The Philosophy of Fine Art, volume 4 (of 4): Hegel's Aesthetik
Georg Hegel · en
We may regard it as an even more honourable trait of Klopstock, that he
felt in his day the independent worth of the singer, and by his free
expression of this and his regulation of his behaviour consonantly
thereto, disengaged the poet from his subservience to a court and any
or every patron,[8] as also from a tedious and useless toying with
trifles, which is the ruin of a man. However, the fact remains that
it was no other than this very Klopstock whom, in the first instance,
the bookseller regarded as his poet. It was Klopstock's publisher in
Halle who paid him one or two thaler, it appears, for the manuscript
of his Messias, adding over and above this, however, an order for a
waistcoat and breeches, and introduced him thus set up into society,
letting it clearly be seen from the nature of such a get up that
he was responsible therefor. In some contrast to this, so at least
we are informed at a later date on evidence, however, that is not
irreproachable,[9] the Athenians erected a statue to Pindar, because
he had celebrated them in one of his poems, and sent him, moreover,
twice the amount of the fine[10] the Thebans refused to exempt him from
on account of the inordinate praise he had lavished on an alien city.
Indeed we have the statement that Apollo himself declared through the
mouth of the Pythian prophetess that Pindar was worthy of receiving
half of all the gifts which the whole of Hellas, as in custom bound,
brought to the Pythian games.
(_γ_) Throughout the entire compass of lyric poetry the synthetic unity
of a single personality asserts its presence in virtue of its poetic
soul-movement. The lyric poet is, in fact, moved to express everything
that assumes a poetic form either in his emotional or intelligent
life in the song. In this type of composition Goethe is pre-eminently
noteworthy, who in all the variety of his full life was thus
continuously creative. He was unquestionably in this respect a quite
exceptional model. It is rarely that we find an artistic personality,
who, while retaining as Goethe's did, an interest so active on all
sides and is able to live a life, despite all such self-expansion, so
entirely self-possessed, so ready to transmute everything it touches
into the poetic vision. His life in its public relations, the peculiar
nature of his heart, which rather impressed with its reserve than
the ease of its approach, the indefatigable effort of his scientific
pursuits and enquiry, the general conclusions of his trained and
practical experience, his ethical maxims, the impressions, which the
varied and conflicting facts of his times made upon him, the inferences
he deduced from such, the effervescent joy of life and courage of his
youth, the well-organized force and ideal beauty of his manhood, the
comprehensive genial wisdom of his old age--all this passed into the
magic crucible of his lyrics, where the most delicate play of emotion,
no less than the most severe and painful conflicts of spirit, alike