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rebounds. It would be presumptuous to ask for a more amiable poem than
"FrUehlingstrost" (46), or for a neater one than "Der NichterhOerte"
(121), or for a more gently roguish one than the triolett[26] entitled
"Frage" (55).
But be his poems never so good, there is no reason why Loeben should
be revived for the general reader. His prose works lack artistic
measure and objective plausibility; his lyrics lack clarity and
virility; his creations in general lack the story-telling property
that holds attention and the human-interest touches that move the
soul. His thirty-nine years were too empty of real experience;[27] his
works are not filled with the matter that endures. And it is for this
reason that they ceased to live after their author had died. His
connection with this earth was always just at the snapping-point. His
works constitute, in many instances, a poetic rearrangement of what he
had just latterly read. And when he is original he is vacuous. To
emphasize his works for their own sake would consequently be to set up
false values. Loeben can be studied with profit only by those people
who believe that great poets can be better understood and appreciated
by a study of the literary than by a study of the economic background.
To know Loeben[28] throws light on some of his much greater
contemporaries--Goethe, Eichendorff, Kleist, Novalis, Arnim, Brentano,
Uhland, GOerres, Tieck, and possibly Heine.
II
But it is not so much the purpose of this paper to evaluate Loeben's
creations as to locate him in the development of the Lorelei-legend,
and to prove, or disprove, Heine's indebtedness to him in the case of
his own poem of like name. The facts are these:
In 1801 Clemens Brentano published at Bremen the first volume of his
__Godwi_ and in 1802 the second volume at the same place.[29] He had
finished the novel early in 1799--he was then twenty-one years old.
Wieland was instrumental in securing a publisher.[30] Near the close
of the second volume, Violette sings the song beginning:
Zu Bacharach am Rheine
Wohnt eine Zauberin.
That this now well-known ballad of the Lorelei was invented by
Brentano is proved, not so much by his own statement to that effect as
by the fact that the erudite and diligent Grimm brothers, the friends
of Brentano, did not include the Lorelei-legend in their collection of
_579 Deutsche Sagen_, 1816. The name of his heroine Brentano took from
the famous echo-rock near St. Goar, with which locality he became
thoroughly familiar during the years 1780-89. No romanticist knew the
Rhine better or loved it more than Brentano. "Lore" means[31] a small,
squinting elf; and is connected with the verb "lauern." The oldest
form of the word is found in the _Codex Annales Fuldenses_, which goes
back to the year 858, and was first applied to the region around the
modern Kempten near Bingen. "Lei" means a rock; "Loreley" means then
"Elbfels." And what Brentano and his followers have done is to apply
the name of a place to a person.
In _Urania: Taschenbuch auf das Jahr 1821_, Graf von Loebcn published
his "Loreley: Eine Sage vom Rhein." The following ballad introduces
the saga in prose. Heine's ballad is set opposite for the sake of
comparison.[32]
Da wo der Mondschein blitzet Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten
Um's hOechste Felsgestein, Dass ich so traurig bin;
Das ZauberfrAeulein sitzet Ein MAerchen aus alten Zeiten,
Und schauet auf den Rhein. Das kommt mir nicht aus dem Sinn.
Es schauet herUeber, hinUeber, Die Luft ist kUehl und es dunkelt,
Es schauet hinab, hinauf, Und ruhig fliesst der Rhein;
Die Schifflein ziehn vorUeber, Der Gipfel des Berges funkelt
Lieb' Knabe, sieh nicht auf! Im Abendsonnenschein.
Sie singt dir hold zum Ohre, Die schOenste Jungfrau sitzet
Sie blickt dich thOericht an, Dort oben wunderbar,
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