quality into the uniform structure of the usual vehicle of dramatic dialogue, particularly when partaking of the nature of a monologue; as Goethe did, for example, in the "Song of the Fates" in Iphigenia, that most metrically perfect of all German dramatic poems, and as Schiller continued to do with increased boldness in the songs introduced into Mary Stuart. Perhaps the greatest perfection in such use of the principle of the "free rhythm" as applied to the drama, was reached by Franz Grillparzer in the Golden Fleece, on the model of certain fragments by Goethe, such as the Prometheus. On the other hand, the interesting experiments in the Bride of Messina are of more importance for the development of the opera into a work of art complete in itself, than for that of the drama. In general, however, it is to be remarked as a peculiarity of modern German drama, that it seeks to escape from monotony, which the French classical theatre hardly ever succeeded in avoiding, by calling in the aid of the other arts. Plastic art is often employed for scenic arrangement, and music to produce effects on and behind the stage. Both were made use of by Schiller; and it was under his influence that they were tried by Goethe in his later period—though we find a remarkable sporadic appearance of them even as early as Götz and Klavigo. The mastery which Grillparzer also attained in this respect has been striven after by his fellow countrymen with some degree of success: as, for example, by Ferdinand Raimund, by Ludwig Anzengruber, and also by Friedrich Halm and Hugo von Hofmannsthal.

Besides blank verse, the only other garb in vogue for the serious drama was prose: this was not only used for realistic pictures of conditions of a decidedly cheerful type (since Lessing had introduced the bourgeois dramas of Diderot into Germany), but also for pathetic tragedies, the vital power of which the lack of stylistic disguising of language was supposed to increase. This was the form employed in the Storm and Stress drama, and therefore in the prison scene of Faust, as also in Schiller's youthful dramas, and again we find it adopted by Hebbel and the Young Germans, and by the naturalistic school under the leadership of Ibsen. The Old German rhymed verse found only a temporary place between these two forms. It was glorified and made almost sacrosanct by having been used for the greatest of our dramas, Goethe's Faust; Wildenbruch in particular tried to gain new effects with it. Other attempts also went hand in hand with deeper-reaching efforts to reconstruct the inner form of the drama; thus the tendency to a veiled polyphony of language in the folk-scenes of Christian Dietrich Grabbe and in all the plays of Heinrich von Kleist; this in Hofmannsthal's Oedipus led to regular choruses, of quite a different type, however, from those of the Bride of Messina. Gerhart Hauptmann's Weavers and Florian Geyer may be considered the culminating points of this movement, in spite of their apparently entirely prosaic form.

Modern German drama, which in its peculiar style is still largely unappreciated because it has always been measured by its real or supposed models, is, together with the free-rhythm lyric, the greatest gift bestowed upon the treasure of forms of the world-literature by the literature of Germany which has so often played the part of recipient.

On the other hand, when speaking of the development of narrative prose, we should remember what we have already accomplished in that line. The "Novelle" alone has attained a fixed form, as a not too voluminous account of a remarkable occurrence. It is formally regulated in advance by the absolute domination of a decisive incident—as, for example, the outbreak of a concealed love in Heyse, or the moment of farewell in Theodor Storm. All previous incidents are required to assist in working up to this climax; all later ones are introduced merely to allow its echo to die away. In this austerity of concentration the German "Novelle," the one rigidly artistic form of German prose, is related to the "Short Story" which has been so eagerly heralded in recent times, especially by America. The "Novelle" differs, however, from this form of literary composition, which Maupassant cultivated with the most masterly and unrivaled success, by its subordination to a climax; whereas the Short Story, in reality, is usually a condensed novel, that is to say, the history of a development concentrated in a few incidents. Our literature also possesses such short "sketches," but the love of psychological detail in the development of the plot nearly always results in the greater diffuseness of the novel. The real "Novelle" is, however, at least as typical of the Germans as the Short Story is of the Americans, and in no other form of literary composition has Germany produced so many masters as in this—and in the lyric. For the latter is closely related to the German "Novelle" because it loves to invest the way to and from the culminating point with the charm produced by a certain mood, as the half-German Bret Harte loves to do in similar artistic studies, but the Russian Tschechow never indulges himself in, and the Frenchman Maupassant but seldom. On this account our best writers of "Novellen" have also been, almost without exception, eminent lyric poets; such were Goethe, Tieck, Eichendorff, Mörike, Keller, Heyse, Theodor Storm and C.F. Meyer; whereas, in the case of Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach, who otherwise would form an exception, even what appears to be a "Novelle" is in reality a "small novel."

The novel, on the contrary, still enjoys in Germany the dangerous privilege of formlessness. In its language it varies from the vague lyric of romantic composition to the bureaucratic sobriety of mechanically-compiled studies of real life. In its outline, in the rhythm of its construction, in the division of its parts and the way in which they are brought into relief, it has, in spite of masterly individual performances, never attained a specific literary form, such as has long been possessed by the English and the French novels. Likewise the inclination, sanctioned by Goethe and the Romantic school, to interpolate specimens of the least formed half-literary genres—namely, letters and diaries—worked against the adoption of a fixed form, notwithstanding that this expedient augmented the great—often indeed too great—inner richness of the German novel. Thus the German novel, as well as the so justly favorite form of letters and diaries, is of infinitely more importance as a human or contemporary "document" than as a direct work of art. We have, however, already drawn attention to the fact that the never-failing efforts to clothe the novel in a more esthetically pure form have, in our own day, happily increased.

The traditional material of literary compositions is, however, also a conservative power, just as are language and form. The stock of dominating motives naturally undergoes just as many transformations as language or metrics; but, in both cases, what already exists has a determining influence on everything new, often going so far as to suppress the latter entirely. Customary themes preferably claim the interest of the reader; as, for example, in the age of religious pictures it would have been exceedingly hard to procure an order for a purely worldly painting. The artists themselves unconsciously glide into the usual path, and what was intended to be a world-poem flows off into the convenient worn channel of the love-story. But the vivifying and deepening power of the Germanic spirit has here, more than in any other domain, destroyed the opposing force of inertia.

The oldest poetry is confined to such subjects as are of universal interest—one could also say of universal importance. War and the harvest, the festivals of the gods and the destinies of the tribe, are the subjects of song. These things retain