The "Sturm und Drang" Movement

Roy Pascal

The Modern Language Review, Vol. 47, No. 2. (Apr., 1952), pp. 129-151.

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VOLUMEXLVII APRIL 1952 NUMBER2

THE 'STUR'M UND DRANG' NOVEMENT

The term Stacrm und 1)ra.izg has less ambiguity than most categories of literary
history: it raises few of the questions which are necessarily provoked by such terms
as 'Baroque ' or 'Ronianticism '. It is applied to a group of writers who were allied in
a very personal and real way, and whose cohesion scarcely needs proving. I t is
however advisable to define the compositioir of the group, since lack of precision in
this respect has caused confusion in the interpretation of its work. I t was publicly
identified for the first tinie, I believe, by Wieland, who spoke disparagingly, in 1774,
of tho 'Hamann sect ', including Herder, Goethe, and Lenz.l Mercli, Iclinger, H. L.
Wagner, and Alaler Miiller may be acltlcd as personal associates and literary allies.
IIamann was an older nian who in inany ways reniaincd apart froni the others and
who is best eonsiclered as a precursor; Klopstocli and Jnstus Moser rnap be given
a similar title. Leise-cvitz is usually accounted one of their number, but he did not
know the others, and touches the Sturrn und Drang only in his one play, Julius ?;on
Tarent. There were a number of inen 13 ho went along with them for a short tinie-
Lavater, Jung-Stilling, F. L. Stolberg, Burger, F. H. Jacobi and Heinse in parti-
culctr-but careful study reveals important differences b e t ~ ~ e etheir
n views and
those of the Stiirmer und Dranger, even where they seein most akin. The nioveinent
might be said to start in 1770, when Herder and Goethe met: it reinailled a move-
ment of young men, and in all the important inenrbers tt marked change or develop-
ment is to be observed by about 1777 or 1778. Herder and Goethe, the most
profound and comprehensive of them, form the heart of the movement, though
Lenz's contribution is by no means negligible.
One of the most troublesome problems is the position of Schiller. Ten pears
younger than Goethe, he had no personal contact with any other Sturmer und
Drhnger, and began to a r i t e only after the others had enierged from their Sturm
zi~zdDrccng. I n spite of an obvious resemblance with their views and outlook, one
finds in fact many important points of difference, in his general temperamental
make-up, his inode of life, and his literary style and themes. I t is aim ays necessary
t o bear these differences in mind, if the Sturm und Drang is to be accurately and
fully understood.
The iinportance of the Sturm Z L T L ~Dralag as the first flowering of the greatest
period of German literature cannot be contestecl. Yet there have been remarkably
few comprehensive studies devoted to it, since the first beginnings by Erich
Schmidt and Jakob Minor in the ninetceirth century. With some justification, but
niuch over-emphasis, it is usually treated as a stage in a devclopinent, but is then
subsumed under some such heading as 'irrationalisnl', 'the German spirit ', and is
frequently treated as a inere preparation for German romanticisnr (e.g. by Kinder-
mann, Benz and Ruprecht). It was a niovemeirt of young men; but, unjustly,
juvenile rebelliousness has been taken to be a predominant characteristic.
Specialized studies fail to relate its various aspects, sothat both the range and the
unity of its achieveincirt are underestimated; in particular the new concepttion of
poetry, and the new poetry itself, are often treated as sonrething apart from the
new interpretations of society, history, consciousness, and nature. There is a lack
Teutscher Xerlezw (1774), No. 8, 174-84.
9
130 The 'Sturrn und Drang' ilovement
of precision as to the composition of the Sturin und Drang group and, for instance.
its distinctiveness from the Klopstockians; the peculiarity of Schiller's position
is overlooked. The best and most comprehensive study is the first rolunie
of Korff's Geist der Goethe-Zeit, though this nork suffers from some of the failings
mentioned above, and especially froill Korff's abstract conception of his nork as
'die Geschichte des ideellen Wachstums eirier uber die lndividuen und individuellen
Leistungen hin verteilten Idee'. One still returns n ~ t hprofit to the gre,it
biographies like Haym's Herder (1880-6) and Unger's H a ~ n a n nulzd die --lzcfklartrrzy
(1911) a-here the richness of the principal figure, at least, is expounded in it<
fullness.'
We know enough of great poetic achievement to recognize that i t is not the
outcome solely of a felicitous gift, and that the gift of poetic utterance is not sorne-
thing apart from life, thought and feeling. The poet is the whole man, and issues out
of innumerable factors that his times present to him: thus history is a necessar?
pre-condition to literary criticism in the fullest sense. While doing justice to
individual character and variation, an adequate study of the Sturm uncl Llrang
must start from that common stock of experience, practical and spiritual, out of
a hich its unity of response grew-and indeed we have a model in the two great
autobiographical statements of the group, Goethe's Dichtz~ngu 7 ~ c l Wahrhezt anti
Herder's Journal meiner Reise. I t u as of course a sharply discriminating response
and in view of the pugnacity of the movement's expressions one hardly runs the
danger of breaking up the uniqueness and unity of their achievement into a number
of 'influences '.
Here there is no space t o discuss the Sturmer und Dranger in all their ~ a r i e t ybut
,~
it is necessary to reach some guiding principle mhich will account, in the fullest
possible sense, for their indebtedness and their hostility to predecessors and
contemporaries, for what links them to the past and mhat constitutes their specific
achievement. All definitions ahich are couched in purely ideal terms, especially
those which would claim a clear repudiation of humanism or rationalism, break
c10~1-n on closer examination-' subjectivism ', ' irrationalisnl ', a nen religion '.
'

' Germanism ', individualism ', 'freedom ' are either false or only partially true, or

like 'huinanism' are not sufficiently precise. We find an immense debt to British
and French humanists, rationalists, and empiricists, as nell as conflict with them.
If the German dufklarung, so feeble a reflexion of European humanism, provoked
thelr contemptuous hostility, we must remember what they owed to Lessing -
\\hen he died Herder m rote : 'Ich kann nicht sagen, a ie riiich sein Tod verodet h a t .
es ist, als ob den1 Wanderer alle Sterne untergehen, uiid der tlunkele -I\-olliigte
Hlnlnlel bliebe.'"ertler \%rotethis in full consciousness of his differences \Tit11

Among recent studies which a t least touch on
the Sturm und Drang may be mentioned H. A.
Korff, Geist der Goethe-Zeit, vol. I (Leipzig, 1923)
and Die Dichtung won Sturm und Drang (Leipzig,
1928); F. J. Schneider, Die deutsche Dichtung
zwischen Barock und Klassizismus (Stuttgart,
1924; 2nd ed. 1950); H. Kindermann, Lenz und
die deutsche Romantik (Wien, 1925); A. Gillies,
Herder (Oxford, 1945); G. LukBcs, Goethe und
seine Zeit (Bern 1947);E. Ruprecht, Der Aufbruch
der romantischen Bewegung (Miinohen, 1948);
R. Renz, Deutsche Bnrock-Kult?rr des 78.
Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart, 1949); J . Nadler, J . G.
Hamann (Salzburg, 1949); JV. H. Bruford.
Theatre, Drama and Audzence ~n Goethe's Germany
(1950).
A fuller account will be provided in my forth
coming study of the Sturm und Drang, which ~b
due to be pubhshed by the Manchester Universit~
Press in autumn, 1952.
To Gleim, 26 November 1781. I'ow und At1
--
Herder, ed. Duntzer and Herder (Leipzig, 1861-2),
 ROY PASCAL 131
Lessing, but he recognized vi hat he owed the older inan for his personal indepen-
dence, his courage in face of secular and ecclesiastical authorities, his vigorous
realism in thought and art, his bold struggle for tolerance, even his pantheism.
The relationship of the Sturm und Drang t o the 'eighteenth century' can perhaps
most conveniently be sunimed up in terms of their relationship with Lessing. He,
in close sympathy with writers like Richardson ancl Diderot, sought t o break through
dogmas of every sort and to reshape thought and art on the basis of experience and
reason. Keither of these two tcrins interprets an absolute; they mean the experience
and reason or knowledge available, and they define essentially the experience of
the contemporary middle class, often in polemical distinction from that of other
classes, particularly of courts and nobility. I n this respect the Stiirr~aeruncl Drtinger
continue their work. But they take it muck1 further, for they delve much deeper
into the inner life of the burgher norld and assert its values with a far greater
confidence and passion, even recklessness. They overthrow the 'reasonable' coin-
promises, the caution of the realists, and the half-heartedness of the ' pre-romantics ',
among their European contemporaries. True t o their experience as Gernzans, their
work has not the practical, political or economic range of the British and French;
but, less restrained by social responsibilities in a country without public life or
a cultural centre, they undermine inore radic~llythan any contemporaries (more
even than Rousseau) the rule of 'polite society' in the sphere of cu1ture.l Thus we
may see the Sturm zcnd Drnng as a stage in a most significant and vast development
-not in a purely ideological movement or towards a limited 'objective' such as
Romanticism or Idealism, but a stage in a ahole complex of human relationships,
principles, and problems, that become characteristic of the nineteenth centurj~and
still have significance to-clay.

SOCIAL A ND POLITICAL ATTITUDE

I n the sphere of social and political thought the Sturmer und Dranyer were more
successful in grasping probleiiis than asserting principles. They were all of burgher
families, and academically educated; the Germany in which they grew up was split
into innunzerable principalities and free towns all governed by absolute rulers or
hereditary patriciates. I n revolt against the narrowness of public office and of
normal burgher occupations, they failed to discover any political or social movement
to mhich they could give their allegiance. Resolutely bourgeois in outlook, there is
110 lack of criticisni of despotisin and courtiers in their 13 orks, and equally of the
spirit of subservience in the middle class. Criticism of courts is, indeed, as a rule
excessive and frequently betrays a juvenile ignorance of court circles; but Merck
knem what he was talking about when he warned Lenz against court-life in which
'alle Eigenthunllichkeit des Menschen verloreii geht '.2 Goethe writes from Weiinar
of ' clas durchaus Scheisige dieser zeitlichen Herrlichkeit ' : though we can see the
beneficial influence of experience 15 hen we coinpare the court in Egnzont with that in
Gotz. One must note that Schiller's criticism of social oppression and of a corrupt
court in Die Rauber and Kabale und Liebe is far more precise, and more to the point,
than that in other Sturrn uncl Drang works; while a t the sanie time he subscribes in
See for the idea of 'polite society' B. JTTilley, Merck t o Lenz, 17hfarch 1776. Briefe van und
The Eighteenth C'entury Background (1940), and an Lenz, ed. Freye and Stammler (Leipzig, 1918),
J. Sutherland, A Prebee to Eighteenth Century I, 207-8.

