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PUBLISHERS' FOREWORD

The German Classics is the first work issued by The German Publication
Society in pursuance of a comprehensive plan to open to the
English-speaking people of the world the treasures of German thought
and achievement in Literature, Art and Science.

In the production of this monumental work the thanks and appreciation
of the Publishers are especially due to Hugo Reisinger, Esq., whose
loyal support and constant encouragement have made possible its
publication.

General Introduction

By Richard M. Meyer, Ph.D. Professor of German Literature, University
of Berlin.

Men formerly pictured the origin and development of a literature as an
order less play of incalculable forces; out of a seething chaos forms
more or less definite arose, and then, one day, behold! the literary
earth was there, with sun and moon, water and mountains, animals and
men. This conception was intimately connected with that of the origin
of individual literary compositions. These likewise--since the new
"theory of genius," spreading from England, had gained recognition
throughout the whole of Europe, especially in those countries speaking
the Germanic languages--were imagined to be a mere succession of
inspirations and even of improvisations. This view of the subject can
no longer be held either wholly or in part, though in the origin and
growth of literature, as in every other origin and development, much
manifestly remains that is still incomprehensible and incalculable.
But even as regards the individual literary work, writers
themselves--as latterly Richard Dehmel--have laid almost too strong an
emphasis on the element of conscious deliberation. And concerning the
whole literary product of an individual, which seems to offer the most
instructive analogies to the literary achievement of a people, we
received a short time ago a remarkable opinion from Carl Spitteler. He
asserts that he is guided in his choice of definite styles and
definite forms by an absolutely clear purpose; that he has, for
example, essayed every kind of metre which could possibly be suited to
his "cosmic" epic, or that he has written a novelette solely in order
to have once written a novelette. Although in these confessions, as
well as in Edgar Allen Poe's celebrated _Poet's Art_, self-delusion
and pleasure in the paradoxical may very likely be mingled, it still
remains true that such dicta as these point to certain peculiarities
in the de