Anonymous

Tales from the German, Comprising specimens from the most celebrated authors


Скачать книгу

tion>

       Anonymous

      Tales from the German, Comprising specimens from the most celebrated authors

      Published by Good Press, 2019

       [email protected]

      EAN 4057664093837

       INTRODUCTION.

       TALES FROM THE GERMAN.

       LIBUSSA.

       THE CRIMINAL FROM LOST HONOUR.

       THE COLD HEART.

       THE WONDERS IN THE SPESSART.

       NOSE, THE DWARF.

       AXEL.

       THE SANDMAN.

       MICHAEL KOHLHAAS,[ 1 ]

       THE KLAUSENBURG.

       THE MOON.

       THE ELEMENTARY SPIRIT.

       SAINT CECILIA; OR, THE POWER OF MUSIC.

       THE NEW PARIS.

       ALI AND GULHYNDI.

       ALAMONTADE.

       THE JESUITS' CHURCH IN G——.

       THE SEVERED HAND.

       Table of Contents

      The object of the translators of the following tales was to present the English public with a collection, which should combine effectiveness with variety, and at the same time should contain specimens of the most celebrated writers of prose fiction whom Germany has produced. The names of the authors will, they think, be a sufficient guarantee that they have not failed in this last respect, and if the reader finds himself amused or interested by the series, they will have succeeded entirely.

      It has been suggested to the translators that a notice of the authors and the works themselves might, with advantage, be prefixed to the collection. With this suggestion they have complied, trusting that the limited space allowed will be a sufficient excuse for the very sketchy nature of the biographies, if indeed the following notices are worthy of that name.

      Göthe and Schiller have attained that universal celebrity, that it would be mere impertinence to say any thing about their lives in a sketch like this. Those eminent promoters of German literature in this country, Mr. T. Carlyle and Sir E. B. Lytton, have done all they could to make the English public familiar with the life of Schiller, and a tolerably full notice of his literary progress will be found in No. LX. of the Foreign Quarterly Review. Those who can read German are recommended to the elaborate life of Schiller by Dr. Hoffmeister, which is a perfect treasury of information and criticism. The materials for a biography of Göthe lie scattered through a vast quantity or correspondence, reminiscences, conversations, and characteristics; but a biography, such as the greatness of the subject requires, is still a desideratum in German literature.

      The New Paris, by Göthe, which appears in this collection, is from that delightful autobiography, to which the poet has given the name of Dichtung und Wahrheit. The circumstances under which it is told are sufficiently explained by the short introduction prefixed to it. Schiller's Criminal from Lost Honour was written during what is called the "second period" of his life, when after the completion of Don Carlos he had quitted dramatic writing for a time, and devoted himself to the study of philosophy and history. The facts of the story he had learned from his friend Abel at an early period. Hoffmeister's remarks on this story may be found interesting.

      "This misguided man, Wolf," says Hoffmeister, "appears as a mournful sacrifice to the law, which, from this example, should learn mercy. The severity of law has, from a merely conventional offence, elicited a grievous crime, and him, who sinned from thoughtlessness, and was delivered to the care of justice, she has cast off as though he were absolutely worthless. The progress in crime, which is gradually forced upon the man by civil institutions, and his return to virtue, when vice has completed her lesson, are developed and painted to our eyes with extraordinary art. Every action is deduced from thoughts and motives; and these, again, are deduced from states of mind, which necessarily result from