110. Again we read in parentheses: \"Aus\n    diesem Liede und dem Eing\u00e4nge der Erz\u00e4hlung sch\u00f6pfte H. Heine sein\n    Lied von der Loreley.\"\n\n[48] In _Ges. d. deut. Lit_., p. 662 (8th ed.).\n\n[49] In _Heinrich Heines Beziehungen zum deutschen Mittelalter_,\n    Berlin, 1908, pp., 94-95.  M\u00fccke is the most cautious of the ten\n    authorities above listed; and he anticipated Walzel in his\n    reference to Schreiber's _Handbuch_.\n\n[50] In _Ueber den Namen Lorelei, p. 224. Hertz is about as cautious\n    as Strodtmann; \"Es ist kaum zu bezweifeln dass,\" etc.\n\n[51] In _S\u00e4mtliche Werke_, I, 491.\n\n[52] In _Hauptstr\u00f6mungen_. VI, 178. Brandes says: \"Der Gegenstand\n    ist der gleiche, das Versmass ist dasselbe, ja die Reimen sind an\n    einzelnen Stellen die gleichen: blitzetsitzet; statt 'an-gethan'\n    steht da nur 'Kahn-gethan.'\"\n\n[53] In _Der deutschen Romantiker_, Leipzig, 1903, p. 235.\n\n[54] In _Deutsches Literatur-Lexikon_, M\u00fcnchen, 1914, p. 271. It\n    is significant that Kr\u00fcger makes this statement, for the subtitle\n    of his book Is \"Biographisches und bibliographisches Handbuch mit\n    Motiv\u00fcbersichten und Quellennachweisen.\" And it is, on the whole,\n    an extremely useful book.\n\n[55] It is impossible to see how Brandes can lay great stress on the\n    fact that this rhyme occurs in both poems. The following rhymes\n    are found on the following pages of the Elster edition, Vol. I, of\n    Heine's works: \"Spitze-Blitze\" (36), \"sitzen-n\u00fctzen\" (116),\n    \"Witzen-n\u00fctzen\" (124), \"sitzen-blitzen\" (216),\n    \"erhitzet-bespitzet\" (242), \"Blitz-Sitz\" (257), \"blitzt-gest\u00fctzt\"\n    (276), \"blitze-besitze\" (319), \"blitzet-gespitzet\" (464).  And in\n    Loeben's poems the rhyme is equally common. The first strophe of\n    his _Ferdusi_ runs as follows:\n\n\tHell ergl\u00e4nzt an Persiens Throne\n\tWo der grosse Mahmud sitzt;\n\tWelch Juwel ist's, das die Krone\n\tSo vor allen sch\u00f6n umblitzt.\n\n    And in Schreiber's saga we have in juxtaposition, the\n    words. \"Blitze\" and \"Spitze.\"  The rhyme \"Sitze-Blitze\" occurs in\n    Immanuel's \"Lorelei,\" quoted by Seeliger, p. 31.\n\n[56] There are, to be sure, only 114 words in Loeben's ballad if we\n    count \"um's,\" \"dir's,\" and \"glaub's\" as three words and not six.\n\n[57] These numbers are in the Columbia Library.\n\n[58] During these years Heine's letters are dated from G\u00f6ttingen,\n    Berlin, Gnesen, Berlin, M\u00fcnster, Berlin, L\u00fcneburg, Hamtburg,\n    Ritzenb\u00fcttel, and L\u00fcneburg. During these same years Loeben was in\n    Dresden and he was ill.\n\n[59] We need only to mention such a strophe as the following from\n    _Atta Troll_:\n\n\tKlang das nicht wie Jugendtr\u00e4ume.\n\tDie ich tr\u00e4umte mit Chamisso\n\tUnd Brentano und Fouqu\u00e9\n\tIn den blauen Mondscheinn\u00e4chten?\n\n    See Elster edition, II, 421. The lines were written in 1843.\n\n[60] The first edition of Karl Simrock's _Rheinsagen_ came out in\n    1836. This was not accessible. The edition of 1837, \"zweite,\n    vermehrte Auflage,\" contains 168 poems, 572 pages; this contains\n    Simrock's \"Ballade von der Lorelei.\" The edition of 1841 also\n    contains Simrock's \"Der Teufel und die Lorelei.\" The book contains\n    455 pages, 218 poems. The sixth edition (1809) contains 231 poems.\n    In all editions the poems are arranged in geographical order from\n    S\u00fcdersee to Graub\u00fcnden. Alexander Kaufmann's _Quellenangaben und\n    Bemerkungen zu Kart Simrocks Rheinsagen_ throws no new light on\n    the Lorelei-legend.\n\n[61] Cf. _Heinrich Heines s\u00e4mtliche Werke_, edited by Walzel,\n    Fr\u00e4nkel, Kr\u00e4he, Leitzmann, and Peterson. Leipzig. 