Laurence Sterne in Germany A Contribution to the Study of the Literary Relations of England and Germany in the Eighteenth Century

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  LAURENCE STERNE
  IN GERMANY

  A Contribution to the Study of the
  Literary Relations of England and
  Germany in the Eighteenth Century


  By

  HARVEY WATERMAN THAYER, Ph.D.

  Sometime Fellow in Germanic Languages and
  Literatures, Columbia University




Copyright 1905, Columbia University Press, New York




NOTE


Mr. Thayer has undertaken to write, in detail and from the sources, the
history of Sterne’s vogue in Germany. As thus broadly defined the task
had not before been attempted, although phases of it had been treated,
more or less thoroughly, in recent monographs. The work here submitted,
the result of careful research in a number of American and European
libraries, is in my judgment an interesting and valuable contribution to
our knowledge of the literary relations of England and Germany at the
time of the great renascence of German letters.

  CALVIN THOMAS.

    Columbia University, May, 1905.




PREFACE


The following study was begun in the autumn of 1901, and was practically
finished now more than a year ago. Since its completion two works of
interest to lovers of Sterne have been issued, Czerny’s study of
Sterne’s influence upon Hippel and Jean Paul, a work which the present
author had planned as a continuation of this book, and Prof. Cross’s new
definitive edition of Sterne.

I desire here to express my thanks to Prof. W. H. Carpenter, Prof.
Calvin Thomas and Prof. W. P. Trent, under whose guidance my last year
of University residence was spent: their interest in my work was
generous and unfailing; their admirable scholarship has been and will
continue to be an inspiration. I am indebted to Prof. Carpenter and
Prof. Thomas for many helpful suggestions regarding the present work,
and the latter especially has given freely of his valuable time to a
consideration of my problems. I am grateful also to several other
friends for helpful and kindly service, and to many librarians in this
country and in Europe for their courtesy.

  NEW YORK, May 1, 1905.




CONTENTS


  Chapter I.    Introduction                                        1

  Chapter II.   Sterne in Germany before the Publication
                of The Sentimental Journey                          9

  Chapter III.  The Publication of The Sentimental Journey         35

  Chapter IV.   Sterne in Germany after the Publication of
                The Sentimental Journey                            55

  Chapter V.    Sterne’s Influence in Germany                      84

  Chapter VI.   Imitators of Sterne                               112

  Chapter VII.  Opposition to Sterne and His Type of
                Sentimentalism                                    156

  Chapter VIII. Bibliography                                      183

  Index                                                           196




CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION


The indebtedness of German culture to other peoples has been the theme
of much painstaking investigation. The history of German literature is,
in large measure, the story of its successive periods of connection with
the literatures of other lands, and hence scholars have sought with
industry and insight to bound and explain such literary inter-relations.

The latter half of the eighteenth century was a period of predominant
English influence. The first half of the century had fostered this
ascendency through the popularity of the moral weeklies, the religious
epic, and the didactic poetry of Britain. Admiration for English ideals
was used as a weapon to combat French dominion in matters of taste, till
a kind of Anglomania spread, which was less absolute than the waning
Gallomania had been, only in such measure as the nature of the imitated
lay nearer the German spirit and hence allowed and cherished a parallel
independence rather than demanded utter subjection. Indeed, the study of
English masters may be said to have contributed more than any other
external cause to the golden age of German letters; to have worked with
untold beneficence in bringing faltering Germany to a consciousness of
her own inherent possibilities. This fact of foreign awakening of
national greatness through kinship of inborn racial characteristics
removes the seeming inconsistency that British influence was paramount
at the very time of Germany’s most individual, most national, outburst.

The German literary world concerned itself zealously with each new
development across the channel.