The Canton mail. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 18??-1882, 1875-02-27
Schiller's True Place in Literature.

|
Bayard Taylor delivered lecture or
"Shiller," last week, in Steinway hall
New York. He began by asserting that
in this intensely practical age there was
nothing that we more needed than an
interest in and just appreciation OF
| the ideas that underlaid works of the
great literary giants, whcse intellects
had involved what had led nations and
peoples on to greatness and fame. The
educated American of to-day resembled
as much lis German as he did his
English predecessors in all that was
great in literature. The German Ian
guage was the vehicle of thought in
tensifed and sublimated; the English
language was the vehicle of all that was
practical and expedient. The German
literature gained in breadth and COM
prehensive power what it lost in brevity
and concentrated force. Schiller was
one of natures great interpreters and,
tongue, he had captivated all unbiased
men who had read his works, and
reached an immortal place in the niche
of fame. He was, however, too gener-
ally accorded a higher rank than he
was entitled to. There were only four
poets who could, unchallenged, be
placed in the first rank =; they were
Homer, Shakespeare, Dante, and Goethe
names that would grow greater as the
ages receded. Schiller published ''The
Robbers" at his own expense, no pub
Usher being willing to take the risk,
and, like Byron when he published
"Childe Harold" woke to find himself
famous. The people found in it new
revelation it, dashed aside prescriptive
rights and gave an insight into the grand
and possible realities of the future. But
this play shocked and even Mortified
those who had slumbered in the old
stationary Rip Van Wrinkle way and a
German prince had declared that if he
had power to create q world, and had
reason to believe that, if he created it,
a man would be born who could write
such a play, he would leave it uncreated.
Schiller's age was one of rebellion again-t
the cold, formal, classical French school
of Corneille, Racine, and other stately
authors, who sacrificed nature to forms.
Schiller crucified forms and depicted
nature, in accordance with his ideals of
truth, feeling, sentiment, and passion,
and he found that he had struck the
electrical chord that vibrated to the
master hand and made all mankind
akin. The reaction from the formal
classical, and coldly severe style of
literature produced almost an hysterical
episode, and in this Schiller was to
great extent, leader. This, however,
was his stage of assertion this was fol-
lowed by the second stage, of develop
ment, and by the grand and final stage
of achievement when, having had his
impulsive and somewhat reckless spirit
tanned, and rectifed by experience and
the companionship and influence of
Goethe, he produced those immortal
works which SO nearly allied him to the
greatest poets that only cold and impair
tial criticism could discern the faint
line.
Schiller was not great genius of the
first rank; but his intense devotion to
his grand ideals raised him so nearly to
this pinnacle as to deceive many who
did not closely examine his right to &C.
cupy this position. 1t had been fire.
quently said that Schiller was not OF
the people, and that Goethe was. and
yet Schiller was by far the most demo-
cratic of the two, and this had been
generally recognized by the French re-
public, which had paid honors to the
author without knowing his name, sim
ply from catching the true spirit of his
works. Schiller died in 1905, after |
having lived life Of self-abnegation,
devoted to the highest ideals of literary
effort Eight cities erected statues to
his memory; Schiller fund has been
.aised IN Germany, the annual interest
If which, amounting to $25, 900, is de-
7oted to the help Of struggling literary
men and every effort has been put
orth since his death to recognize the
claims he had on posterity and to real
re the ideals which he so sedulously
ought to attain. Such men were bea-
,ons in the march of civilization, and
closer study of the grand ideas which
hey crystallized into grand practical
Inspiration could not be too closely
tudied or sedulously followed in this
utilitarian and practical age.