d it seems to me
that I have discovered it also in Heinrich von Kleist.

At this moment, when I would pass on to review the achievements of
Koerner and Kleist in the field of comedy, I remember that I was not
sufficiently definite, above, when developing my conception of the
drama. I should have added that I cannot, strictly speaking, count
comedy as a form of drama, but must include it in the category of
dialogue narrative. If one recalls to mind the purpose of high-class
comedy--"to describe individual ages and classes," one must admit that I
am entitled to do so. I must remark in advance that neither Koerner nor
Kleist has done anything for high-class comedy. But Kleist in his
_Broken Pitcher_ has drawn a comic character-picture which is so full of
life that it reminds us of Shakespeare, if of any one, while Koerner in
his _Nightwatchman_ has drawn nothing but a funny caricature; with the
former the character shapes the situations, whereas with the latter the
situations shape the characters, if I may use this expression. I should
be giving myself a great deal of unnecessary trouble if I should engage
in a further analysis of the two comedies which I have mentioned, since
at all events I could only adduce sundry details, and such details in
this case prove absolutely nothing; for the only safe criterion of the
truly comic is that the picture as a whole, apart from what wit has done
for it, should arouse interest as an organic adaptation of nature. With
the rascally, lustful, country judge, Adam, in the _Broken Pitcher_,
this is certainly the case; one can safely take away from him the few
witty sallies which he indulges in: but what the nightwatchman Schwalbe
would become if one attempted the same procedure with him, I should not
like to decide; probably a clown, who has been deprived of his wooden
sword and cap and bells, and whose plain, honest features show that he
has only executed such droll antics for the sake of his bread and
butter. Schwalbe is merely ridiculous, but Adam is comic; the
difference, to define it more clearly, consists in this; every
caricature, because it diverges from laws which are eternal and
necessary, without standing in eternity as a peculiarly constructed
whole, has a tinge of incongruity, consequently of ridiculousness; while
only that caricature of nature can be comic of which the divergences are
self-consistent, which shows therefore that it is founded _in itself_.
The poet should take