HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Bard of Democracy
appreciation of the irony of things — of the innate
mingling of pleasure and sorrow, of anticipation
and disappointment, of the life of man on this unsympathetic
planet; and what Heine perceived
sooner, others would perceive later, as every social
problem became harder to solve and as the old satisfaction
and comforts became more useless because
more discredited.
To the English at the turn of the century, Heine
was, however, more than merely the troubadourerrant
of irony. He was forging to the fore as the
"aristocrat of democracy." This title was bestowed
upon him by the Quarterly Review in April, 1899.
In an article, entitled "The Ideals of Heinrich
Heine," Englishmen were taken to task for misjudging
and mangling the poet's deeper meanings
and feelings. They were reproached for failing to
grasp that his laughter, even when most jarring,
was that of earnestness, not of levity. Heine, in
whom the nineteenth century had reached its epitome,
was a power to be reckoned with, a master of
that tragicomedy which stamped all periods when
the new wine was fermenting in the old bottles. He
was a European cosmopolite, not unhke Mazzini.
He did not oppose the just aspirations of individual
nations, but he refused to accept mternecine and
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