HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

The Wandering Jew
September, 1880, traced Heine's hberahsm back to
his origin. In Grant's opinion, Heine could not possibly
choose between hberalism and conservatism
because the choice was already predetermined for
him at birth. Bearing the Pariah-mark of the Jew
on his forehead, it was only in the liberal camp
that he could compel even a grudging respect. Although
he was perhaps the only poet who fully
realized the Romantic poetic ideal, he could have
no sympathy with the reactionary politics and social
tenets of German Romanticism. The Middle
Ages, to which his colleagues in Parnassus looked
back with longing as more Christian and Germanic
than their own century, had to appear to Heine as
a time of desolation, of suffering, of oppression,
the thousand-year-long martyrdom of the House
of Israel. Although his enforced baptism broke the
moral strength of his character, he never really left
his people and on his long deathbed he sought consolation
and momentary self-forgetfulness in the
poetry and traditions of the Jews. Although he held
all positive rehgions to be equally false, he was
nevertheless fascinated by the strange history and
tragic fate of his racial kinsmen. To this fascination
was added an awareness of their social degradation
and, as a result, his Jewish poems were a
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