Poetry (1948). Goethe to Merck, 22 January 1776.

132 The 'Sturm und Drang' Llfove?nent

Don Carlos (and to some extent in Die Rauber) to positive national and social
principles far less ambiguously than the others, here closer to Lessing than to them.
But the characteristic Xturm und Drang situation is the abrupt repudiatioil of the
political world, devoid of value, in favour of the private life where the individual
can live according t o his own feelings.
This is the first wish of Karl Moor, and the limit of Ferdinand von Walter's
personal ambition. Klinger finds this solution in Das leidende Weib and Sturrn untl
Drang. I n Julius con Tarent Leise~3itzmore challengingly opposes the idea of
private domestic bliss to government, even when the ruler is a model. Werther also
seeks a refuge in simple circumstances, though Goethe's deeper insight shows the
insecurity of the ideal itself. I n Qotz Goethe finds the most firmly established forin
in which this ideal may be realized, a historic mode of life sustained by warn1
personal relations and practical activity. I n all cases, however, the worthy life
appears as something insecure or unattainable, and the struggle for it is tragic,
either through the might of political power or (and in addition) through the tragic
conflict within the hero's own self. It is noteir orthy that, much as the Stzlrmer und
Dranger owed to Rousseau, they do not follon him in his attempts, in La nouvelle
Hdloi'se, Emile, and Du contrat social, to find some way of reconciling inner values
with outer social ohligatioils. more drastically than he, they assert the conflict as
an insoluble one.
Together mith many outbursts against despotic rule and against the pettiness of
public life, there is a remarkable lack of direct political interest in the Sturm und
Drang. Herder could ascribe the decline of culture to the lack of a homogeneous
public, to the lack of 'Freyheit und Menschengefuhl', but such terms are not linked
with their meaning in the modern political sense.l Occasionally he utters an out-
burst against Charlemagne for having enslaved the Germans. But their concern
with the nation arises almost entirely from their concern with culture and their
desire for a poetry which nil1 truly interpret German life. They uere as obdurate to
Klopstock's idealization of freedonl as they were to his nationalism; both ideals
they felt t o he 'phantoms', meaningless, mere tirades; and in retrospect both
Goethe and Herder condemi~edsuch excesses as the product of a time in which
there was no great cause to enlist e n e r g i e ~ .Their
~ distrust of this high-sounding
vehemence was reasonable and shrev (1, for in practice Klopstock, like the capable
and free-speaking administrator C. H. von Moser (for whom the Sturmer und
Dranger had a healthy respect), admired the enlightened despot and hankered
after a restoration of the medieval empire under the Habsburgs.
The American War of Independence broke out a t the height of the Sturrn u?d
Drang, and their response to i t sho\+s hom little they understood or sympathized
with the political idea of independence. Klopstock supported the insurgents, as did
Stolberg and Schubart : Schiller sympathized with their aims. But Lenz (the great
politician !) called the colonists idiots. He and Klinger nere reacly t o enlist on the
English side, like Werther anti many other characters of Sturm zlnd Drang \\arks.
Indifferent to the issue of freedom, they sought in this \jar, in n a r in general,

See, for example, Herder's Haben wir noch
d m Publikum der Alten; his review of Klopstook's
odes, 1773; Ursachen des gesunknen Geschmacks,
etc.
Goethe, Dichtung und Wahrheit, Book 12;
Herder, Humanitatsbriefe, No. 11. There are
numerous expressions in the letters of the Sturm
und Drang period of their distaste for the wordy
political violence and national idealization of
Stolberg, Voss and company.
 ROY PASCAL 133
merely an attractive outlet for their energies. 'Where war is, there am I.'l Their
attitude to the American War throws considerable light on the ambiguity of their
use of the ~vorcl'freedom', yet it is ~ ~ s uto
a l consider them champions of political
freedom2 They might have a bad conscience about it, like Goethe's Fernando (in
Stella), who escapes the turmoil of his emotioiis by taking part in the suppression
of the rising of the 'noble' Corsicans. Bodmer, the good republican, was astonished
a t Goethe's admiration for the tyrant C a ~ s a r . ~
Political power aiid aggrandisement were devoid of all meailing in their view.
Here again they must be distinguished from men like Heinse or Schubart, who,
for all their worship of 'freedom', were fascinated by the success of Frederick the
Great. The two Prussians ainong them, Hamann and Herder, had nothing but
loathing for Prussia, for its despotism and its ruthless efficiency-like Wiiickelmann
and Lessiiig before thenz. They might feel sympathy, with Goethe, for Frederick's
personal heroism, but not for his systeni, nor for the extension of Prussiaii power,
which in Herder's view was the negation of all true social and personal welfare. I n
Auch eine Philosoplzie der Geschichte Herder delivers a broadside on all power-
politics, all imper~alisin,whether political or economic, including with ~ i u s s i a n
expansionism that of England and France. Their main attack was, however, delivered
a t the German system, a t the bureaucratic despotisnis characteristic of the Gerinail
states; even if these were eff~ciei~t,in their view they brought a fatal impoverish-
ment of personal life and initiative. With a n eye to Prussia Merck ~ i ~ r o that,
te
departments of state a]-e now organized like army battalions:
Der tabellarische Geist hat den individuellen verdrkngt. Und da es jeder gleich gut
machen soll, so macht es nicht leicht einer besser als der andere. Jedes Mannes Gewelt
und Xedlichlieit ist so enge controlliert, und jeder so subaltern von dem andern, daU es
kaum der Muhe lohnt, das Zutrauen zu verdienen, das man ihm zum voraus versagt
hat."
I n such a situation, the temptation to repudiate all social obligation, as do so
inaiiy figures in their ~vorks,was strong; Haniann in fact gave them a lead in this
clirection, in his actual life and his writiiigs. But the Stiirmer und D~anqerwere
haunted by the idea of worthy practical activity-mc see this in Herder's Journal
or his letters to Caroline Flachsland, his welcome to the calls to Biickeburg and
Weimar: in Lenz's 'Handeln sey die Seele der Welt '; "n poetic symbols like Gotz
or Prometheus. And in what frainetvork could they find activity? All the political
theorists of their time .c17ere a t one i11 recommending enlightened (benevolent)
despotism as the best framework for social advance, however differently A. L. von
Schlozer, C. F, von Moser, Klopstock, Kant, or Justus Moser himself, might
interpret the term 'advance'. It is therefore not surprising that the Stiirmer und
Drunger themselves thought aiid worked within the assumptions of enlightened
despotism. Wein~arwas not an accident, but a priilciple.
Goethe tells us that, on his first meeting with Karl August, they discussed
Moser's writings; Maser is nearer to the Btiirn~er und Dranger than any other
IClinger to Kayser, 23 April 1779. Sf. Rieger, Lavater's Physiog?zo,nik. D w jufige Goethe, ed.
Klinger in der Xtwrn- 11nd Drungperiode (Darm- Morris (Leipzig, 1910-12), v, 333-6.
stadt, 1880), p. 423. Uber den engherzigen Geist der Deut-
See, for instance, E. A. Runye, P~inzitivism schen.. . Merck, Xchriften, ed. Wolff (Weimar,
in S t t ~ r mund Drwng Literature (Baltimore, 1946). 1909), r, 202.
Bodmer to Schinz, 15 June 1775, ed. Norris, tfber G6tz ljon Berlichingen. Schriften,
v, 269. See Goethe's character of Caesar in ed. Blei (Miinchen, 1909-13), rv, 222-7.
 The '~Sturmund Drang' Movement
political thinker. He m o t e from the experience of an absolutism, but in a very small
state without a hereditary ruler, where the administrators could be in close contact
with all social strata and could interest themselves in all aspects of life. He \%,as
a consistent opponent of the large state and the bureaucratic apparatus necessary
in a large autocracj . While he was deeply concerned for n elfare and efficiency, he
was equally anxious to strengthen the social ties n hicll promote the cohesion of
social groups, and link then1 to the whole societ?. He valued all those tradition,
and customs which weld the ~ndividualto the group, and thought of the individual
not as a 'subject' but as a participant in a community. The state itself 1% as for hinl
not a power-unit, but a historical entity made up of most diversified groups, 11hoae
purpose was realized only if it strengthened the vigour of these groups. Thus he
defended traditional corporations and sought to maintain privileges and rights
u hich ensured corporate existence. He pointed out that the abolition of serfdom
Jcas no unmixed blessing. I n strong contrast to the general trend of Aufklarunq
thought he sought t o strengthen the separate identity of the soci,rl estates, seeing
in them a means to check the power of the ruler.
Goethe says in Book 13 of Dichtung zind TVuhrheit that Maser's standpoint gave
meaning to the anarchy of Germany, since he showed how the mass of small states
gave the opportunity to tend the peculiar culture of each district. Through him the
Sturmer und Dranger were fortified in their interest for the local, provincial, con-
crete f o r ~ n sof life. Loathing despotism and the impersotiality of the bureaucratlca
state, they saw the traditional estates as a cfefence of 'freedorn '--I\ e find Herder,
in Auch eine Philosopl~iecler G~schlchte,condenliling the ' n ~ ~ x i nofg social estate:,
and putting in a word for feutlalism dnd serfdoin. But this backmard-looking ideal
involveci then1 in characteristic and almost unavoidable contradictions.
They learnt from Iloser that the nobility n as a defence against tlespotisrn. Even
the boldest Gern~arlspirits echoed this theinc, C'. F von hZoser and Schnbart ;\mong
them. I n ~Sturmt i l ~ dDrung works one often meets n i t h the honest nobleman, the
country squire, who seeks to improve conditions or to checli corruption. Most of
their heroes are noblemen, and it might me11 be thought that in their ~ i e wonlj
noblemen, like Ciotz, Julius von Tarent, Karl Xoor or Ferclinanil Walter, had
the spirit to assert themselves against the earthly ponerb. At the sarne time there
is the sharpest criticism of noblemen, of their arrogance and class-conceit-see
Der Hofmeister, T17erther,ant1 their private correspondence (Brander's remark in
Crfaust is not untypical: 'Das ist Tvas vornehmes inkognito, sie haben so nab
unzufriednes boses in1 Gesicht ) . This contradiction runs through all Goethe's and
Herder's work, till their death: and there is a personal note in Herder's relnark
about Swift: 'Was den Dechant am nleisten niederdruckte, waren die obern Stande.
Sie hielt er fur unverbesserlich; und an sie hatte er sich so sehr gehangen, und sie so
sehr getrauet'l (in his Sturrn und Drang days, Herder liked to call himself 'der
Dechant', after Swift). There is a similar contradiction, or ambiguity, in the
attitude of the Sturm und Drang t o marriage between burgher and noble.
Misalliance is the theme of many of their TI-orks, and there is no inistaking the
sympathy u i t h which they treat t ~ v olovers separated by class. But even Schiller
conceives such an alliance as possible only outside society. Indeed, they criticize
the sentimental novel because it untruthfully shows that love may conquer social
prejudice (e.g. in Lenz's Soldaten or Klinger's Das leidende JVeib), and in Dze
Herder, ddrastprc. So. l q .
 ROY PASCAL 135
Soldaten Lenz roundly asserts that a young burgher girl must not raise her eyes to
the nobility.
Their attitude t o the feudal constitution is equally contradictory. I n Auch e k e
Philosophie der Qeschichte Herder writes contemptuously of the 'freedom' which has
shackled the lawless barons, dissolved the guilds, and emancipated the serfs-as
one reads one thinks of G0tz.l But in Riga he had commended a nobleman who had
emancipated his serfs, and he welcomed the breaking of feudal privilege in France
a t the time of the Revolution. Merek on a visit t o Russia recommended the emanci-
pation of the serfs. It is a significant comment on the German situation that
Herder, hlerck, and Lenz, when they were associated with Russian affairs, keenly
participated in the schemes of enlightened reform that were circulating a t that
time in Catharine's court; in Germany they were bitterly frustrated and uncertain
of thenzselves.
The attitude of the Xtiirmer zcncl DrGnger to the common people was less ambiguous,
though very complex. It was determined by c u l t ~ ~ rconsiderations-at
al no time
do they envisage the bourgeoisie or the VolE as a political force. I n the common
people they found the real substance of the nation. I n his review of an English
book which summed up the characteristics of Germany in ternzs of 'polite society ',
Qoethe exploded against the whole notion of 'good society', 'polite nations'; the
German character is to be found, he note, in the domestic family, the farm, thc
workshop, the inn and coffee-house.2 Their works show how they claimed cuiturai
intercourse between burgher and noble. But there is no admiration for merchants
and bankers in their writings: the noble merchant of the English and French
tradition is absent, and on the contrary there is much vexation expressed with the
dull routine of bourgeois enzployment. The dissatisfactioii of a Werther or a Wilhelm
AIeister turns into sharp criticism when the professioiial classes come on the scene,
and all through the Xturm und Drang me fiiicl vehement and contempt~~ous attacks
on 'Stubengelehrten' as inen who ~ieglectliving for the sake of ideas or learning.
Most drastically in the Ossian essay Hercler opposed to the learned 'pedants' of his
tinze the untutored, 'natural' classes-'unverdorbne Kinder, Frauenzimmer,
Leute vongute~nXaturverstande, niehr durchThatigkeit, als Spekulationgebildet ' . 3
I t is one of the great achievements of Xturm und Drang writing to have captured
the reality and charm of these practical social groups, young women in the home,
children, tradesmen, peasants. But again, they do not make them an ideal, or
attribute to them inore than the virtues of their limited sphere, as the Romantics
were to do; or, if they tended t o do so, they checked themselves. Herder and
Burger, in the first flush of their enthusiasm for folksong, thought they found in
artisans and peasants the true hearers of poetic culture. But they were too faithful
t o their intellectual heritage (and too intimidated by hostile critics) to maintain this
standpoint, and they hastily assured everyone that by V ~ l they k die1 not mean the
Pobel. With fine tact Goethe nukes Faust say, of Gretchen's room:
In dieser Armuth welche Fulle !

