field for exercise. Here, on the twenty-eighth of July, 1835, Hebbel
read a paper on Theodor Körner and Heinrich von Kleist which, in spite
of a rather juvenile tone, shows a maturity of insight quite
unparalleled in the critical literature of that day. It is greatly to
Hebbel's credit, and was to his profit, as the sequel showed, that
against the opinion of his generation he could demonstrate the poetic
excellence of Kleist and could distinguish in Körner between the heroic
patriot and the mediocre poet; for it was a dramatic masterpiece that
Hebbel analyzed in Kleist's _Prince of Hamburg_, and in this analysis he
formulated views that remained the canons of all his subsequent activity
as a playwright. The study of Kleist gave him for the drama the same
sort of illumination that Uhland had given him for lyric poetry.

Though Hebbel was unable to acquire in Hamburg a certificate of
preparedness for the university, he soon felt ready for university
studies, and after some difficulty persuaded his benefactors to give him
the balance of the fund that they had collected, and consent to his
going to Heidelberg. In March, 1836, he departed thither, with less than
eighty thalers in his pocket. He could be admitted only as a special
student; nevertheless, he was hospitably received by members of the
faculty of law, and attended their lectures. But the romantic scenery of
Heidelberg, and, the reading of Goethe and Shakespeare, whom he now for
the first time studied thoroughly, were more fruitful and suggestive to
him than jurisprudence, however much he was interested in "cases" as
examples of human experience. Such a "case" he treated in _Anna_, the
first short story with which he was satisfied, and which indeed is
worthy of his model in this _genre_, Kleist. Other narratives, and a few
poems, testify to a closer approach to nature and a less morbid attitude
toward life than had appeared in the earlier works. Hebbel was now
finishing his apprenticeship, wisely restraining the impulse to