1911, II,\n    408. So far as I have looked into the matter, Walzel stands alone\n    in this belief, though M\u00fccke, as has been pointed out above,\n    anticipated him in the statement that Heine drew on Schreiber in\n    this case. But M\u00fccke thinks that Heine also knew Loeben.\n\n[62] The reference in question reads as follows: \"Ich will kein Wort\n    verlieren \u00fcber den Wert dieses unverdaulichen Machwerkes [_Les\n    Burgraves_], das mit allen m\u00f6glichen Pr\u00e4tensionen auftritt,\n    namentlich mit historischen, obgleich alles Wissen Victor Hugos\n    \u00fcber Zeit und Ort, wo sein St\u00fcck spielt, lediglich aus der\n    franz\u00f6sischen Uebersetzung von Schreibers _Handbuch f\u00fcr\n    Rheinreisende_ gesch\u00f6pft, ist.\" This was written March 20, 1843\n    (see Elster edition, VI. 344).\n\n[63] Aloys Wilhelm Schreiber (1763-1840) was a teacher in the Lyceum\n    at Baden-Baden (1800-1802), professor of aesthetics at Heidelberg\n    (1802-13) where he was intimate with the Voss family,\n    historiographer at Karlsruhe (1813-26), and in 1826 he retired and\n    became a most prolific writer. He interested himself in guidebooks\n    for travelers. His manuals contain maps, distances, expense\n    accounts, historical sketches, in short, about what the modern\n    _Baedeker_ contains with fewer statistics and more popular\n    description.  His books appeared in German, French, and\n    English. In 1812 he published his _Handbuch f\u00fcr Reisende am\n    Rhein von Schaffhausen bis Holland_, to give only a small part\n    of the wordy title, and in 1818 he brought out a second, enlarged\n    edition of the same work with an appendix containing 17\n    _Volkssagen aus den Gegenden am Rhein und am Taunus_, the\n    sixteenth of which is entitled \"Die Jungfrau auf dem Lurley.\" His\n    books were exceedingly popular in their day and are still\n    obtainable. Of the one here in question, Von Weech\n    (_Allgem. deut. Biog._, XXXII, 471) says: \"Sein _Handbuch\n    f\u00fcr Reisende am Rhein_, dessen Anhang eine wertvolle Sammlung\n    rheinischer Volkssagen enth\u00e4lt, war lange der beliebteste F\u00fchrer\n    auf Rheinreisen.\" There are 7 volumes of his manuals in the New\n    York Public Library, and one, _Traditions populaires du\n    Rhin,_ Heidelberg, 1830 (2d ed.), is in the Columbia\n    Library. It contains 144 legends and beautiful engravings. (The\n    writer has just [October 15, 1915] secured the four Volumes of\n    Schreiber's _Rheinische Geschichten und Sagen_. The fourth\n    volume, published in 1830. is now a very rare book.)\n\n[64] The remainder of Schreiher's plot is as follows: The news of the\n    infatuated hero's death so grieved the old Count that ho\n    determined to have the Lorelei captured, dead or alive. One of his\n    captains, aided by a number of brave followers, set out on the\n    hazardous expedition. First, they surround the rock on which the\n    Lorelei sits, and. then three of the most courageous ascend to her\n    seat and determine to kill her, so that the danger of her\n    repealing her former deed maybe forever averted. But when they\n    reach her and she hoars what they intend to do, she simply smiles\n    and invokes the aid of her Father, who immediately sends two white\n    horses--two white waves--up the Rhine, and. after leaping down to\n    the Rhine, she is safely carried away by these. She was never\n    again seen, but her voice was frequently heard as she mocked, in\n    echo, the songs of the sailors on her paternal stream.