HEINRICH HEINE

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 32, 9 February 1929, Page 21

HEINRICH HEINE

GERMAN LITERATURE

REVIVAL OF INTEREST

(By "Tityrus.")

"Heine: The Strange Guest." By Henry Baerloin. London: Geoffrey Blei.

Is German still .taught in our schools, and, if so, (loos anybody learn it? It is kept in tho matriculation syllabus, but does any boy or girl take it? It ia. certainly embodied in the curricula for University degrees, but are there any classes of the students interested in,it? Does the war psychology which banned the language of our foes of a dozen years or so ago as something unclean for any patriot to touch, still persist? One wonders. These questions are prompted by the appearance of a now life, in English, of Heinrich Heine, noxt' to Goethe, probably the greatest of German poets and writers. If this were England, while admiring the enthusiasm of the author, Mr. Henry Baerlein, for his subject, and the courage of the publisher, Mr. Geoffrey Bles, in presenting the book to the public, one might scout the likelihood of any adequate return for the'labour and enterprise. But it is one of the virtues, if it is a virtue, of the English not to Cherish hatred or bear malice, and to forgive and forget the foe and the war of yesterday; to shake hands and befriends; in the words of Virgil revorsed, "parcero subje.etis et debellaro superbps." Mr. Geoffrey Bles knows his public. The hatchet has already boon buried iii tho playing field and in business; why should it still be brandished in literature? There will be jlenty of readers in England for the itory, retold in a novel form, of one •who was. not only a great German, but .1 great European, who flourished nearly a century ago after another great war, and won for himself a niche among the world's greatest for all time.

Heino was born at Dusseldorf, on the Rhine, in 1799, and died at Paris in 1556. From 1831 to the timo of his death, twenty.five years, nearly half Ma life, he remained in Prance, an exile from his native land. Those were Europe's most peaceful and cosmopolitan times and Heine, who as a boy'in Dusseldorf saw the great Napoleon and admired him all his life, was.a good European as well as a lover, if a critic, of Germany. In his earlier manhood he visited England and travelled in Italy." At. different times in the first part of his life he resided iv Hamburg and Berlin, attended the universities of Bonn,and Gottingeu, and at Cuxhaven and in the island or Norderney in quest of the health that never came to him—he suffered terribly from nervous headaches—ho gained inspiration from the sea for some of his finest verse. Otherwise lie travelled little. His genius was largely subjective. POETRY AND POLITICS. Fame came to Heine early. The publication of his "Lyrisehes Intermezzo" in 1823—in 'his twenty-fourth year— raised him to the rank of the poets ;ind his reputation as ono of the first v.Titers of the day was sealed when No produced his "Harzreise," doubtless ?io best-known of all his works to English readers, in 1826, as part of the tirsfr volume of his "Reisebilder" (travel pictures). The second volume came (iut the next year, when he also issued his poems and songs under thc^collectivo title of "Das Bueh tier Lieder" ("The Book of Songs"). Heine's best work is contained in these few volumes, yet his bias towards Napoleon and his frank expression of advanced political principles brought him under the ban of the authorities. Germany was no place for political Liberals in (hose days, and in 1831, after the July revolution in Paris, ho left Germany for what he thought would be a freer country. He returned but once and then only with difficulty on account of the authorities to see his aged mother and uncle. In Paris Heine made the acquaintance of the brilliant circle of writers contemporary with our great Early Victorians, including Dumas tho Elder, Hugo, Gautier, George Sand, and a host of others. Financial worries pur- ' sued him to tho end, which they undoubtedly hastened. ' He lived a Bohemian sort of life, which he shared with Mathildc Mirat, whom he married in 1841 in order to provide for her. after his death, for his health was always bad. In 1845 he was stricken with paralysis, and, though he lingered for eleven years, it was for : him what he grimly called his 'SVTatratzengruft" or matrcss grave. He con. tinued his . literary , work.' often- in excruciating pain, almost till his death, nursed by the faithful Mathilde and a lady he christened "La Mouclic" from ' the emblem on her seal ring. His long agony he bore like a man with quip and jest for his many visitors, for he was a celebrity then. Writers of several nations have left account of their visits, and wo know this period of; Heine's.life in detail.

Mr. Baorlein makes of Heine's life a sort of novel, combining a-eknow^ lodged fact with much imaginary conversation, not always happily or convincingly for the reader, for the biographer assumes too much.. He submits no preface or introduction of any kind to explain his method, nor does he give reasons, as lie well might tlo, for getting out such a book at such a time. Instead he plunges iv incaias res in a rather disconcerting way for anybody looking into German literature'for tho first time-. ■Moreover, this life-story of Heine is unco?)seionably long for all there is of essence to it, making a largo handsome volume of nearly sixty ' chapters and over 300 pages, with illustrations.

But the book will serve. Its best feature is tho rcmarkablo number of translations of Heine's poems of sufficient variety and quality now and then to givo the reader who knows no German somo idea of tho wit and wisdom, the sweetness and charm of this "stranger guest," as Matthew Arnold stvlen -iiim «-.- Heine's dw.th. quoted by Mr. Baerlein. ■ HEINE IN ENGLISH, Hore arc a few brief examples of translations of Heine's verse in Mr. BaerJein's book—he does not state Whether they are his own or not: — Softly docs a music sing, From my soul it sallies. / Flutter, little song of spring, Out across tho valleys. Go now, go now, seek a place '■Where flowers and sun aro meeting— When you see a rose's fhco, Say I send a greeting. —from "The New Spring." in iHttif/i-gallcries we behold The valiant warrior who hath planned With his good shield, his lance so- bold, 'Jo march \a conquest through tho land. Lol the little Cupids round him Slenl his arms and with a chain: A flowery chain, they soou havo bouudhim, His defenco is all in vain. S do t in charming fellers Bind myself with sad dolicht, <lnd I [care it (o my hcttcrs In tho world cnmtmlsn to light. And lastly:— Out of my fallen (cars A flowery garden lutils, / Out of my many sorrows A choir of nightingales. And if be so you lore mo To you tho flowers I bring, And at your window, dearest, Tho nightingale shall sing.

It ia almost as difiicuK 16 translate Heine adequately as it is to translate Horace. Strange to say, tho original German is lighter and more musical, with a curious, clear, harp-like melody, than it seems possible to reproduce in .English, for all that ours is a language of poets. With all its faults Mr. Baeilein's story of Heine will have done good service if it helps, to revive interest in German literature, so neglected since the war. Of all the German authors Heine is the one who seems tho most modern with the most appeal to English readers. If at their best his lyrics are incomparable in .any language his prose is equally outstanding in a vivacity and elegance and rhythm by no means common in German literature. One can recommend Mr. Baerlein's book'as an introduction