I n diesem Kercker welche Seeligkeit !

The Xtiirmer uncl Dranger appreciated the richness and 'warmth' of burgher
existence and grasped the critical points a t which burgher values were t,hreatened,
A u c h eine Philosophie Gesehichte. Werke,
~ P T Bergstrasser (Heilbronn, 1883), pp. 569-
ed. Suphan (Berlin, 1877-1913), v, 524-5. 71.
Frankfurter Gele71rt~ A n z ~ i g e ~ z 1772,
, ed. "Befwecksel abev Ossinn. Werke, v, 181-2.
 The '8tur.m und Drang' ~llovement
but they became involved in contradictions when they sought to suggest ways in
which these values might be secured. But in their very contradictions they a-ere
most true t o the life around them. Not only are their imaginative works full of
vivid realistic observation, but their social and political ideas are distinguished too
by a greater concreteness than those of Sicolai, Schlozer, or even Kant, and truth-
fully reflect a stagnant, bewildering social reality. One may suggest that it \$ ab
this obduracy of the political and social structure of Germany that made, not
Herder's political ideas, but his theory of history, the finest flower of their social
thought. It was his repudiation of the bureaucratic state, of unhampered absolu-
tism, or power-politics and expansionism, his longing for a social community where
thought and practical life were in harmony, that led him to understand the cultural
qualities of early society and of the Biblical patriarchate, that gave him insight into
the dependence of governmental forms on the mode of life of a people, that enabled
him to appreciate how con~plexis the law of social development. There are nlarly
palpable faults in his theory of history, in its early and late form ; but the value of
his insight cannot be contested, and, in its strength and weakness, it is an integral
part of the Xturm ulul Drang.
MAX AND NATURE
The Sturm und Drang conflict with Aufklarung philosophy springs from the same
root as their political thought. It is essentially a conflict about the powers of man.
The Sturmer und Dralzger refused t o accept the cramping interpretation of man as
an etiolated intelligence; they were savagely contemptuous of men who turned the
universe into a web of ideas, and who defined nlan ancl his destiny in terms of
abstractions. 'Metaphysics', 'speculation', 'abstractions' are always terms of'
vituperation with the Stiirmer und Dranger, directed against the pedestrian arro-
gance of Nicolai, the idealistic constructions of IkIendelssohn, and the speculative
theology of the time. For the Berlin rationalists, the toleration to speculation
allowed by Frederick the Great was a great stride towards 'perfection'. Lessing
had already bitterly contrasted this 'freedom t o utter follies' with the actual
slavishness of life in Berlin. Herder was more extreme in his fury: 'Das liebe, matte,
argerliche, unniitze Freidenken, Ersatz f k alles, was sie [die Menschen] vielleicht
mehr brauchten-Herz ! Warme ! Blut ! Menschheit ! Leben ! ' I n Dichtung untl
Wahrheit Goethe put this principle positively in his (rather over-generous)
summing-up of Hamann's thought : 'Alles was der Mensch zu leisten unternimmt, eq
werde nun durch That oder Wort oder sonst hervorgebracht, muS aus sammtlichen
vereinigten Kraften entspringen; alles Vereinzelte ist ~erwerflich.'~
Herder's philosophical works, on language, knowledge, and poetry, are part of
a consistent effort to work out the fundamental principles of this revolt against t h e
degradation of human capacities, to justify on the broadest basis this desire for the
full employment of all human faculties. I t brought him into conflict not only with
minor figures, but also with Kant, and his criticisnl of Kant, over the theory of
history, epistemology, and aesthetics, has not received the attention which is its
due. Too often his philosophy is suinined up as 'irrationalism ', and we shall see ho~r
' See, for instance, R. Stadelmann, Der ' Auch eirie Plillosophte
der Geschzchte. I17erXe.
h~storssche Sznn be& Herder (Halle, 1928); and \, 638.
my 'Herder and the Scottish Historical School' Dichtuny und Tl'ahrheit, Book 12.
(Englzsh Goefhe Soczety Publzcatlons, XIT, 1939).
 ROY PASCAL 137
misleading this definition is. Like Hamann he owed an immense debt t o English
empiricists like Bacon and Locke, French sensualists like Diderot and Condillac,
and tjo Hume's scepticism.l But while Halnann utilized the arguments of em-
piricists and sceptics to justify his 'Kohlerglauben', Herder built out of them a
philosophy which is essentially humane and secular.
This philosophy asserts the primacy of being over thinking. I n contrast t o the
Cartesian idealists of his time, he insists that sense and activity are as fundamental
t o man as thought. The theme of his Vom Erkennen und Enzpfinden der mensch-
lichen Seele, at which he was writing between 1774 and 1778, is that there is no
knowing without feeling, and neither without will and activity. Philosophy must
be, in his view, an induction from experience-metaphysics should be, he writes, an
'after-physics'; and his own experience taught him that thoughts and feelings
impregnate one another, and both are shaped by particular and local situations (it
was this interwovenness that he so adniired in Shakespeare). He eagerly embraced
Leibniz's dynamic conception of matter, and asserted that all hunian capacities
are f~~nctions, operations; thus he opposed the niechanical nzaterialisin of a
Helvetius as sharply as he did the idealism of Descartes or dualism in any form,
particularly the dualism of Leibniz and Kant. He answered the question, is mind
or matter primary, by asserting that both are energies and, in the last resort,
identical. The distinction between them is, in his view, of historical origin, due t o
the division of labour in civilized society which separates thinkers froni doers; and
his remedy is typical of the Sturm und Dmng, a practical one-thinkers must break
out of their studies and begin to feel and t o act. 'So sind die Theorien gestiegen, bis
endlich die hochste Philosophie wieder gebietet, zur Praxis zuriickzukehren'; 'die
vollstandige Wahrheit ist immer nur That'2-Goethe's Paust seems to be the
quintessence of Herder's episteniological treatise.
It is clear that Herder's theory powerfully reflects his own experience and feeling,
his frustrations and aspirations. But we do him a serious wrong if we consider it as
of merely subjective validity. His studies in language and poetry, in history and
anthropology, and not least his attentiveness to coiztelnporary science, all fortified
him in his view. Too much attention has been paid to the influence of alchemy on
Sturm und Brang thought, and too little t o that of the best science of their time.
Herder's works show a-constant and growing preoccupation with scientific works.
To some extent, the change-over from the mechanistic, deistic picture of the
universe t o the dynamic pantheistic conception is due, as Diderot several times
asserted, t o the rise of the biological sciences-and, we may add, to the beginnings
of the science of electricity. I n Vom Erlcennen zcnd Empjinden, and all later worl-is,
Herder finds substantiation for his views in the biologists' and physicists' and
chenzists' discovery of the energy within living organisms, within apparently 'dead'
matter; and these discoveries fortified hiill, as they did Goethe, in his instinctive
feeling of the unity of all natural phenomena, of mail and nature, in his pantheism.
Herder's thought, though consistent in general, is not disciplined: sometimes he
seems to dissolve the ui~iverseinto a 'realm of unsubstantial forces', sometimes he
expresses a thoroughgoing materialism; sometimes he personalizes God as a loving
father., usually he dismisses any transcendental or a~ithropolnorphicconception of
1 For Hamann's debt, see Unger's Hccmannund Cbers Erlcen~zen und Ernpjinden (1774).
die Auflc1:liiru~~y.
Nadler's J . G. Hcl?na?anleaves IVerke, T~III,260-1.
much wanting in this respect.
 The '8tur.m und Drang' ~Vovement
the divinity: his vocabulary is emotive, and his use of many terms, for instance of
'Seele', is confusing. His philosophy is rather a starting-point than an end, and it
might lead to an idealistic or a materialistic dynamic monism. There is a curious
offshoot froin it in Lenz's essays. Lenz, too, struggled with two opposing factors of
experience the conviction of the determination of thought by environment, as
expounded for instance by HelvBtius, and the conviction of the dynamic energy
11ithin himself, or a t least of the irrepressible urge within him to assert himself over
environment Lenz comes to the suggestion that in this struggle the 'soul' comes
into being and makes itself an independent realm1-a. little-knox n anticipation of
Schellinp's 'Saturphilosophie', ever1 of the theory of 'emergent evolution .
Goethe, k n o ~ i nto his friends as a ponerful thinker, \!rote ver) little directlq-
upon this theme in his Stt~rjnunil Drang years. All his work testifies, however, to
his feeling of unity ~ i ~ i nature,
t,h to his anareness of the identity between the 'living
forces' of nature and of man. The essav, Die S n t u r , of nhich he was the spiritual
father, is his Magnificat to the author and originator of his being. Averse from
philosophical generalities, he alxi-ays keeps truer to observed and experiencerl
nature than Herder. While Herder nrites ' Wer seinen Sinnen nicht traut, ist ein
Tor u11d muR ein leerer Spekularlt xverdei~',' Goethe avoids the pitfall of dogmatic
sensualisnl by xriting: 'Der Mensch ist genugsam ausgestattet zu allen irdischen
Bedurfnissen, xenn er seinen Siilnen traut lind sie dergestalt al~sbildet,d aa sie d ~ 3
T7ertrauenswert bleiben.' Faust is uneasy 1% ith ' I m Anfang war die Kraft ' (Herder's
phraseology) and prefers the more concrete and practically helpful ' I m dnfang I\ dr
(lie Tat '. These exainples are taken froin Goethe's maturity: but one finds as clew
and pregnant a statement in hib Sturul tincl Drang. What attracted hiin about
Lax-ater's physiognomical studies was the identity they presupposetl between
spiritual qualities and physical appearance : so, in a short jotting meant to serve as
;Lpreface to the ~\-ork, he sketched thc guiding principle governing inner and outer.
change, the self and the environment :
\$-as den Alenschen umgiebt wirkt nicht allein auf ihn, er wirkt auch wieder zuruck
auf selbiges, und indem er sich modificieren la&, modificiert er wieder rings u r n sic11 her.
Die Natur bildet den Jlenschen. er bildet sich urn, und diese Umbilding ist doch wieder
nati~rlich.~
With the inner clarity and self-confidence that Herder so sadly lacked, Goethe
finds a lucid and productive formulation that puts the new attitude in a form which
directs to further intellectual and practical labour.
Although Herder alone of the Stiirmer und Drbinger can claim to rank as a philo-
sopher, we can, I believe, justifiably call his work the philosophy of the Sturm und
Drang, since it is built out of insights and values that find other forms of expression
(dramatic, lyrical, etc.) in their works and lives. It will be recognized that Schiller's
11-ay of thinking, though his dissertation deals with the 'connexion between the
animal nature of man and his spiritual ', stands quite apart from earlier Sturm und
Drang thought ; with his adoption of the basic concepts of Kant it becomes in many
ways its opposite. There is no space here to investigate the extension of this basic
See his Meinungen eines Laien; Uber Gotz Woethe, Spriiche i n Prosa.
con Berlichingen; and particularly Uber die Woethe, Von der Physiognomik iiberhaupt.
Y a t u r unseres Geistes. Lenz, Schriften, ed. Blei Morris, v, 332.
(Miinchen, 1909-13), N.
Herder, Ideen zur Philosophie der Ceschichte,
Book 9. R'erke, xIn, 361-2.
 ROY PASCAL 139
X~?.LT')IL
und Drung thought into the later 'classical' period of Herder and Goethe; i t
must suffice to assert that in Herder's later historical and philosophical work, in the
Ideen and Gott. Einige GesprBche, and in Goethe's scientific work and Weisheit, we
find its fulfilment.

