THE GERMANIC REVIEW VOL. I-JANUARY, 1926 - No. 1 FOREWORD The launching of a new review calls for explanation, if not defense. Certainly the burden of proof is upon those who would add to the number of periodical publications. It must be shown that there is a need to be met, and that the need is acute enough to justify an additional demand upon the time and purse of scholars. There are already in existence several publications which open their columns to the research student of Germanic languages. The character of these periodicals is high and many of the articles with which they have enriched this field are well known on both sides of the Atlantic. The founders of an enterprise like the present will be fortunate if they are able to equal the standards and imitate the spirit of the publications which have already contributed so much to Germanic studies in this country. In spite of these considerations, we are convinced that a genuine need exists which is not met by any of these journals. The service which the REVIEW marks out for itself is significant through its limitations. The editors believe that the Germanic languages form a unified and clearly defined field of research deserving a periodical which shall devote itself to this field alone. Despite years of vigorous growth, the interest in Germanic studies in America is still far behind that which their importance demands, and in the periodical literature of research they have often been obliged, like Cinderella, to stand aside in favor of their more fortunate sisters. We feel that the time has come when the interest in our studies can best be cultivated as a whole and alone. It is no intolerant or parochial spirit that dictates this program. We are well aware of the fertile seeds which come to the Germanist, especially, from the association with the philological and literary studies of students of English and of the Romance and Slavic languages. We have, nevertheless, a strong conviction that research studies in the Germanic languages are entering upon a vigorous period of growth and that they are entitled to an opportunity to develop as an entity in American scholarship. The REVIEW will, therefore, be devoted to the study of the languages and literatures of the Germanic world, including all of the Germanic dialects of the Continent and the Scandinavian peninsula, and to subjects directly subordinated to these. Within the territory so outlined, the interest of the REVIEW is limited by no restrictions of chronology or subject. Its sole criterion is determined by the reason for its existence: the furtherance of research. Whatever constitutes a contribution to the wider or deeper knowled of language and literature falls within its province. Periodil publication is fundamental to the field of research in that it offers the scholar prompt opportunity for making knowns discoveries and ideas and it is especially important in America where other means of publishing detailed and highly specialized investigations are difficult and often impossible to find. It is our conviction that Germanic scholars in America feel the need of the stimulus afforded by a program of this kind and that they will seek to make possible standards which will be worthy of American scholarship. Such a program does not, of course, include pedagogical material, for which abundant opportunity is already provided, nor are papers submitted as doctoral dissertations adapted to the REVIEW. Contributions of this character, when worthy, have a claim to separate publication and can usually find the way. Book reviews will be included, limited so far as possible to works of major interest. The editors are fully aware of the heavy responsibility which they have assumed. They could not think of entering upon it without the assurance from many colleagues of sympathy and support. They interpret their duty as a mandate from fellow students in the field of Germanics and invite full cooperation, including the cooperation of frank criticism. They pledge them selves on their side to the maintenance of worthy standards and promise the courtesy of prompt correspondence. They ask a charitable view of early errors of judgment and sufficient opportunity to develop the program outlined. It is a pleasant duty to thank the persons whose names appear on the preceding page as patrons of the REVIEW. Without their assistance the enterprise could not enter upon existence with freedom to carry out its plans. Their sympathy with Germanic scholarship and its development in America has been an inspiration in taking up our task. COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY THE EDITORIAL COMMITTEE THE PLACE OF SEBASTIAN FRANCK AND JAKOB THE BOEHME IN THE HISTORY OF GERMAN LITERATURE BY KUNO FRANCKE HE following is an attempt to give their proper literary setting to two writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries who in most histories of German literature are passed by with a few words, although they are the two foremost representatives of the free-religious undercurrent of German thought in the age of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation: Sebastian Franck and Jakob Boehme. Franck (1500– 1543), one of the most forcible popular philosophers of the Reformation, is usually crowded into a corner by the consideration of commonplace biblical plays or narrow-minded sectarian polemics. And Boehme († 1624), without doubt the most imaginative genius of the beginning of the seventeenth century, is given secondary rank by the side of or behind the barren formalists and criticasters of Pseudo-Classicism, such as Martin Opitz and his school.2 By claiming for these men their rightful place in the history of literature, I wish incidentally to emphasize the necessity of a large conception of literature as an emotional expression of life or of ideals of life, in whatever form, from the simplest popular song to the most abstruse visions of mystic philosophy. 1 1 W. Scherer in his Gesch. d. d. Lit., p. 286, sums him up in the words: "S. F. erlangte als Historiker, Geograph und Sammler von Sprichwörtern am meisten schriftstellerischen Ruhm." Friedrich Vogt (Vogt u. Koch, Gesch. d. d. Lit., I, 341) refers to him only by the way, in connection with Johann Fischart. Nadler barely mentions his name. Borinski, I, 420 f., has half a paragraph on him, showing at least a certain amount of understanding and appreciation. 2 Scherer, p. 295, alludes to him in connection with Theophrastus Paracelsus in this bare fashion: "Paracelsus stellte eine phantastische Naturphilosophie auf, deren Principien sich später mit der wahlverwandten Mystik vereinigten und so zu den theologischen Anschauungen eines J. B. führten." What other literary historians like the above mentioned have to say of him is equally colorless and hardly worth quoting. From the time when it became apparent that the Reformation was not going to carry the whole German people with it, nor usher in a new era of national greatness, i.e., about the thirties of the sixteenth century, up to the Thirty Years' War and the utter disintegration of national existence produced by it, there runs a pessimistic strain, a tone of depression and spiritlessness through most of German literature. Only a few typical figures, indicative of this general depression, may here be singled out. In the first hopeful years of the Reformation, how joyfully had Hans Sachs greeted the "Wittenbergische Nachtigall," how sympathetically had he extolled wherein he saw Luther's great achievement—the delivery of the souls from the incubus of ecclesiasticism, the exaltation of faith as the only way to salvation, the demand for inner purification and spiritualization: Derselb Mensch neu geboren heißt aus dem Feuer und heiling Geist, von dem ihn auch nit reißen künde weder Höll, Teufel, Tod noch Sünde.3 But soon such words of hope give way in him to lamentations over the fact that the work of reform was being hampered by dogmatic subtleties and sectarian fanaticism, and that the gospel of a new humanity by most people was being made the excuse for selfish desires and excesses. And then the political and social catastrophes which follow in the wake of the religious struggle take hold of him and darken his soul. He who is accustomed to think of Hans Sachs only as a writer of humorous Schwänke and Shrovetide plays, should read his poems written during and after the Schmalkaldian War in which he depicts in glaring colors the fearful devastations of German soil by vicious princes and a degenerate soldiery, pours out his grief over the decay of national greatness, and expresses his desire to be done with it all. For Germany's fate, he says, was robbing him of sleep at night and made him feel: 't was better to die than to live.5 Ib., IV, 176 ff.; III, 470 ff.; XXII, 352 ff.; XXIII, 113 ff. |