51. Literature And Society In The Nineteenth Century by S. Lublinski

Volumes XI1, XII, XVI and XVII of the collection «Am Ende des Jahrhunderts. Rückschau auf 100 Jahre geistiger Entwickelung.» Berlin, S. Cronbach

The author of this book has set himself an important task. He wants to present the literary phenomena of the nineteenth century in their context with social life. There is little preparatory work for such a task. Literary historians have so far regarded literature as a world in itself. They sought methods to create scientific order in this world. But they did not consider that this world is connected with the whole of social life. Lublinski is deeply convinced that only those who have an eye for the whole of life understand what is happening in the world of poetry. He traces the threads that connect literature with life, from economic phenomena on the one hand to philosophical currents of thought on the other. It must be admitted that Lublinski's attempt to treat the chapter “Literature and Society” as part of cultural history has been surprisingly successful. What is usually disturbing about works of this kind is that their authors have something individual to say only about one or the other, and that for the rest they lead us through broad areas in which we can only admire the skill with which they apply their “method” to a subject that is indifferent to them. One cannot absolve Georg Brandes, the ingenious interpreter of the literary “main currents of the nineteenth century”, of this fault. For example, he has said things about German Romanticism that only he could say in this way. But he has also applied the method, which reveals the psychology of Romanticism in a magnificent way, to “Young Germany”. There it fails. Lublinski cannot be accused of such a thing. He does not have such a one-sided, universal method. Because he regards literature as only one element of the whole of culture, he always finds the point from which a literary phenomenon can be viewed within the whole context of life. It can be said of him that he has a unique method for every phenomenon. For example, he does full justice to the individual personality when this really has the driving element in itself and in [its] individual development; and he then sheds the right light on the “milieu” when the personality is only the expression of certain trends of the times. The characterizations of Heinrich von Kleist, Heine, Friedrich Hebbel and the depictions of the milieu in the chapters “Intellectual Structure of Germany around 1800”, “The Audience”, “Tendencies of Young Germany”, “The Silver Age of German Literature” and “The Bourgeoisie” are particularly successful. A highlight of the entire work is the description of Gutzkow. It cannot be denied that many literary phenomena can only be seen in their true light if one follows the lines that Lublinski has indicated so far. It is in the nature of things that one can object to much in the book. One often has the feeling that a path has only just begun and that a considerable distance still needs to be covered if a reasonably certain result is to be achieved, where we now encounter a mere assumption. But that cannot be otherwise. Lublinski has set himself a task that probably cannot be fully solved even if three or four decades are spent on it. It is therefore all the more commendable that he has achieved what he has. We need books like this, which, while not conclusive, are highly stimulating. There are certainly many literary historians in Germany who have a broader knowledge than Lublinski; but there are few who have such a comprehensive education as he; and there is no one so far who would know how to combine all branches of the sociological structure in the sense of the modern scientific way of thinking as he does. Compare Lublinski's book with that of a mere aesthete, such as Rudolf von Gottschall's “Die deutsche Nationalliteratur des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts”. Gottschall also ventures beyond the realm of fine literature. But he is only interested in philosophical and, to a lesser extent, political currents; however, he is only interested in these to the extent that the aesthete speaks of them. The aesthetic judgment becomes sovereign in the intellectual organism of such personalities. For Lublinski, the aesthetic judgment is only a part of his overall evaluation of things. He is not only concerned with whether a work of art is significant or insignificant. For him, the real problem only begins at the moment when he has finished with the aesthetic value judgment. Then he asks himself: why was it possible for a significant work to be created in a certain period and by a certain personality? One would not be wrong to claim that Lublinski has significantly deepened the problems of literary history through his questioning.