barbare_. Only one antique metre became German, in the same sense that
Shakespeare had become a German poet; this was the hexameter, alone or
in connection with the pentameter; for the ratio of its parts to one
another, on which everything depends in higher metrics, corresponded,
to some extent, to that of the German couplets. For the same reason
the sonnet--not, however, without a long and really bitter fight--was
able to win a secure place in German reflective lyric poetry; indeed
it had already been once temporarily in our possession during the
seventeenth century. Thus two important metres had been added to
German poetry's treasure house of forms: first, the hexameter for a
continuous narrative of a somewhat epic character, even though without
high solemnity--which Goethe alone once aspired to in his
_Achilleis_--and also for shorter epigrammatic or didactic
observations in the finished manner of the distich; second, the sonnet
for short mood-pictures and meditations. The era of the German
hexameter seems, however, to be over at present, while, on the
contrary, the sonnet, brought to still higher perfection by Platen,
Moritz von Strachwitz and Paul Heyse, still exercises its old power of
attraction, especially over poets with a tendency toward Romance art.
However, both hexameter or distich and sonnet have become, in Germany,
pure literary forms of composition. While in Italy the sonnet is still
sung, we are filled with astonishment that Brahms should have set to
music a distich--_Anacreon_. Numerous other forms, taken up
principally by the Romantic school and the closely related "Exotic
School," have remained mere literary playthings. For a certain length
of time the ghasel seemed likely to be adopted as a shell to contain
scattered thoughts, wittily arranged, or (almost exclusively by
Platen) also for mood-pictures; but without doubt the undeservedly
great success of Friedrich von Bodenstedt's _Mirza Schaffy_ has cast
permanent discredit on this form. The favorite stanza of Schiller is