GERMAN LITERATURE. PERIOD III. 1500-1650. VEN before Gutenberg's ever-memorable invention of printing with movable metal types, about 1454 A.D., there had been attempts to multiply books without the tedious labor of the pen. Blocks of wood, with a coarse drawing and some lettering explanatory or otherwise appropriate, were used in the Low Countries to make impressions on paper. The books, pamphlets, or single sheets, formed from these blocks, were chiefly devotional or religious, yet a fable or two and a "Dance of Death," thus made, have been preserved. Printing with metal types was employed at first in making copies of valuable books, already at hand, Latin Bibles and other standard works. But when several persons had learned the art, some imitated the block-books, retaining the wood-cuts, but using metal types for the text. Sebastian Brant's "Narrenschiff," Ship of Fools, and similar satires were thus illustrated. The increased facility of producing books greatly augmented the tendency to seek reform in Church and State. The restiveness and discontent of the middle classes under the oppression of feudalism and the corruption of the Church found a new manifestation. Martin Luther, the son of a peasant, was a genuine representative of this tendency, while his education and literary genius enabled him to give forcible utterance to what had been imperfectly expressed by others. At first he was disposed to be submissive to authority, but his sense of duty to eousness. God and his fellow-men led him to rebellion against unrightHe claimed and achieved freedom of speech and writing for himself and others. The opinions of this champion were received by multitudes as laws. He became the director of princes, though he never abandoned the cause of the people. His early writings were in the Saxon dialect, but in making his translation of the Bible he wrought out a noble speech which has become the basis of modern High German. Jacob Grimm praises his style for its wonderful purity. The poetry of the Middle Ages belonged to South Germany; the Minnesingers and romancists of chivalry frequented the courts of Austria and Thuringia. But the Reformation and Luther's translation of the Bible caused a new literature to flourish in the North, while that of the South has steadily declined. Yet even the example and success of Luther did not at once accomplish the formation of this new literature. Latin was still regarded as the only proper vehicle for dignified writing; the vernacular was suited only to vulgar purposes, and was treated with contempt. The leading Reformers changed their own names into Latin and Greek forms; thus Schwarzerd (Black-earth) became famous as Melanchthon, and Hausschein (House-light) as Ecolampadius. At a later period French came to occupy the most prominent place, and not till the close of the eighteenth century did the despised German throw off its shackles and emerge from the prison in which it was confined. Among the contemporaries of Luther who used their mother-tongue in writing were the brave knight Ulrich von Hutten (1488-1523), who censured the nobles and defended the views of Luther, and Thomas Murner (1475-1536), who hotly opposed the Reformer. Murner, after writing some fifty sober religious books, which could not be sold, turned his hand to satirical rhymes against all classes, and gained a hearing. The humorous taste of the people was gratified with many popular fables. Luther was a lover of music and art, and sought to encourage these in the service of the Church. His hymns and psalms were sung with enthusiasm, and became the favorites of the people. Other hymn-writers sprang up, who ministered to the popular demands, but their products are incapable of fair translation into other languages. There were also popular preachers, such as Johann Mathesius, and mystical writers, such as Johann Arndt. But the most remarkable religious writer was the theosophist Jacob Böhme (often called Behmen), one of whose chief works was called "Aurora, the Morning-Redness in the East; or the Root and Mother of Philosophy, Astrology and Theology." Towards the end of the sixteenth century flourished Johann Fischart, a satirist noted for his extravagant combinations of words and his imitation of Rabelais. His most popular production was a burlesque of the "Farmer's Almanacs," and bore the title "The Grandmother of All Almanacs." Another of his numerous works was an adaptation of Rabelais' "Gargantua." To this time also belongs the widely circulated "History of Doctor Faustus," first published in 1587. The Thirty Years' War descended like a sirocco on Germany, blasting and devastating the country. Literature perished in the general destruction. Here and there a few choice spirits, stunted and twisted by their environment, preserved the seed for future crops. SEBASTIAN BRANT. AMONG the noted satirists of the fifteenth century was Sebastian Brant or Brandt. Born at Strassburg in 1458, he went to Basle to study law and the classics. When appointed to a professorship he soon became one of the most popular lecturers. He wrote Latin poems and treatises on law, and revised Treidank's "Bescheidenheit" (Discretion), and Hugo of Trimberg's "Renner." But the work Sobashams prane by which Brant is best known is the "Narrenschiff," or Ship of Fools, pub lished at Basle, in 1494. Through a Latin translation by Loeher, in 1497, this work became extensively known, and was translated into almost every European language. The satire is often coarse, but there is a basis of sound sense and morality. The ideas had probably already found expression in the carnival festivals of the Upper and Lower Rhine. It was a practice of the time to publish picture-sheets in which human vices were personified and shown in fool's dress. These were accompanied by certain rhymes, which Brant collected and expanded into a poem, satirizing different types of human character. While Brant's ship is sailing past the Idlers' country and tending towards the Fools' Land, the author brings forward the fools one by one, and introduces them to the reader as the book-fool, the miser-fool, the fashionfool, the fool with regard to children. Altogether a hundred and ten classes of fools are pictured and described. A woodcut shows Venus with two fools and a monk in leash. The characters are made to speak for themselves, while the author adds various complaints and homilies. Brant died in 1521. THE SHIP OF FOOLS. ALEXANDER BARCLAY (1475-1552), who was probably a Scotchman by birth, but lived as monk and priest in England for many years, made a free rendering of Brant's "Ship of Fools," with numerous additions of his own. It was printed in 1509, and re-edited by T. H. Jamieson in 1874. From this version our extract is taken, the spelling being modernized. Come to, companions; run, time it is to move, Haste hither, I say, ye fools natural! Ye have one comfort: ye shall not be alone; For now alive are men but few or none, That of my ship can rid himself out quite. [ship Both young and old, poor man and estate, No manner of degree is in the world wide, [noble My foolish fellows, therefore I you exhort, |