\n\n[65] It is not simply in the appendix of Schreiber's _Handbuch_\n    that he discusses the legend of Lorelei, but also in the\n    scientific part of it. Concerning the Lorelei rock he says\n    (pp. 174-75): \"Ein wunderbarer Fels schiebt sich jetzt dem\n    Schiffer gleichsam in seine Bahn--es ist der Lurley (von Lure,\n    Lauter, und Ley, Schiefer) aus welchem ein Echo den Zuruf der\n    Vorbeifahrendem f\u00fcnfzehnmal wiederholt. Diesen Schieferfels\n    bewohnte in grauen Zeiten eine Undine, welche die Schiffenden\n    durch ihr Zurufen ins Verderben lockte.\"\n\n[66] Brockhaus says (p. xxiv): \"Die einfache Sage von den beiden\n    feindlichen Br\u00fcdern am Rhein, van denen die Tr\u00fcmmer ihrer B\u00fcrgen\n    selbst noch _Die Br\u00fcder_ heissen ist in A. Schreiber's\n    Auswahl von Sagen jener Gegenden zu lesen.\" Usener's tragedy is\n    published In full in this number of _Urania_, pp. 383-442.\n\n[67] Cf. Elster edition, IV, 406-9. The circumstantial way in which\n    Heine retells this story is almost sufficient to lead one to\n    believe that he had Schreiber at hand when he wrote this part of\n    Elementargeister; but he says that he did not.\n\n[68] Discussion as to the first conception of Heine's _Rabbi_ are\n    found in: _Heinrich Heines Fragment_; _Der Rabbi von Bacharach_,\n    by Lion Feuchtwanger, M\u00fcnchen, 1907; _Heinrich Heine und Der Rabbi\n    von Bacharach_, by Gustav Karpeles, Wien, 1895.\n\n[69] The poem is one of the _Junge Leiden_, published in 1821, Elster\n    (I, 490) says: \"Eine bekannte Sage, mit einzelnen vielfach\n    wiederkehrenden uralten Z\u00fcgen, dargestellt In Simrocks\n    _Rheinsagen_.\" Simrock had, of course, done nothing on the\n    _Rheinsagen_ in 1821, being then only nineteen years old and an\n    inconspicuous student at Bonn. Walzel says (I. 449.): \"Mit einem\n    andern Ausgang ist die Sage in dem von Heine vielbenutzten\n    _Handbuch f\u00fcr Reisende am Rhein_ von Aloys Schreiber (Heidelberg,\n    1816) \u00fcberliefert.\"  The edition of this work in the New York\n    Public Library has no printed date, but 1818 is written in. Walzel\n    may be correct. The outcome of Heine's poem is, after all, not so\n    different: In Schreiber, both brothers relinquish their clalms to\n    the girl and remain unmarried; in Heine the one kills the other\n    and in this way neither wins the girl.\n\n[70] It is the same story as the one told by Bulwer-Lytton in his\n    _Pilgrims of the Rhine_.  chap. xxiv.\n\n[71] All through the body of Schreiber's _Handbuch_, there are\n    references to the places and legends mentioned in Heine's\n    _Rabbi_. On Bacharach there is the following: \"Der Reisende,\n    wenn er auch nur eine Stunde in Bacharach verweilt, unterlasse\n    nicht, die Ruinen von Staleck zu besteigen, wo eine der sch\u00f6nsten\n    Rheinlandschaften sich von seinen Blicken aufrollt. Die Burg von\n    sehr betr\u00e4chtlichem Umfang scheint, auf den Tr\u00fcmmern eines\n    R\u00f6merkastells erbaut. Die, welche die Entstehung derselben den\n    Hunnen zuschreiben, well sie in Urkunden den Namen Stalekum hat,\n    sind in einem Irrtum befangen, denn Stalekum oder Stalek heisst\n    eben so viel als Stalb\u00fchl, oder ein Ort, wo ein Gericht gehegt\n    wurde. Pfalzgraf Hermann von Staleck, starb im 12ten Jahrhundert;\n    er war der letzte seines Stammes, und von ihm kam die Burg, als\n    K\u00f6lnisches Lehen, an Konrad Von Staufen.\"\n\n[72] To come back to Heine and Loeben, Herm. Anders Kr\u00fcger says (p.,\n    147) in his _Pseudoromantik:_ \"Heinrich Heine, der \u00fcberhaupt\n    Loeben studiert zu haben scheint,\" etc. He offers no proof. If one\n    wished to make out a case for Loeben, it could bo done with his\n    narrative poem \"Ferdusi\" (1817) and Heine's \"Der Dichter Ferdusi.