Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 6. Young GermanyBrandes, Georg
History
Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature - 6. Young Germany
Brandes, Georg
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- History and criticism; Naturalism in literature; Romanticism
liberate the world with Sanscrit."
On the 3rd of August 1830, the king's birthday was celebrated with
song and speech in the great hall of the Berlin University. The
students stood crowded together in front of the barrier behind which
sat professors, officials, and officers of high rank. The famous
philologist Boekh was the orator, and from the gallery above his
head songs were sung by the University choir, under the leadership
of Music-Director Zelter, Goethe's correspondent. The Rector of the
University, Professor Schmalz, with queue and sword, went from chair to
chair, exchanging a few words with the most honoured guests. But Gans,
excited and impatient, passed round letters from Friedrich von Raumer,
who had just come from Paris. The Crown Prince, afterwards Frederick
William IV., sat and smiled; but all knew that a few days ago in France
a king had been dethroned. It was as if the thunder of the barricade
cannonade were booming through the festive hall. Boekh's speech on the
subject of the fine arts did not succeed in arousing attention, and
when Hegel read from the chair the names of the prizewinners of the
year, no one except the medallists listened. Gutzkow did hear with
one ear that he had taken the prize in the faculty of philosophy,
but with the other he heard of a people that had deposed a king, of
cannonades, of thousands fallen in the fight. He was oblivious to
the congratulations offered him; he did not even open the case which
contained the gold medal with the king's portrait; he had forgotten
the hope of a professorship which he had connected with the thought of
winning this medal; he stood dazed, thinking of Saint-Marc Girardin and
his prophecies, and of what he himself had prophesied of the German
Burschenschaft. Then he rushed off to a confectioner's shop in Unter
den Linden, and for the first time in his life read a newspaper with
avidity. He could hardly await the publication of the official gazette
that evening; not because he was impatient to see his name in the list
of medallists; all he wished was to know the state of matters in Paris,
whether or not the barricades were still standing, whether France
was to come forth from Lafayette's hands a republic or a monarchy.
"Science lay behind me," he writes, "history before me."[1]
And Gutzkow is a type of the youngest generation of the Germany of that
day--the young men of twenty.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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