HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

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Heinrich Heine there was in all Heine said to affront and wound Germany. The wit and ardent modern spirit of France Heine joined to the culture, the sentiment, the thought of Germany. This is what makes him so remarkable: his wonderful clearness, lightness, and freedom, united with such power of feeling, and width of range."^® Arnold found Heine's greatness marred by but a single fault: his deficiency in self-respect, in true dignity of character. But the Enghsh critic did not like to dwell upon this negative side of a genius whom he proclaimed as the most important figure in the European literature of that quarter of a century which followed the death of Goethe. He merely noted that Heine, who had all the culture of Germany and in whose head fermented all the ideas of modern Europe, failed to attain to the distinction for which his natural gifts destined him, that highest summit attained by Shakespeare and Goethe, because he lacked moral balance and nobility of character. Arnold's essay aroused the wrath of Carlyle. To call the blaspheming blackguard the continuator of Goethe was a critical crime of enormous proportions and Carlyle did not mince words in telling Sir M. E. Grant-DufiF, an admurer of Heine and of [78]

Continuator of Goethe Arnold, what he thought of Arnold's cool way of ignoring the inconvenient fact that his hero was obscene and impudent and addicted to facile untruth.2° Walt Whitman, on the other hand, felt that the best thing Arnold ever did was his essay on Heine. He confided to Horace Traubel that it was the one product of Arnold's pen that he liked unqualifiedly: "It's the only thing from Arnold that I have read with zest. Heine! Oh, how great! The more you stop to look, to examine, the deeper seem the roots; the broader and higher the umbrage. And Heine was free — was one of the men who win by degrees. He was a master of pregnant sarcasm; he brought down a hundred humbuggeries if he brought down two. At times he plays with you with a deliberate, baffling sportiveness." ^^ James Thomson, the author of The City of Dreadful Night, wrote a lengthy article commending Arnold but expressing the behef that the latter had no need to introduce the terms Philistine and Philistinism from the German. Thomson suggested popularizing the expressions Bumble, Bumbledom, Bumbleism. These words were already available and their very sound — heavy, obese, rotund, awkward— echoed their meaning. They were inti- [79]

Continuator of Goethe<br />

Arnold, what he thought of Arnold's cool way of<br />

ignoring the inconvenient fact that his hero was<br />

obscene and impudent and addicted to facile untruth.2°<br />

Walt Whitman, on the other hand, felt that the<br />

best thing Arnold ever did was his essay on Heine.<br />

He confided to Horace Traubel that it was the<br />

one product of Arnold's pen that he liked unqualifiedly:<br />

"It's the only thing from Arnold that I have<br />

read with zest. Heine! Oh, how great! The more<br />

you stop to look, to examine, the deeper seem the<br />

roots; the broader and higher the umbrage. And<br />

Heine was free — was one of the men who win<br />

by degrees. He was a master of pregnant sarcasm;<br />

he brought down a hundred humbuggeries if he<br />

brought down two. At times he plays with you<br />

with a deliberate, baffling sportiveness." ^^<br />

James Thomson, the author of The City of<br />

Dreadful Night, wrote a lengthy article commending<br />

Arnold but expressing the behef that the latter<br />

had no need to introduce the terms Philistine and<br />

Philistinism from the German. Thomson suggested<br />

popularizing the expressions Bumble, Bumbledom,<br />

Bumbleism. These words were already available<br />

and their very sound — heavy, obese, rotund, awkward—<br />

echoed their meaning. They were inti-<br />

[79]

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