cal period of German literature was a time of
youthful freshness, of pure harmony, plunged in verse and song, full of
the richest tones and the noblest rhythm, so that rhyme and song alone
must be looked for as the form of poetic creations. Accordingly it had
no proper prose. Like our own youth, it was a happy, free, and true
youth, it knew no prose; like us it dreamed to speechless songs; and as
we expressed our youthful language and hopes, woes and joys, in rhyme and
song, thus a whole people and age had its beautiful youth full of song
and verse tones. The life was poetry and poetry was the life.

Then came degeneracy and artifice; after that the great shock of the
Reformation; subsequently a servile and pedantic study of classical forms
without imbibing their spirit, but preparing the way for a truer art
spirit, extracted from their study by the masterly criticism of
Winckelmann and Lessing, till the second classical period of German
literature and poetry bloomed forth in full beauty, blending the national
and legendary elements so well expressed by Herder with the highest
effusions of dramatic poetry, partly creative and partly imitative of the
Greek models, in Schiller and Goethe.

Modern German literature presents a very remarkable spectacle, though far
from unique in history, for there we see criticism begetting genius.

Lessing, the founder of the modern German drama, sought to banish all
pomp from the theatre, and in doing so some critics have thought that he
banished the ideal and fell into affectation. At any rate, his
"Dramaturgy" is full of original ideas, and when he drew out the sphere
of poetry contrasted with that of painting in his "Laocoon," all Germany
resounded with his praise. "With that delight," says Goethe, "we saluted
this luminous ray which a thinker of the first order caused to break
forth from its clouds. It is necessary to have all the fire of youth to
conceive the effect produced on us by the 'Laocoon' of Lessing." Another
great contemporary, whose name is imperishable as that of art, struck a
mortal blow at a false taste in the study of the antique. Winckelmann
questioned the works of the Greek chisel with an intelligence full of
love, and initiated his countrymen into poetry by a feeling for
sculpture! What an enthusiasm he displayed for classical beauty! what a
worship of the form! what a fervor of paganism is found in its eloquent
pages when he also comments on the admirable group of