I t is well-known that the Sturrner uncl Dranger found in religion support, even
inspiration, for their onslaught on the duflrlcirung, but it is extremely easy to
niisinterpret the part religion played in their thought. Almost all Hamann's works
were avowedly religious in character. Herder was a clergyman: Lenz was (very
fitfi~lly)studying theology. ,411 three were brought up in pietistic homes. Goethe
kept in sympathetic touch with pietists tllroughout his Xtur-m u?zd Drang period,
and, like the others, enjoyed close personal relatioils with religious men like
Lavater or Jung-Stilling. Yet none had sympathy with dogma or cult. Hamann
was a thorn in the flesh not only of the orthodox, but also of pietists. Herder was
charged with being an atheist, a free thinker, a Socinian, an enthusiast (Xchwarmer),
as he told Hamann.l Goethe avowed himself a ' n o n - C h r i ~ t i a n ' .I~n the controversy
over Lessing's pantheisn~Herder and Goethe both ackilowledgcd theniselves to be
pantheists, Spinozists.
Herder's first religious publications fall in 1774, when he 13 as hoping for a Chair
of Theology: one call hardly believe that either Bie Alteste Urkunde des ,Velzschenge-
schlrcl~ts01 Provinziulblatter co~lldhave strengthened his claims, and he himself
heard that he failed 'because his orthodoxy was in question'. The former is an
ostentatious justification of the Biblical account of the Creation, directed both
against rationalists who ridiculed it on rational and scieiitific grouiicls, and against
theologians who tried to justify it as a syinbolical expression of the truths available
t o 11iodern science. Yet Elercler's arguments are ambiguous in the extreme. He
adlnits the truth of the modern cosmology of Ne~vtoiiand Euler and does not slur
over the conflict betmeen tile conclusions of science and the statenlents of Genesis.
But he asserts that while one is true for modern cxperience and consciousness, the
other is equally true for t h r experience of the Biblical shepherds who created it.
He then interprets Genesis as s mythical staternelit of the sunrise, and dwells upon
the superiority of the ancienl conception of God, which interprets the daily
experience of a pastoral people, and is alive in their daily need and joy. The God of
the deists is ' a inetaphysical Something' that rneans nothing t o the feeling and
daily life of the individual; but this God of the patriarchs is a vital summatioil of their
being. ,411 truth worthy of the name must arise from experience, from the whole
man-from 'dnschauen, Evidenz, Zeichen, Erfahrung'; it must lie 'im ganzen,
unzerstuckten, tiefen Gefuhl der S a ~ h e n ' .It~ is easy t o understand the theme as
a defence of the poetic value of Genesis, as a defence of the religion of a simple
pastoral people: i t is also clear that Herder was demanding from a religion or
philosophy that it should not be a matter of mere intellectual deduction, but should
arise from the totality of experience and appeal t o the whole man. But few of his
religious readers would have been content with his statement that the truthwe
arrive a t is 'nichts als eine Sammlung uild Facli~verkMenschlicher Begriffe, von
To Hamann, 13 July 1777. Herders B ~ i e f ea n 30 November 1774. Qoethe undlavater, ed. Funck
Hamann, ed. Hoffmann (Berlin, 1887), p. 123. (Weimar, 1901), p. 12.
Quoted by Lavater in a letter to Goethe, Alteste Urkunde. Verke, TI,270.
 The ' Sturrn und Drany ' ~Wovement
aufien, in unserm Kreise, nach unsern Organen gesammlet ' ; I and, if the form of
religion is thus determined subjectively, according t o the varying experience of
peoples and generations, why should a modern man hold to the forms of a pastoral
people ?
The theme of the Proainzialblatter is less ambitious and sweculative : the book is
made up of short homilies t o parish priests. Here again we see Herder arguing
against dogmatic and theological abstractions, and calling on clergymen to preach
a religion that 'opens eyes and senses, ears and thoughts '. He recommends the use
of the Bible because it 'nourishes most deeply the soul', because it is ' a primer for
the clevelopment of human powers through the revelation of God'. There is no
special organ of religion in man, the faculties are not divided into higher and lower,
he says, in words that might be Hamann's:
Die ganze Religionin Grund undwesenist Thatsache ! Auf Zeugnisder Sinneund nicht
der Oberkrafte allein; bei dem Empfangenden auf Glauben, der alle Kriifte faat, gebaut :
nach Zweck und Inhalt ans Volk, den grossten sinnlichern Theil der Menschheit, und
nicht an Griibler gerichtet ; in Art und Sprache sie mit allen Trieben umzuschaffen und
zu lenken.*
It is of importance that this work was primarily concerned with the sort of
religious teaching that was suited t o the common mass of people, the 'greatest,
more sensuous part of mankind', not t o philosophers. Jlany times we note this
preoccupation in Herder, his recognition that the common man can find no
greater spiritual sustenance than in the tangible factual Biblical teaching. This is
a typical Aufklarung point of view, shared by Lessing and Voltaire, who neither of
them wished to disturb the faith of the m a s ~ e s .Merck,~ a non-believer, likewise
regretted that religion had been deprived of all its sensuous elements, its relish, anti
adds the characteristic remark that fortunately the 'productive class ' had not bee11
affected by this enlightened religion, and therefore 'no plough or n heel has been
brought t o a s t a n d ~ t i l l ' .We
~ remember that Faust understands and fully respectb
Gretchen's literal faith. Hou far is Herder expounding his own faith, and how f-tar
is he demanding religious instruction suited to the cominon man, as part of hlz
campaign against a self-centred intellectual class 2
I t is difficult t o ansner this question. The duties of his office, his nlenlories of
childhood, his own inlpressionable and emotive nature, all combined to fill Herder's
works with religious terms and tones. There is a never-ending battle in his mind.
But the prevailing theme of his religious works-especially those not concerned
directly with religious edification and Biblical exegesis-is 'decidedly 11011-
Christian'. He polemises openly against the idea of a transcendental or anthropo-
morphic God, he ignores problems such as sin, grace, and salvation, he is unconcerned
for dogma. Religion is above all trust in the goodness of the universe, trust in the
goodness of man's powers. He denies the possibility of expressing truth or the
nature of God in the limited terms of human understanding. I n d u c h pine
Philosophie der Geschichte God becomes identical with an inscrutable fate, undis-
cernible to human intelligence, \$-orking through entirely natural means but n i t h
a good purpose. I11 I'onz Erkrnnen und Empjinden and his later norks, particularly
Werke, T I , 206. brethren, Erzzehung des Jlenscheng~schlechts,
An Predtger. Procinttalblatter. Irerke, VII, para. 68.
265. V e u t s c h e r IIIerkur (1779). Blerck, J c h r ~ f t e ~ ~ ,
See for instance Leasing's narnlng to the I, 201.
more enlightened on behalf of the weaker
 ROY PASCAL 141
his fullest statement, Gott. Einige Gesprache, the earlier emotive exaltation a t the
thought of fate becomes a serene acceptance of divine Kecessity, of the law
governing the whole universe, in which man finds his fulfilnzent and his 'freedom'.
I n the Ideen he more fully works out his earlier idea that religion takes different
forms according to the total circuinstances of the life of a people. His nzature
philosophy, his pantheism, recoiiciles the idea of God with his trust in man's
intellectual powers and dynamic energy-a God who lives and nioves in every
particle of Creation, who is justified by sense and feeling as well as thought, who is
present in man's energy but who cannot be contained in any dogmatic formulation
or restricted to any cult. 'This philosophy nzakes me very happy.'l
Several of Lenz's essays are theological in character, and the inconsistency of his
views corresponds to the instability of his character-one finds in then1 theological
arguineritation in the style of Aufklarung theologians, pietistic reminiscences, and
moral puritanism. I n his most emphatic passages, however, where we can detect
a distinctive and personal note, he approxiinates to Herder. He writes that
'the central intention of Christ's doctrine' lies in the word M E ~ ~ V O E ~ T E -
p w a ! pma ! uberweg iiber alle eure vorigen Meinungen von Vollkommenheit und
Gluckseligkeit, uberweg uber euer non p l u s ultra, iiber suer Ideal selbst, und unauf-
horlich uberweg, solang ihr noch weiter kommt.. . .Glaube beschwingt, befacht,
entzundet unsere Krafte alle.. . .Es ist also der Glaube eine gewisse Zuversicht des, das
man h ~ f f t . ~
Religion is for Lenz, therefore, a principle of energy engaging all man's powers; aizd
in the most profound religious poem of the Sturm zcnd Drang, he implores God, wit,h
the violence of despair, to satisfy his heart's longings, or destroy him:
Nein, ich schreie-Vater ! Retter !
Dieses Herz will ausgefullt,
Will gesattigt sein; zerschmetter
Lieber sonst dein Ebenbild !
The religious views of Goethe, the 'non-Christian', reflect in all essentials the
same principles as Herder's. He spoke of the 'Mahrgen' of Christ, detested 'proofs'
of Christianity (' Brauch ich Zeugnilj daIj ich binn ? ZeugniIj daB ich fiihle ? ') ,4
hated dogina and dogmatists; laughed a t Puritans; detested the feeling of sinful-
ness and repentance, 'Zittern und Beben'; and turned i11 vexation fronz the
intellectual narrowness and unproductive brooding of pietists. But he respected
that faith which sustains inen in the fullness of their persoaality, for iiistaizce the
belief of Fraulein von Klettenberg or Lavater, which he recognized as the intense
expression of their capacity for love and friendship. He sympathetically tolerated
Jung-Stilling's naive fundamentalism, ' sein unverwustlicher Glaube an Gott ',
because it was 'das Element seiner Eizergie'.5 I n his Brief des Pastors he says that
the essence of religion is 'unaussprechliche Einpfindungen', while dogma is
'tjrcannischer Unsinn'. ' I n unsers Vaters Al~othekesind viele R e ~ e p t e ' .He
~ told
Betty Jacobi that she should bring up her children to believe, though i t was
immaterial what form the belief should take: 'Ob sie an Crist glauben, oder Gotz,
See Herder's letters to F. H. Jacobi, 6 Feb- Edt~ard Allwills einziges Geistliclzes Lied.
ruary and 20 December 1784. Aus Herders A'chrqten, I , 185-6.
NachlaJ, ed. Duntzer and Herder (Frankfurt, Goethe to Pfenniger, 26 April 17i4. Morris,
1856-7), pp. 251-4,263-5. IV, 15-16.
1ieinuizgen des Lnieiz. Schrqten, IV, 163-4, Dichtung rcnd Wahrheit, Book 9.
182. To Lavater, 4 October 1787.
 The 'Sturm und Drang' Afovement
oder Hamlet, das ist eins, nur an was lasst sie glauben. Wer an nichts glauht
verzweifelt an sich selber '.l He recalls this attitude in Dichtung und Wahrheit :
Beim Glauben, sagte ich, komme Alles darauf an, daj3 man glaube ;was man glaube, s e ~
vijllig gleichgultig. Der Glaube sei ein groBes Gefithl xron Sicherheit fur die Gegenwart
und Zukunft, und diese Sicherheit entspringe aus dem Zutrauen auf ein nbergrooes.
iibermachtiges und unerforschliches TVesen.2
As 13-e see from Faust's 'Gefuhl ist dlles', religion both interprets this subjectire
feeling of trust and confidence, and confirms and strengthens it, by attaching it t o
the whole universe, t o a 'supermighty and inscrutable being' about nhom it i<
vises st to say nothing.
One may then speak of a Sturm und Drang religious philosophy. They gainetl
froni religion confidence in their own instinctive feeling, and they treasured in ~t
those elements which sustain men in their emotive and practical life. For themselves,
they let fall all the dogmatic and specific form of Christianity. 'Faith' meant for
them confidence in the delight and meaning their senses, feelings, anti inner e n e r g
provided. From the beginning it expressed their consciousness of forming part of'
nature, like all Spinozis~nit sanctified matter, and it sustained then1 in their later,
more objective study of the universe, of history and nature, in which they fount1
the same principles, the same 'mighty being', as stirred in their own hearts. Thew
'religion' runs counter t o the transcendentalism of the Romantics or the 'existen-
tialism ' of Hamann: it belongs to the great tradition of humanism and was justifietl,
in their ~ i e n - by
, its productive function in the totality of a nlan's existence.

