iterature and life. It
was the immediate parent of that truly German growth--the literature
of _Sturm und Drang_, whose exponents, says Kant, thought that they
could not more effectively show that they were budding geniuses than
by flinging all rules to the winds, and that one appears to better
advantage on a spavined hack than on a trained steed. The literature
of _Sturm und Drang_ was a passing phenomenon, but the influence of
_Goetz_ did not end with its abortive life. But for _Goetz_ Schiller's
early productions would have been differently inspired; and to _Goetz_
also was due much of the inspiration of the subsequent German Romantic
School, though many of its developments were abhorrent to Goethe's
nature both in youth and maturity. It emancipated the drama from
conventional shackles, but it did more: it extended the range of
national thought, sentiment, and emotion, and for good and evil
introduced new elements into German literature which have maintained
their place there since its first portentous appearance. And German
critics are unanimous in assigning another result to the publication
of _Goetz_: in its style as in its form it set convention at naught,
and thus marks an epoch in the development of German literary
language. Not since Luther, "whose words were battles," had German
been written so direct from the heart and with such elemental force as
makes words living things.

It has been a commonplace remark that 1773, the year of the
publication of _Goetz_, corresponds in European literature to 1789 in
European political history. The remark may be exaggerated, but, if a
work is to be named which marks the advent of what is covered by the
vague name of romanticism, _Goetz_ may fairly claim the honour. It had
precursors of more or less importance in other countries, but, by the
nature of its subject, by its audacious disregard of reigning models,
and by its resounding notoriety, it gave the signal for a fresh
reconstruction of art and life. It gave the decisive impulse to the
writer who is the European representative of the romantic movement,
and whose genius specifically fitted him to work the vein which was
opened in _Goetz_--a task to which Goethe himself was not called. In
1799 Scott published his translation of _Goetz_,[107] and followed it
up by his series of romantic poems in which the influence of Goethe's
work was the main inspiration. But it was in his prose romances,
dealing with the Middle Ages, t