We have now said about all that, in our opinion, seems necessary for a
general introduction to modern German literature. For the rest, it is
of course quite obvious that it is German--and that it is a
literature. That it is German, is precisely why it is not exclusively
German: for in every epoch has it not been proclaimed in accents of
praise or of blame, until we are almost tired of hearing it, that the
inclination to take up and appropriate foreign possessions is peculiar
to the German nation--and to the Germanic spirit in general? Thus we
possess special presentations of German literature considered from the
standpoint of its antique elements, and also from that of its
Christian elements, and we could in the same way present theses which
would show its development from the standpoint of the Romance or of
the English influence. And yet latterly an exactly contrary attempt
has been made--in a spirited, if somewhat arbitrary book by Nadler,
which consists in trying to build up the history of German literature
entirely upon the peculiarities of the different tribes and provinces.
For the essence of the German, nay, even of the Swabian, or Bavarian,
or North German, or Austrian individuality, is in the long run
nourished rather than extinguished by all foreign influences. In spite
of this, it is of course important in the consideration of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to observe how the French pattern
that is at first followed almost with the unquestioned obedience
accorded to a fixed ethical model, is confronted by the English, which
brings about the celebrated--and probably overrated--struggle between
Gottsched and the Swiss School. We should also notice precisely how
the tendency of British literature toward originality--in which the
insular peculiarities were strongly emphasized--served to increase the
self-reliance of German literature; how a new movement in the style of
the antique was cultivated by the classical writers; and how the