\"\n    Both tell about the same story; but each tells a story that was\n    familiar in romantic circles.\n\n[73] In reply to a letter addressed to Professor Elster on October 4,\n    1914, the writer received the following most kind reply on\n    November 23: \"Die Frage, die Sie an mich richten ist leicht\n    beantwortet: Heine hat Loeben in seinen Schriften nicht erw\u00e4hnt,\n    aber das besagt nicht viel; er hat manchen benutzt, den er nicht\n    nennt. Und es kann _gar keinem Zweifel unterliegen_, dass\n    Loeben f\u00fcr die Lorelei Heines _unmittelbares_ Vorbild ist;\n    darauf habe ich \u00f6fter hingewiesen, aber wohl auch andere. Das\n    Taschenbuch _Urania_ f\u00fcr das Jahr 1821, wo Loebens Gedicht\n    u. Novelle zuerst erschienen, ist unserem Dichter zweifellos zu\n    Gesicht gekommen.\" No one can view Professor Elster in any other\n    light than as an eminent authority on Heine, but his certainty\n    here must be accepted with reserve, and his \"wohl auch andere\" is,\n    in view of the fact that, he was by no means the first, and\n    certainly not the last, to make this assertion, a trifle\n    disconcerting.\n\n[74] The ultimate determining of sources is an ungrateful theme. Some\n    excellent suggestions on this subject are offered by Hans Rohl in\n    his _Die \u00e4ltere Romantik und die Kunst des jungen Goethe_,\n    Berlin, 1909, pp. 70-72. This work was written under the general\n    leadership of Professor Elster. The disciple would, in this case,\n    hardly agree with the master. Pissin likewise speaks wisely in\n    discussing the influence of Novalis on Loeben in his monograph on\n    the latter, pp. 97-98. and 129-30. And Heine himself (Elster\n    edition, V. 294) says in regard to the question whether Hegel did\n    borrow so much from Schelling: \"Nichts ist l\u00e4cherlicher als das\n    reklamierte Eigentumsrecht an Ideen.\"  He then shows how the ideas\n    were not original with Schelling either; he had them from\n    Spinoza. And it is just so here. Brentano started the legend;\n    Heine goes back to him indirectly. Eichenidorff and Vogt directly;\n    Schreiber borrowed from Vogt, Loeben from Schreiber, and Heine\n    from Schreiber--and thereafter it would be impossible to say who\n    borrowed from whom.\n\n[75] The majority of the _Loreleidichtungen_ can be found in:\n    _Opern-Handbuch_, by Hugo Riemann, Leipzig, 1886: _Zur\n    Geschichte der M\u00e4rchenoper_, by Leopold Schmidt, Halle, 1895;\n    _Die Loreleysage in Dichtung und Musik_, by Hermann Seeliger,\n    Leipzig, 1898.  Seeliger took the majority of his titles from\n    _Nassau in seinen Sagen, Geschichten und Liedern_, by\n    Henniger, Wiesbaden, 1845. At least he says so, but one is\n    inclined to doubt the statement, for \"die meisten Balladen\" have\n    been written since 1845. Seeliger's book is on the whole\n    unsatisfactory. He has, for example, Schreiber improving on, and\n    remodeling Loeben's saga; but Schreiber was twenty-three years\n    older than Loeben, and wrote his saga at least three years before\n    Loeben wrote his.\n\n[76] In F. Gr\u00e4ter's _Idunna und Hermode, eine Alterthumszeitung_,\n    Breslau, 1812, pp.  191-92, Gr\u00e4ter gives under the heading, \"Die\n    Bildergallerie des Rheins.\" thirty well-known German sagas. The\n    twenty-seventh is \"Der Lureley: Ein Gegenst\u00fcck zu der Fabel von\n    der Echo.\" It is the version of Vogt.\n\n[77] Aside from the above, some of the less important authors of\n    lyrics, ballads, dramas, novels, etc., on the Lorelei-theme are:\n    J. Bartholdi, H. Bender, H. Berg, J. P. Berger, A. H. Bernard,\n    G. Conrad, C. Doll, L. Elchrodt, O. Fiebach, Fr. F\u00f6rster,\n    W. Fournier, G. Freudenberg, W. Freudenberg, W. Genth, K. Geib,\n    H. Grieben, H. Gr\u00fcneberg, G.  