Goethe said well of Klopstock, that to him German literature owed a debt
of gratitude, for he was in advance of his time, although he lived long
enough for his time to be in advance of him. He is the classical epic
poet of Germany, as Milton of England, but with a difference. Milton
was nurtured on the overflowing bosom of English poesy. Klopstock had
imbibed no such strength at a native fount. The sublime utterance of the
one still reverberates through a world that is still the wiser and the
better for the heavenly strain. The sonorous rhapsodies of the other
already weary the ear of the land on which they originally fell with
weight and power. Few were the admirers of England’s blind poet when he
sang “of Man’s first disobedience.” To-day they are countless. When
Klopstock published the first part of “The Messiah,” Germany was
enthusiastic. The learned were at his feet, kings craved his
companionship, and the people worshipped a prophet. To-day, a young
German critic has the hardihood to say--without being stoned for his
heresy--that Klopstock’s poems are like nothing so much as translations
from some unknown author, by an erudite but somewhat unpoetical
philologist. With the early admiration for the poet, was mingled awe for
the sanctity with which his subject had enveloped his person. He became
in a nation, what Pollock, the author of “The Course of Time,” has been
amongst a class. If he is now taken down from his undue eminence, his
just claims to respect must not be disregarded. If Luther constituted an
epoch in the moral and intellectual emancipation of his country,
Klopstock marked an era in the progress of her poesy. Both names are
landmarks, in the history of the language, as cultivated in the service
of letters. The latter was, also, a pioneer and a reformer. His odes are
striking and lofty; his learning extensive; his piety fervent; and his
poetic sensibility profound. The thirst of communing with the soul of
his native Germany--since, a widely-possessing enthusiasm--announced
itself as a literary virtue, first in Klopstock’s writings. It spoke in
the selection of some of his themes: but was chiefly operative in his
profound and enamoured study of the language which begins, in his verse,
to discover and lavish exuberant wealth.
[By Dannecker.]