The burden of Herder's criticism of the thinkers of his century was, that everything
was turned into a 'gaunt ghost', into an abstraction; philosophers, he wrote of
Hume, were content 'mit Sachen zu spielen, die nian brauchen und nicht besehen
~ o l l t e ' .I~n his vie\$--,and in this he fully represents the Sturm u d Drang, ideas arc
meaningful only if they interpret and contribute to 'das tiefe, unersetzlichc
Gefiihl des D a ~ e i n s ' and , ~ as they could be realized in actual life. Actions likewise
were worth doing only if they arose from, and contributed to, this vital feeling
'Jeder handle nur ganz aus sich, nach seineni innersten Charakter, sei sich selbst
treu, das ist die ganze Moral'.j Such principles entailed a conflict, not only over
the theoretical fields of philosophy and religion, but also in the region of moral*.
I n fact, a great deal of the hostility to the Sturrner und Dranger arose froni the
alleged immorality of their works. Werther was called 'eine Schule des Selbstmordes ,
Stella 'eine Schule der Entfiihrungen und T'ielweiberei' Faust, once it was puh-
lished, was to give rise to a stream of charges against its ~mmorality. Other Sturn/
und Drang works laid themselves open to the same charge, against which Schiller
had t o defend himself in the prefaces of his early works. Heyne, Herder's Qottingerl
friend and abettor, sadly regretted that Herder was so obstinately determined t o
banish morality from art.7
December 1773. Xorris, III, 72. Retchspostreuter, 8 February 1776. Goethe (111
Dichtung und Wahrheit, Book 14. L'rteale sezner Zeitgewssen, ed. Braun (Berhn.
In a review of 1772. Werke, v, 460. 1883), p. 229 passim.
Ideen, Book 8. Werke, XIII, 337. Heyne to Herder, 2 June 1772. 170nund d~r
To Caroline, 9 January 1773. Briefwechsel Herder, 11, 135.
mit Caroline Plachsland, ed. Schauer (Weimar,
1926-8), 11, 325.
 ROY PASCAL 143
I t W:LS not niere moral theory that was at issue. The Stiirme~und Driinger,
includiiig Hamann, were all at odds with practical obligatioas, hoxever much they
sought scope for activity. They had arid expressed no respect for normal burgher
professioiis. I n their nlaliners they shocked decorous Ir~urghersand flouted public
opinion. Among themselves they cl~ltivateda frank, easy intercourse, freer and
more spontaneous than propriety alloned. Goethe, above all, made himself the
centre of a lively, uliinhibited circle. His letters are as original in colitent, form and
vocabulary as his poctry. Nicolai's 'rectification' of the morals of Werther is
paralleled by IF. H . Jacobi's criticisin of Stzhrm ulzd Drc~nglack of restraint in
Ecluartl Alltoills Pa23iere.l Often enough, in the millor members of the Sturm und
D r n g , this spontarleity degenerated into the rampageous excess of the 'Kraftgenie .,
juvenile not yoathful, the literary expressioii of which is found i11 such figures as
Klingcr's Simsone Crisaldo, in the Dedication of Naler Ml~ller'sFaurls Lehen. The
self-conscious aiid osteritatious amoralisni of Heinse's Arclinghello is the aberration
of a weak and frustrated character. But it would be ~ ~ 1 ~ oto 1 iidentify
g the moral
challenge of the Sturnz zcrzd Drang nith these excesses.
I n sonic of their works, moral questions are discussetl which beloiig to the whole
treiict of the A~~fklarurtg. The prevailing criticism of unnatural sexual continence
belongs to the tradition of the Enlightenment, as does the sympathy with the victims
of tho harsh law against infanticide. Lei1z.s attack on private tuition (in Dei
Hnfi~cister)fits in with normal A uflclurzcng thought. But even i11 such matters, the
manlier of the Xtiirmr?.und Drdinger is very different from that of the more cautious,
socially respoiisible .Azt,fklare~:it is sharp, assertive, absolute; the evil causes not
oiily suffering, but a dismaying perversio& of character in the victims. 111 fact, it is
fro111 a practical poirit of view less effcctive than illore restrailled criticism; the
attention is drawn a u a y from thoughts of social or moral reforni to absorption in
the experience and response of the individual characters. The fate of Gretchen
hardly moves us to reflect at all on the law goveriiinp infanticide: Faust does 11ot
protest against it, anct Gretcheii herself accepts death as punishnient a n d r ~ t r i b u t i o n . ~
Norrnal reforming thought of the time sought tJo adjust prevailing n~oralitgt o
the needs of personal happiness; but, equally, it sought to adjust personal need t o
the unavoidable claims of social aiid religious authority, to the moral priiiciples
which correspoiided t o the social structure. The ideal of contentment impliecl a
voluiltary self-restriction and self-control; the ideal of perfection war bound up
nith the effort t o subject instinct and feeliiig to reason. The sel~tii~lentalists
postulated a sort of feeling ~ ~ h i was,
c h by its nature, virtuous ailcl conso11ant with
religion, and because of this, in their plays aiid novels, they coultl reward such
feeling, as Sophie de la Koche rewarded her Fraulein von Sternheim n ith marriage
and happiness. I n ,Julie Rousseau himself described a character whose instinct is
good. J?. H. Jacobi and E. L. zu Stolberg col~tinuallyasserted that deep feeling
chirnetl in with Christian morals and relieion.
2'