Gurski, Henriette Heinze-Berg,\n    A. Henniger, H. Hersch, Mary Koch, Wilhelmine Lorenz, I. Mappes,\n    W. Molitor, Fr. M\u00fccke, O. W. Notzsch, Luise Otto, E. R\u00fcffer, Max\n    Schaffroth, Luise Frelin von Sell, E. A. W. Siboni, H. Steinheuer,\n    Adelheid von Stolterfoth, A.  Storm, W. von Waldbr\u00fchl, L. Werft,\n    and others even more obscure than these.\n\n[78] In Menco Stern's _Geschichten vom Rhein_, the story is told\n    so as to connect the legend of the Lorelei with the treasures of\n    the _Nibelungenlied_. In this way we have gold in the\n    mountain, wine around it, a beautiful woman on it--what more could\n    mortal wish? Sympathy! And this the Lorelei gives him in the\n    echo. In reply to an inquiry, Mr. Stern very kindly wrote as\n    follows: \"The facts given in my _Geschichten vom Rhein_ are\n    all well known to German students; and especially those mentioned\n    in my chapter 'Lorelay' can bo verified in the book: _Der\n    Rhein_ von Philipp F. W. Oertel (W. O. v.  Horn) who was, I\n    think, the greatest authority on the subject of the Rhine.\" Oertel\n    is not an authority. In Eduard-Prokosch's _German for\n    Beginners_, the version of Schreiber was used, as is evident\n    from the lines spoken by the Lorelei to her Father:\n\n\tVater, Vater, geschwind, geschwind.\n\tDie weissen Rosse schick' deinem Kind,\n\tEs will reiten auf Wogen und Wind.\n\n    These verses are worked into a large number of the ballads, and\n    since they are Schreiber's own material, his saga must have had\n    great general influence.\n\n[79] There would be no point in listing all of the books on the\n    legends of the Rhine that treat the story of the Lorelei. Three,\n    however, are important, since it is interesting to see how their\n    compilers were not satisfied with one version of the story, but\n    included, as becomes evident on reading them, the versions of\n    Brentano, Schreiber, Loeben, and Heine: _Der Rhein: Geschichten\n    und Sagen_, by W. O. von Horn, Stuttgart, 1866, pp.  207-11;\n    _Legends of the Rhine_, by H. A. Guerber, New York, 1907, pp:\n    199-206; _Eine Sammlung von Rhein-Sagen_, by A. Hermann\n    Bernard, Wiesbaden, no year, pp. 225-37.\n\n[80] Mrs. Caroline M. Sawyer wrote a poem entitled \"The Lady of\n    Lorlei. A Legend of the Rhine.\" It is published in _The female\n    Poets of America_, by Rufus Wilmot Griswold, New York, 1873,\n    p. 221. This is not the first edition of this work, nor is it the\n    original edition of Mrs. Sawyer's ballad. It is an excellent\n    poem. Fr. Hoebel set it to music, and Adolf Strodtmann translated\n    it into German, because of its excellence, and included it in his\n    _Amerikanische Anthologie_. It was impossible to determine\n    just when Mrs. Sawyer wrote her poem. The writer is deeply\n    indebted to Professor W. B. Cairns, of the department of English\n    in the University of Wisconsin, who located the poem for him.\n\n[81] Cf. _Otto Ludwigs gesammelte Schriften_, edited by Adolf\n    Stern, Leipzig, 1801, I.  69, 107, 114.\n\n[82] It has been impossible to determine just when Sucher (1789-1860)\n    set Heine's ballad to music, but since he was professor of music\n    at the University of T\u00fcbingen from 1817 on, and since he became\n    interested in music while quite young, it is safe to assume that\n    he wrote his music for \"Die Lorelei\" soon after its\n    publication. The question is of some importance by way of finding\n    out just when the ballad began to be popular.  