HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Blackguard and Apostate
March, 1834 on, in the Revue de deux Mondes
and in ^Europe litteraire, and exercised an important
influence in shaping the French attitude
toward German literary and cultural phenomena.
Readers of the Athenaeum, however, had to content
themselves with Edgar Quinet's essay, a brilliant
study that whetted curiosity but that was
hardly a satisfactory substitute for the censored,
audacious German.
Quinet directed attention to Heine's poetry,
upon which English critics had until then placed
little stress. Heine was, in the opinion of the
Frenchman, a Satanic genius, whose wrath and
hatred were sweeping over a decadent Europe.
Heine was the creator of perfect works of art, of
fancy, of originality, and of immorality. His
MephistopheHc temperament produced a mixture
of honey and wormwood. The songs, that seemed
to be so simple in texture and so innocent in content,
were dangerous in the extreme. They harbored
a subtle poison which must drug pure imaginations.
"They are charming flowers, wrought
and colored with the ancient skill of Teutonic art,
which dart the glance of a basilisk. There are transparent
and dehcate sonnets after the manner of
Petrarch, in the depths of which you can see the
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