There are evidences of this view here and there in the works of thc Stiwmer zcnd
Drunger-for instance in tjhefirst version of Herder's T70m Erkennen untl Err~p$nden.~
But for them, in general, happiness and contentment were aims to be despised, or

See my T h e 'novels of F . I-I. Jncobi and ;l.'?Jkw?~en arid Wagner's Die h7iizdern?ii,.de~;7r
Goethe's early clnssicis?n (English Goethe Society but in both cases it seems forced.
Publications, x v ~ 1947).
, E.g. HJerke, TIII, 244passi,m.
"here is criticism of this law in &Iuller's Das
144 The 'Sturm und Drang ' il.lol;e??zent
a t least aims that could never be achieved; pretty pictures with u-hich men beauti-
fied the walls of their prison, in Werther's words. They sought an outlet for their
feeling, room for action, experience; a perpetual mos7ement and striving, a s Lenz
said, towards a n infinite goa1.l They did not wish t o avoid pain and effort, but
accepted them as a necessity of existence, as the stuff of existence:
Ich fiihle Muth, mich in die Welt zu wagen,

All Erden Weh und all ihr Gluck zu tragen.

Thus they were not primarily concerned to patch up the social and moral world,
but to show what capacity for experience man possesses, how the world cramps and
distorts the best in man. They do not provide, and scarcely suggest, solutions, for
a solution would suggest that a man might come t o that 'Ruhepunkt' that Lenz
cursed. Or, one might say that when they suggest solutions, like Fernando's
m6nage a trois, or Lenz's state-nursery for officers' women, they tend t o the fantastic,
even idiotic. But what is characteristic is that they represent the collision between
the individual and morality as irremediable, fatal, something akin t o the tragedp
they felt in Othello, Macbeth, or Lear: one thinks of Werther and Faust, Miiller's
Fausts Leben, Klinger's Die Zzcillinge, Lenz's Der Englander or Die Soldaten
(Marie).
Thus mrefind in the Sturm und Drang a double development frorn earlier eighteenth-
century criticism of morals. On the one hand, social or nioral authority and 'Sitte'
is much more profoundly implicated in human tragedp; and on the other hand,
the individual hero himself is in his own character much more tragic, lost. I n
Emilia Galotti Lessing criticizes precisely the irresponsibility of the absolute
sovereign, who is the contriver of the tragedy. The victims have no share in guilt
and no fault : and we feel that if the prince were 'benevolent ', or if the ruler were
subject to civil law, tragedy would be obviated. By contrast, in Schiller's Kabale
und Liebe, the Sturrn ulzd Drang play nearest t o Lessing's, one finds, instead of
a mere ~+ickedprince, a whole system of prejudice and corruption, in which the
'good' characters are lost and lose themselves. But Schiller still maintains the
fiction of feelings absolutely good in themselves, which become disastrous only
through the impact of evil circumstances. Goethe shows in TVerther the insufferable
narrowness of burgher routine and idea and the arrogance of the nobility, but also the
disastrous tensions in Werther himself, which in these circumstances drive him t o
self-destruction. Gretchen is destroyed not merely by public opinion and law, but
also by the insoluble conflict within herself between the morality she accepts and
the 'goodness' of her love-a conflict within her instinct itself. Klinger's Guelfo is
destroyed by his own perverted passions, as is Leiiz's Marie, with-her innocent
desire for pleasure and elegance u-hich the burgher world cannot satisfy.
Thus Goethe felt the untruth of Sophie de la Roche's neat and precise differen-
tiation between good and evil: '1st das bose nicht gut und das gute nicht bos? ' 2
Werther can explain t o Albert that the rational and sensible condemnation of
A

suicide is meaningless for the loving soul cheated of its happiness. Gretchen puts
it simply : Doch-alles was mich dazu trieb,
Cott ! war so gut ! ach war so lieb !

Heinungen des Laien. Schriften, IV, 160-86.

To Sophie de La Roohe, June 1774. Morris, IV, 22.

 ROY PASCAL 145

The san?e contradiction exists in nature as a whole, parallel to the inoral contradic-
tions in man. Werther discovers the destructive power in all-creative nature, and
must worship what he lino~vst o be 'all-engulfing'. 'Schaffen uizd zerstoren', writes
Klinger in n o i ~ yjubilation. Goethe's essay, Die Xntuf*,is a hymn t o this amoral
force of nature, destroying as i t creates. Death appears t o them not as a bleak
ending, nor as a gateway to a transcendental existence, but as the collconlitant to
life, as essential to life as birth.1 'Leben ist ihre schonste Erfindung [der Naturr],
und der Tod ist ihr ICunstgriff, vie1 Lebeiz zu h a b e ~ z . 'Kearlg
~ all the great works
of Goethe's maturity centre in this iliterprctation of good and evil, aizrl the coin-
pletecl Fnust is true to the earliest conception in this respect. The energy within
Faust is his 'good ' : but this good is compounded t o the very end of evil and destnuc-
tion, not just unfortunate attendants of the good, but iizescapable conditions of
the
It is perhaps characteristic of the 'youthfulness' of the Xtzcrm zcnd Drang that
this problematical character of good so deeply engrossed their thought, t o the
(relative) exclusion of positive moral riews. I t is clear that Herder, Goethc, and
Lenz mere also aware that their views and imaginative figures represented not
ideals, but the difficult truth; 'Xey ein Xann und folge lnir nicht nach', Goethe
affixed t o the second edition of TVerlher. dizd it was quite consistent that, in
~~orkiizg out the principles of practical existence, Goethe should bofh continue in
the Sturnz xnd Dranq and emerge froin it. But in the Stzcrm und Dmny we see
something of the profoundest significance: the fragility of established social morality
and its religious sanctions is investigated: and the reluctance of the Xli~~mer. und
nrknger t o recolzcile thcir dearest values with the demands of morality eoizstit~xtrs
the deepest criticism of the social world in which such conflicts could arise, a deeper
and more productive criticisin than emerges from nzore limited, sensible, practical
proposals for reform.Vheir attitude mas not satisfactory; they themselves knew
it, sometimes excnsing theinselves on the grounds of youth; but it is deeper and
even to-clay more moving and more dist~urbingthan that of their contemporaries.

I t remains t o investigate the relationship between their attitude t o art, or rather t o

poetry, and the general body of their thought. I cannot hope to do more than
sketch the main features of their poetic theory and work; but it is necessary t o ask,
not only IThat was their attitude towards poetry and conception of its function, but
also why poetry takes so important a place in their thought and achievement. By
'poetry' should be understood imaginative literature in its widest sense, Dichtu?zg.
Even the treatises of the Xtirmer and Driinger are written in a 'poetic' style; by
ellipses, ellisions, inversions, questions, unfinished sentences, colloquial phrases,
they seek to present not only thoughts in the abstract, but an emotive attitude,
a response, gesture, a tone of voice. Herder insisted that truth is conzpounded of
sense, thought, and IT ill, that abstract language interprets the dessicated Xtuben-
qelelzrter and that man in his fullness needs for self-expression a inuch richer language.
Good German, Herder wrote, is to-day spoken only by the uneducated sections of
society, children, young women, artisans and practical folk, and thus the poetic
Herder, Gott. Einige Gesprache. Werke, XVI, See G. Lukbcs, Goethe und seine Zeit,
549. particularly the essays on l'aust.
Woethe, Die ATat~rr. " Ibid. pp. 176-8.
Y.L.R. XLVII 10
 The 'Sturm und Drang' iTfove?nent
language of the Sturmer und Dranger was deeply refreshed through the rehabilitation
of the vocabulary, phraseology, and rhythms of vigorous colloquial speech. At the
same time, they did not confine themselves to the limited range of the 1701k, but,
borroned widely from poetic language nhich has in it the pover they sought-
Pindar, Homer, Shakespeare, folksong. Goethe was able t o marry the earthiness of
the Knzttelvers with the sublimity of deepest thought ancl emotion.
I n accordance with their attacks on metaphysical and dogmatic idealism, they
overthrew the authority of the Rules; and at the same time the notion that poetry
is inere embellishment. Poetry, they felt, must be meaningful within the experience
of the individual poet, not constructed on some abstract principle. Herder's delight
in early poetry, in folksong, was due to his perception that this poetry was a creative
element in social and personal life, the accompaniment of social tasks, battle and
work, 'die Entziickung, die Triebfeder, der ewige Erb- und Lustgesang des Volks '.I
He continually criticized poets like Gessner who substituted a pretty or sentimental
world for the true one; the only true poetry he told Caroline, was that which stirs
the passions, 'the springs of n ~ a n k i n d ' . The
~ essay on Ossian is devoted to this
theme of the active function of poetry in simple society, in the ITolk. But, in a time
where there was no real national community, Herder recognized that Klopstock
had marked the u ay for the renem-a1 of poetry-a poetry of individual experience,
expressing the individual's deepest emotions-' Gefuhl ganzer Situation des Lebens '
Gesprach Xenschlichen Herzens-mit Gott ! mit sich! nlit der ganzen S a t u r ' "
And if Klopstock failed him through his excessive etherealism, Goethe came fully
to realize Herder's principles. Hanlann had put the same view in his sybilline n a y
in A~stheticai n n z w . Here he asserted. that art is the expression of the divine force
through the creative reproduction of nature, and that it must speak t o sense and
passions, the organs of the Divine. Poetryis no place for trivialities and abstractions.
it must be characteristic, concrete, individual, not idealizing nature but reproducing
its vigour and working vigorously upon the reader.'
This rupture with the old idea of absolute rules lecl in some respects t o a disregard
of form altogether. Hanlann showed a complete failure to appreciate form.5 The
first response to Shakespeare led Herder and Goethe to see his works as 'history',
'the IT orld', ' a raree s h o '.~ Lenz conlpares the ideas of the poet to an unruly
garrison, which may ohne Anfiihrer, Kommando unci Ordnung herumschwarmen .G
'