Strangely enough,\n    there is nothing on Silcher in Hobert Eitner's compendious\n    _Quellen-Lexicon der Musiker und Musikgelehrten der christlichen\n    Zeitrechnung_, Leipzig, 1900-1904.  Heine's ballad is included\n    in the _Allgemeines deutsches Commersbuch unter musikalischer\n    Redaktion von Fr. Silcher und Fr. Erck_, Strassburg, 1858 (17th\n    ed.), but the date of composition is not given.\n\n[83] In _Pauls Grundriss der germanischen Philologie_, I, 1039,\n    Mogk says: \"Die Weiblichen Nixen bezaubern durch ihren Gesang, die\n    Loreley und \u00e4hnliche Sagen m\u00f6gen hierin ihre Wurzel haben.\" The\n    only trouble is, no one has thus far unearthed this saga.\n\n[84] Wilhelm Hertz gives (pp.229-30) instances of this so that\n    uncertainty as to its accuracy is removed. The passages are\n    striking in that they concern the \"Lorberg\" and the \"Lorleberg.\"\n\n[85] In chap, XV Eichendorff introduces the ballad as follows:\n    \"Leontin, der wenig darauf achtgab, begann folgendes Lied \u00fcber ein\n    am Rheine bekanntes M\u00e4rchen.\" The reference can be only to\n    Brentano, despite the fact that the first two lines are so\n    strongly reminiscent of Goethe's \"Erlkonig.\" Eichendorff and\n    Brentano became acquainted in Heidelberg and then in Berlin they\n    were intimate. There is every reason to believe that Eichendorff\n    knew Bretano's \"Rheinm\u00e4rchen\" in manuscript form. For the relation\n    of the two, see the Kosch edition of Eichendorff's\n    works. _Briefe_ and _Tageb\u00fccher,_ Vols. XI-XIII.\n\n[86] Niklas Vogt included, to be sure, in his _Jugendphantasien \u00fcher\n    die Sagen des Rheins_ (_ca._ 1811) an amplified\n    recapitulation in prose of Brentano's ballad. Schreiber knew this\n    work, for in his _Handbuch_ there is a bibliography of no\n    fewer than ten pages of \"Schriften, welche auf die Rheingegend\n    Bezug haben.\" So far as one can determine such a matter from mere\n    titles, the only one of these that could have helped him in the\n    composition of his Lorelei-saga is: _Rheinische Geschichten und\n    Sagen_, von Niklas Vogt.  Frankfurt am Main, 1817, 6 B\u00e4nde.\n\n[87] Eduard Thorn says (p. 89): \"Man darf annehmen, dass Heine die\n    Ballade Brentano's kennen gelernt hat, dass er aus ihr den Namen\n    entlehnte, wobei ihm Eichendorff die Fassung 'Lorelei' lieferte,\n    und das ihm erst Loebens Auffassung der Sage zur Gestaltung\n    verhelfen hat.\" It sounds like a case of _ceterum censeo_,\n    but Thorn's argument as to Brentano and Heine is so thin that this\n    statement too can be looked upon only as a weakly supported\n    hypothesis.\n\n[88] Cf. Raimund Pissin's monograph, pp. 73-74.\n\n[89] There are about two thousand words in Schreiber's saga, and about\n    five thousand in Loeben's.\n\n[90] It must be remembered that Schreiber's manuals are written in an\n    attractive style: his purpose was not simply to instruct, but to\n    entertain. And it was not simply the legends of the Rhine and its\n    tributaries, but those of the whole of Western Germany that he\n    wrote up with this end in view.\n\n[91] Some minor details that Loeben, or Heine, had he known the\n    _M\u00e4rchen_ in 1823, could have used are pointed out in Wilhelm\n    Hertz's article, pp. 220-21.\n\n[92] Cf. G\u00f6rres' edition, pp. 94-108.\n\n[93] Cf. _ibid_., pp. 128-40, and 228-44. It is in this\n    _M\u00e4rchen_ (p. 231) that Herzeleid sings Goethe's \"Wer nie\n    sein Brod in Thr\u00e4non asz.\"\n\n[94] Cf. G\u00f6rres' edition, pp. 247-57. There are a number of details in\n    this _M\u00e4rchen_ that remind strongly of Fouqu\u00e9's _Undine_,\n    which Brentano knew.