HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Blackguard and Apostate
caricaturing the scoffing, irreligious tone of the radicals.
He likewise cleverly parodied the manner in
which the extremist press reviewed books; this
parody took the form of a mock critique of the
poems of Count Platen. Borne and Heine wore the
masquerade garment of literary sansculottes with
the greatest ease, so that to the negligent observer
they seemed to be "blackguards both."
This theory of Heine as the caricaturist of liberalism
failed to make headway. The avalanche of
hatred let loose upon him by the literary representatives
of the established order within Germany
itself plainly indicated to EngHsh reviewers that he
really was a nihilist iconoclast and that traditionalists
must indeed deem him a blackguard and apostate,
a Jacobin propagandist and blasphemous unbeliever.
The Edinburgh Review of October, 1832, contrasted
him with Uhland, the genuine poet and
liberal. Unlike the Swabian patriot, Heine desired
not reform but revolution, not constitutional
changes but sweeping and sudden catastrophe.
Hence his virulent abuse against the institutions, the
great men, and even the national character of his
native land. Because of his association with Borne
and other literary assassins of Germany, his humor,
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