Many st urn^ und Dralzg works show a deliberate flouting of accepted fornial
principles, even of necessary technical conditions such as the stage imposes. The
genius, they could believe, was above rules. Abandoning the rules associated nith
the principle of verisimilitude, Herder, following Gerstenberg, asserted that the
poet's task is to create illusion, to impose his own ~vorldon us.: Often the essence
of the Xtur~nund Drang is held t o be a cult of xrilful 'genius'.
But their critical and poetic work shov s in fact a nen and profound insight into
the problem of form-so difficult and elusive a problem that it is not surprising that,
their formulations are not always consistent. Tn the Flagm~nte,Herder was a l w a ~5

Brzefwechsel uber Osszan. Werke, v, 164. Kunstrachter and Schrzftsteller und Kunstrzchfer.
ToCarolme,20September 1770. Brz~fu~ech~el,Schrzften, 11, 377-412.
I, 61-2. 5 See for lnstance his Funf Hwtenbrwfc dcr?
Osstan TVerke, v, 206. Schuldrawia betreffend. Schrzft~~t, n.
"esthetzca zn nuce (Kreuzzuge des Phzlologen, AnmerXlcnqrn ubers Theater. Schr~ttr,!,I ,
1762). Hamann, Schr?ften, ed. Roth (Berlm, 226-7.
1821-43), TI, 225-308 Src, also his Lespi " lSh,ik~\j,(~~~H ? T A P . \ . 215. 226-I
 ROY PASCAL 147
struggling with this problen~,investigating the characteristics and determinants of
poetic language and poetic traditions, in order to discover the secret of the variations
and function of form. His great review of Klopstock's odes shows his understanding
of the fornial properties of these poems, each with its own tone and colour, with
a form which arises from the nature of the theme.1 The Ossian essay is an extended
investigation of the formal properties of folksong, so different from those conven-
tionally required. Above all in the Shakespeare essay, Herder shows how the form
of Greek and Shakespearean drama is of equal validity, since each arose from a mass
of historical conditions, social, religious, and artistic, through which they acquired
their cleep hunlaii significance. He comes to the idea of organic form: a form he
calls comparable to that of nature, which gives 'jedem Kraut, Gewachse und Thier
seine Gestalt, Sinn und Art, die Iiidividuel ist uiid eigcntlich nicht verglichen werden
kann'.2 This is the theme of Goethe's rhapsody over the Strassburg Minster. He
seeks t o understand Gothic architecture as the developnlent of the primitive hut,
as a natural process, and concludes: 'wie in Werken der ewigen Natur, bis aufs
geringste Zaserchen, alles Gestalt, und alles zweckeild zum Ganzen.'3
Herder's aesthetic historicism is of capital iniportance in the history of aesthetics
as well as of literary criticisin; beauty,-he asserted in conforn~itywith his general
philosophy, is not an abstract ideal, but a product of a dialectical relationship
between subject and object, between a society slid nature, a man's experience and
his environment. Goethe supplementecl Herder's general critical insight by equally
significant remarks on the forinal elenient in poetic creation. Even Lenz realized,
a t times, that the poet was not an arbitrary crea'tor, but creat'ed according to
principles which followed froin his stsandpoilit, his e ~ p e r i e n c e .I~n Von deul~cher
BauEunst Goet'he speaks of the ' bildende Katur ' in man; in the Britte Wallfahrt he
writes that 'Schopfui~gskraftin1 Kunstler sey aufschwelleiides Gefuhl der Verhiilt-
nisse, Maase'. If Herder wrote of t,he 'Nothdrang des Inhalts' of early poetry,
Goethe put,s the sanie idea in the image of the charioteer, guiding his spirited horses
according t o his will, guiding then1 though a t the same time carried along with
them.j 'Alles schreibens anfang und Eilde ist die Reprodulitioli der Welt um niich,
durch die innre Welt die alles packt, verbindet,, neuschafft, knetet und in eigner
Forni, Manier, wieder h i n ~ t e l l t . 'Burger
~ seenis to echo Goethe when he writes
that the poet must have the courage 'ein Diiig zu packeu, zu halten, zu schleudern
und in die Luft emporz~reissen'.~ But by contrast Goethe's remarks emphasize
that the poet is not so arbitrary with his material, that the form it takes is partly
determined by its own nature.
So, when Goethe wrote his comments on L. S. Mercier's Du thLdtre, he emphasized
above all the probleni of forin. One must remember, he says, that the stage is an
artificial structure, and must study and observe the conditions i t imposes; the
drama is not a 'raree shorn.', but must have form. All form is artificial, but it is the
way in which reality, truth, niay be presentecl to the soul of man. ' Jede Form, auch

1 Allgenzeine Deutsche Bibliothel; (1773).
Werke, v.
2 Werke, v, 353; cf. p. 197.
Bon dezctscher Baukunst. l\Iorris, 111, 101-9-
the early impression was renewed in Dritle
Wallfuhrt lzuch Erwin,s Grrcb. Xorris, v, 261-3.
4 Anmerktmgen uhers Theat~,r. Scl~~iften, r:
229-30.
To Herder, 10 July 1752. Norris, 11, 293-4.
"0 I?. H. Jacobi, 21 August 1774. Xorris,
IV, 132.
' G. A. Biirger, Aus Daniel Wunderlichs Buch
(1776). IVerke, ed. Reinhard (Berlin, 1824), 7-1,
180.
 The 'Sturm und Drang ' Movement
die gefuhlteste, hat etwas Unwalires, allein sie ist ein fur allemal das Glas, xvodurch
uir die heiligen Strahlen der verbreiteten Natur a n das Herz cXer Menschen zunl
Feuerblick sanimeln.'l Reproduction of nature, but condensed and intensified
through the poet's vision: the image of the burning-glass sunis up his vie\\
admirably. Thus, in the later part of the jottings, Goethe refuses t o take sides in the
great contemporary controversy over the relative merits of Rembrandt, Rapliael
and Rubens; each in his vie- 1s great in that he presents the n orld as he experience..
it. 'Der Kunstler mag die kyerkstatte eines Schusters betreteri oder einen Stall, el
mag das Gesicht seiner Geliebten, seine Stiefel oder die dntike ansehen, uberall
sieht er die heiligen Schwingungen und leisen Tone, \ionlit die Xatur alle Gegen-
stande verbindet.'l Goetlle defines the attitude of the artist to his material as
'love ', a love which discovers in the object the same harmonies, proportioils, 'holy
vibrations', as the poet feels within himself. These jottings, which belong to the end
of his Xtztrm z~ndDrang period, and perhaps prepare us for the preoccupatioil with
a r t in the early Weimar years, interpret both the u idening of aesthetic appreciation
by the Stz~rmerund Drangcr, and their o n n search for an individual form, consonant
u i t h their Inode of experience and their inner values, such as Goethe found for his
lyrics, for V7rrtherand for Fnust.
Haniann had combateti the conception that art irlust beautif>- nature by justi-
fying nature and the senses as creations and instruments of the Divine; but he had
also rebelled against contemporar- realistic theories of art, e.g. that of Diderot,
since they denied the imagination and feeling their proper function. Willkiihr untl
'

Phantasie' are essential, he cries, to art.? His own imagination rail to caprice, there
is no doubt: but he raises here a problem that lies tit tlie heart of the Xtz~rmund
Drang : the relation of inlagination and reality. These tn-o elements in their nork
were noted by Justus Jloser. He praised the healthy grasp of the real world shown
ill their best mitings, ancl at tlie sarne time ascribed such realisin to tlie poet's
ability t o 'schdpfen aus sich selbst und seine Empfindungen allein a ~ s d r i i c k e n ' I. ~t
is a peculiar and often ignored achievement of the Stzrrln z~rd Dralzy to have
'reproduced' actual reality nith an intensity no German generation of the nine-
teenth century surpassed..'
It is true that German literature, for Wordsvorth, \T as distinguished by a delight
in the fantastic and macabre that he properly detested, and some works of the
Sturn1 und Drang s h o ~an unhappy indulgence in unreal fantasies. Herder
complained of his own 'aufgesch~vellteEinbildungskraft ' xt-hicli tended t o 'distort '

reality g r o t e ~ q u e l y and
, ~ hlerck addressed to him the sympathetic words : Ea ig '

wirst du Traume japen.'6 (+oethe wrote the lines:'