\n\n[95] In his _Die M\u00e4rchen Clemens Brentanos_, K\u00f6ln, 1895,\n    H. Cardauns gives an admirable study of Brentano's _M\u00e4rchen_,\n    covering the entire ground concerning the question whether\n    Brentano's ballad was original and pointing out the sources and\n    the value of his, _Rheinm\u00e4rchen_. Cardauns comes to the only\n    conclusion that can be reached: Brentano located his ballad in a\n    region replete with legends, but there is no positive evidence\n    that he did not wholly invent his own ballad. The story that\n    Hermann Bender tells about having found an old MS dating back to\n    the year 1650 and containing the essentials of Brentano's ballad\n    collapses, for this MS cannot be produced, not even by Bender who\n    claims to have found it. See Cardauns, pp. 60-67. Reinhold Steig\n    reviewed Cardauns' book in _Euphorion_ (1896, pp. 791-99)\n    without taking in the question as to the originality of Brentano's\n    ballad.\n\n[96] P. 224.\n\n[97] In Geibel's _Gesammelte Werke_, VI. 106-74, Geibel wrote the\n    libretto for Felix Mendelssohn in 1846. Mendelssohn died before\n    finishing it; Max Bruch completed the opera independently in\n    1863. It has also been set to music by two obscure composers. Karl\n    Goedeke gives a very unsatisfactory discussion of the matter in\n    _Emanuel Geibel_, Stuttgart, 1860. pp. 307 ff.\n\n\n[98] Hermann Seeliger says (p. 73): \"Zu den Bearbeitungen, die sich an\n    die Ballade von Brentano anlehnen, geh\u00f6ren die Dichtungen von\n    Geibel, Mohr, Roquette, Hillemacher, Fiebach und Sommer.\" Seeliger\n    wrote his study for musicians, and his statement may be correct.\n\n[99] Aside from the treatises on the Lorelei already mentioned, there\n    are the following: _Zu Heines Balladen und Romanzen_, by\n    Oskar Netoliczka, Kronstadt, 1891; this study does not treat the\n    Lorelei; _Die Lurleisage_, by F. Rehorn, Frankfurt am Main,\n    1891; _Sagen und Geschichten des Rheinlandes_, by Karl Geib,\n    Mannheim, 1836; the work is naturally long since superseded;\n    _K\u00f6lnische Zeitung_ of July 12, 1867, by H. Grieben;\n    _K\u00f6lnische Zeitung_ of 1855, by H. D\u00fcntzer; _H. Heine, ein\n    Vortrag_, by H. Sintenis, pp.  21-26; _Die Lorelei: Die\n    Loreleidichtungen mit besonderer R\u00fccksicht auf die Ballade von\n    Heinr. Heine_, by C. L. Leimbach, Wolfenb\u00fcttel, 1879. The last\n    six of these works were not accessible, but, since they are quoted\n    by the accessible studies, it seems that they offer nothing\n    new. (The writer has since secured Leimbach's treatise of 50 small\n    pages. It offers nothing new.)\n\n[100] Adolf Seybert in his _Die Loreleisage_, Wiesbaden, 1863 and\n    1872 (Programm), contends that Frau Holla and the Lorelei are\n    related. Fritz Strich in his _Die Mythologie in der deutschen\n    Literatur von Klopstock bis Wagner_, Halle, 1910, says\n    (pp. 307-9) that Brentano's ballad is \"eine mythologische\n    Erfindung Brentanos, zu der ihn der echoreiche Felsen dieses\n    Namens bei Bacharach anregte.\" He also says: \"Ob nicht Heines Lied\n    auf Brentanos Phantasie zur\u00fcckgewirkt haben mag?\" The reference is\n    to Brentano's _M\u00e4rchen_. Strich's book contains a detailed\n    account of the use of mythology in Heine, Loeben, and Brentano.\n\n[101] Hermann Seeliger says (p. 8): \"Ich meine, die ganze romantische\n    Schule h\u00e4tte ohne den Stoff vom Volke zu bekommen, ein Gedicht von\n    solcher Sch\u00f6nheit wie das von Brentano weder gemacht noch machen\n    k\u00f6nnen.\" Vis-\u00e0-vis such a statement, sociability ceases.","title":"Graf von Loeben and the Legend of Lorelei: From \"Modern Philology\" vol. 13 (1915)","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":13445}