Doch d u w a r s t m e i n Zeitvertreib
Goldne Phantasie.
Lenz suffered immeasurably, in his life and works, from 'imaginaire Leiden', from
an inability to see the world clear and true. Yet this was a tendency they all sought
to combat, training themselves t o observe objectively, t o pierce through the mist
1 Aus Goethes Brieftasche. hlorris, v, 344-50. Herder, Journal meiner Reise. Werke, IT,
Leser und Kunstrichter. Schriften, 11, 401-2. 438-9, 446-7.
Moser, uber die deutsche Sprachr und To Herder, October 1770. Merck, Schriften,
Litteratur (1780). 11, 14.
See the remarks of E. Auerbach on Schiller's ' Der neue Amadis. Morris, IV, 164-5.
Kabale und Liebe. Himesis (Bern. 1946).
 ROW PASCAL 149
of subjective fancy and feeling. Xerck wrote of Faust: 'es ist ein Werk, clas init
der grossten Treue der Xatur abgestohlen ist.'l He criticized minor works of the
Ntzcrm und Drang because they were taken froin 'dunkle Traume poetischer
Begierde', instead of the 'Narkt des Lebens',2 and Goethe attributes to him the
salutary advice : 'Dein Bestreben, deine nuablenkbare Richtung, ist, den1 Wirls-
lichen eine poetisc>heGestalt zu gebeii ; die andern suchen das sogenaniite Poetische,
das Imaginative zu verwirltlichen, und das gibt nichts als dunlmes Z e ~ g . Mwck's
'~
attitude on these points -\\,asi a full conforniity wit11 the iiiain tendency of the
S t u m u.rzrl Drang. Lenz felt it necessary to excuse the 'willlsuhrlichc Aus-
schweifuiigen der Phantasie' of Der Englbnder, and proudly claimed Dip Soldafen
was taken from life."
Herder wrote of early poetry that it 'webt urn daseiende Gegenstrinde, Hand-
lungen, Begebeiiheiten, urn eiiie lebendige Welt '. Tn like manner, all the Stiirmer
und Drtinger sought to interpret in their works their actual experience. But they
rejected any dogmatic realism, realism for its own sake; they sought to reproduce
that reality which had significance for them, for -cvl~ichthey had 'love', to use
Goethe's word. The realisni of Kicolai's Sebaldus JTothanker R as tedious and
dispensable for them. Goethe demandecl that the poet should describe his own
circumstances, his own feelings; then his poetry would have poetical ~ v o r t h .'Nur
~
da, wo Vertranlichkeit, BediirfniR, Innigkeit wolinen, wohnt alle Dichtungs-
kraft.. . . Geh vom Hauslichen aus und verbreite dich, so du kaiinst, iiber alle
Welt.'6 The 'burning-glass' of the poet alters this reality, the imagination uses all
sorts of 'unreal' instrtuneiits, metaphors, rhyme, images, 'den dunklen Gang der
Xelodie', supernatural figures anrl symbolic events; but these unrealistic meails
serve to interpret a human reality, in which nature and things are impregnated
with human vitality, and vice versa. It is a remarkable featuse of C~fnzcstthat
Goethe has stripped the folkplay of alinost all its macabre and fantasticelements,
and that what he retains or invents is of direct human relevance. This ~ o e t i c
realism is chara~t~eristic of all his work: it infinitely surpasses the flat realisin of
Lessing in that it calls into play a great mass of feelings and responses, and sets the
reader vibrating with the work: it is of course equally different from thc empty
subjectivism of much German ronlaiiticism. With him, thc imaginative is iiot the
opposite of the real; it is a means of evoking and interpreting the real. Imagination
is son~ethingakin to what it was in Wordsworth, a means of deepest insight and
sympathy.' It is, as Goethe later called it, a surmise, an anticipation of realit.y;a
not as with the German romantics or Coleridge an alternative to experienced reality,
the organ of a transcendental world. Even before Goethe met Herder, he detested
the unreality of Klopstockian enthusiasm, and yet could see 'auch ein MLhrgen
Elat seine Wahrheit '.g Illusion ancl reality were interwoven for him, as conlpanions
in the developing process of life:
Tch hatte nichts und doch gellug,

Den Draiig nncEi \Tahrheit und die Lust am Trug.

' To Nicolai, 19 January 1776. llerclr,
Xchtqten, 11, 69.
"eview of Miiller's Situation nus J'nusts
Lebm. Merck, Schriften, I , 289.
Dichtung t ~ n dWalirheit, Book 18.
To Herder, 9 October 1776 and 23 July 1775.
Lcnz, Bviefe, II, 39 and I, 119.
I n his review of Gedzchte emes polnisclien
J~iclen. Morris, II.
Aus Goethes Bvieftasche. Morris, v, 348-50.
Wordsworth, The Prelude, Boolr 14.
Goethe to Zelter, 28 June 1831.
T o Frioderike Oeser, 13 February 1769.
Jlorris, I, 323.
 The 'Sturm und Drayby' ,!lovernerzl
I n this respect, once again, we see an application of the general philosophy of the
Sturm und Drang.
Poetry therefore acquires a neu- meaning for the Sturmer und Dranger, or rather
they understand the meaning great poetry always has had. It is not embellishment,
not a routine craft, not the handmaiden of established morality or a pleasant way
of uttering moral or philosophical arguments. I t is a mode of grasping reality and
strengthening men's full participation in life, both in the process of poetic
appreciation and in that of poetic creation. Herder expresses over and over again
the feeling of vigorous joy, the enhancement of his vital consciousness, that he
gained from folk-poetry, which 'uns ganz einnimmt, uns aber doch nie zu etwas
mehr als Menschen macht'.l Shakespeare " save him the same sense of human
power and dignity. Goethe wrote how, on reading Shakespeare for the first time,
he felt his existence 'um eine Unendlichkeit erweitert '"Wilhehn Meister uses
almost the same expression. K. P. Moritz, whose autobiography gives us something
of the basic 'Problematik' of the Stiirnler und Dranger, wrote in a similar strain:
Il'achdem er den Shakespear, und so wie er ihn gelesen hatte, war er schon lieill
gemeiner und alltiiglicher Mensch mehr--es dauerte auch nun nicht lange, so arbeitete
sich sein Geist unter allenseinen auIjern driickendenverhlltnissen, unter allem Spott und
Verachtung, worunter er vorher erlag, empor.. . .Durch den Shakespear war er die
Welt der menschlichen Leidenschaften hindurch gefuhrt-der enge Kreis seines
idealischen Daseyns hatte sich erweitert--er lebte nicht mehr so einzeln unci unbedeu-
tend, daB er sich unter der Nenge verlor.
He described the effect of f erther in similar terms, for after reading it he no longer
thought of himself as 'ein unbedeutendes weggeworfenes W e ~ e n ' .Lenz
~ demanded
from poetry 'Zuwachs unserer Existenz', 'den lebendigen Eindruck, der sich in
Gesinnungen, Taten und Handlungen hernach einmischt '."
So also, poetic creation was for the Stiirmer und Dranger a function of living,
necessary in their effort to develop the totality of their capacities. Often enough
their works express too directly their own t'oo personal needs and frustrations, and
fail to impart that enhanced consciousness of human u-orth which came t o t,henl
from Shakespeare. Moritz' powerful response to Klinger's Die Zwillinge shows
exactly where this play fails, for it only increased his 'Abscheu vor sich selbst ' . 5
Goethe, incomparably the greatest poet of the Sturm und Drang, repeatedly seeks
words to indicate the function of poetic creation in himself. He compares art \vitl~
the instinct of animals ' sich gegen die zerstorende Kraft des Ganzea zu erhalten . ' "
' 0 wenn ich ietzt nicht Dramas schriebe irh ging zu Grund. ' And, more subtly, he
describes himself
immer in sic11 lebend, strebend und arbeitend, bald die unschuldigen Gefiihle der Jugend
in kleinen Gedichten, das krafftige Gewurze des Lebens in mancherley Dramas, die
Gestalten seiner Freunde und seiner Gegenden und seines geliebten Hausraths rnit
Kreide auf grauem Papier, nach seiner Naase auszudriicken sucht, weder rechts noch
lincks fragt: was von dem gehalten werde was er machte? weil er arbeitend immer
gleich eine Stufe hoher steigt, weil er nach keinem Ideale springen, sondern seine
Gefiihle sic11 zu Fahigkeiten, kiimpfend und spielend, entwickeln lassen will.'
The sentence is a whole aesthetic. Experience and environment provide the material
Herder to Carolme, 28 October 1770 " Anton Rezser, ed. cit. p. 302.
Brteftoechsel, I , 116. "eview of Sulzer, F r u n l f u r t e ~ Gelehrte
Zum Schakespears Tag. 5lorns, 11, 137-8. A n t e ~ g e n . Morris, TI, 223.
Anton Rezser, ed. Geiger (Heilbronn, 1886), ' To Auguste zu Stolberg, '7 \larch and 13
pp. 233-5,259-60. February 1775. Morris, 1 . 16, 10.
l'ber Gotz con Berl~ch~ngen.Schrzfter~, 11.
224-3.
 ROY PASCAL 151
of his work; different grades of experieiice find appropriate forrns; the expression
is shaped according t o his peculiar '~neasure';and the artistic labour is a means of
self-development ; through it his feelings develop into capacities. Reflecting later
in life on the imperious inner necessity that drove hirn t o write Werther, Goethe
wrote that the composition of this work had 'savecl' hinz from the 'stormy element'
-'Ich fuhlte mich, m-ie nach einer Generalbeichte, wieder froh und frei und zu
einem neuen Leben berechtigt '.I
This exalted vital function that poetry had for the Xtiwmer und Drlinyer, i11 theory
and practice, explains in part why so much of their work was concerned with
imaginative writing. Poetry was not a t end in itself, but a ineans t o life, t o activity.
With such a purpose, the limitations and pettiness of their social world gave t o
poetry a peculiar significance. Their ideals crashed against actuality, and we see
t h e refiexion of this fateful collision in work after work, above all in Werther and
E'aust; in the imagination, in the inzaginative self-projection of their works, the
intensity of being'which was their ideal could be realized. Professor Bruford has
brought out the significance of the fact t h a t the theatre was the only public forum
i n eighteenth-century germ an^,^ and this circumstance, combined with the tensions
and 'pungent spice' of their experience, accounts for the predoininant significance
of the drama in the Xturm und Drang. Lenz expresses the point with rueful whimsi-
cality, when he m i t e s that the best his friends can do, since they are ' s t u m n ~ e
Personen auf dem grossen Theater der Welt ', ' d a uiis itzt noch Hande und FuBe
gebuiiden sind', is t o put Gotz on the stage and learn from Gotx how t o think ancl
b e h a ~ e I. n~ poetry they could express that fulliiess of being they sought, could see
it in relation t o the outer world, could follo~vsome of its implications; through
poetic appreciation and poetic activity they could release some of their actual
stresses, could come to clearer self-understanding, could move towards t h a t
'Liiuterung' of which Goethe often writes in the late Frankfurt and early Wei~nar
period. Only Goethe was so favoured, both in personality and in outward circuln-
stance, as t o be able t o move forward in a steady development; and one sees in his
assumption of practical duties a t Weiinar, in his scientific interests, in the steady
broadening of his life, the true fulfilment of the Xtz~rmu7ad Drang, according t o the
po~sibiliti~s that German society offered.
There has been no space i11 this article t o discuss all aspects of the life and thought
of the Xturmer und Dranger, nor t o go into all the variations among them and
investigate wealinesses and failures. It would have been rewarding t o have
examined inore fully their debt t o their great foreign contemporaries, and the
points a t which they strike off on their 01i71iindependent line. The contrast between
them and men like Lavater, Burger, Stolberg would reveal much of value. But
perhaps sufficient has been done t o establish the very considerable range of their
ideas and works, particularly of the outstanding personalities, and to show how
consistent their outlook was, and how consistent was their practice and their
poetical work with their general principles. I11 reviewing the whole movement,
their achievement seems t o stand more centrally than is generally recognized in the
main stream of European intellectual ancl artistic development, in regard both to
its sources, and t o the generations that followed. ROYPASCAL

1 Dichtung und Wahrheit, Book 13. C h e ~Gotz vo"n Be~lichingen. Xchriften, IV,
W . H . Bruford, Theatre, Drama and Audience 126.
in Ooethe's Germany, p. 106.