Friedrich Theodor Vischer's Shakespeare Criticism
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ZAA 2017; 65(1): 3–18 Hans-Joachim Hahn* Friedrich Theodor Vischer’s Shakespeare Criticism DOI 10.1515/zaa-2017-0002 Abstract: Vischer’s Shakespeare studies not only provide valuable insights into the bard’s plays, they also advance the type of positivist approach later practised by Bradley and others. This study focuses on Hamlet, the play most prominent in nineteenth-century German Shakespeare criticism. Two aspects are of particu- lar interest: (1) Vischer’s nationalist approach, placing Shakespeare solely into a Northern European, Germanic environment. (2) Vischer’s primary concern with character studies. By removing Hamlet from the idealised pedestal on which the Romantics had placed him, Hamlet is no longer seen as the philosopher prince, tormented by moral scruples, but as caught in a net of adverse circumstances which he has to overcome in order to fulfil his father’s command. Vischer thereby liberates Shakespeare criticism from the constraints of domestic tragedy and its bourgeois morality. 1 Vischer and his Time, the Shakespeare Lectures This paper discusses the six volumes of Shakespeare criticism by the literary critic, philosopher and novelist Friedrich Theodor Vischer (1807–1887), firstly with general reference to the earlier appreciation of Shakespeare in Germany, but especially with regard to Goethe’s and Tieck’s interpretations of some of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Vischer completed his studies in theology at Tübingen University, where Hegel and Schelling had been his predecessors and where he forged a friendly relationship with David Friedrich Strauß, author of Das Leben Jesu and with the poets Eduard Mörike and Ludwig Uhland, who shared his scep- ticism towards a conservative orthodoxy in theological and political matters. Vischer is mainly associated with the school of Young Hegelians who, critical of their teacher, developed a new philosophy, which, while politically ‘left,’ also rejected the idealistic foundation of the Romantic period and favoured a greater emphasis on an empirical and anthropological approach, ‘outside of metaphysics’ *Corresponding author: Prof. Dr. Hans-Joachim Hahn, Department of English and Modern Languages, Oxford Brookes University, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Tonge Building, Gipsy Lane, Oxford OX3 0BP, UK, e-mail: [email protected] 4 Hans-Joachim Hahn (Vischer 1873, 111–112). During his long and distinguished, but always controver- sial university career as a teacher of Aesthetics and Literary Studies, Vischer’s interest in Shakespeare played a vital part. His deep love for Shakespeare began in 1832 during his stay in Göttingen, where he became acquainted with the new publication of Shakespeare’s collected plays in the Schlegel-Tieck transla- tion,1 having previously read Hamlet in the prose translation of Christian Martin Wieland (1733–1813). Vischer’s studies on Shakespeare could draw on the work of important schol- ars a generation earlier, when Wieland, Lessing, Herder and the young Goethe celebrated Shakespeare’s genius against rationalist rules and introduced a new form of writing, emancipated from the strict conventions of French theatre. They expressed their admiration for Shakespeare, but produced little scholarly research. Goethe’s 1771 speech “Zum Shakespears Tag” celebrated the English bard for opening to him a “Wunderland” (“a miraculous world”) which lifted him high above the constraints of time and place. He admired Shakespeare’s natural portrayal of character, exclaiming “Natur! Natur! nichts so Natur als Shakespeares Menschen!” (“All is nature, nothing is more natural than Shakespeare’s men and women”) (Goethe 1993, vol. 18, 11) Vischer’s own first encounter with the bard provoked a similar reaction: “Ich fing an zu lesen, und eine neue Welt ging mir auf, ich sah staunend in dies feuerrote, von milchweißen Strahlen himmlischen Aethers durchschossene Nordlicht” (“I began to read and a new world opened itself up before me, full of surprises. I saw a fiery red Northern light, shot through with the silvery beams of an ethereal heaven”) (Vischer 1905, IX). Shakespeare became his favourite writer, his “Liebling” (“great love”) (Vischer 1905, IX) who occupied a central role in all his work. His six volumes of Shakespeare lectures, delivered over several decades, attracted large audiences. Shakespeare figured prominently in his ‘Habilitationsschrift’ Über das Erhabene und Komische (1837), in his Aesthetic oder die Wissenschaft vom Schönen (1846–1857) as well as in his novel Auch Einer (1879) and a number of important essays. We have reliable evidence of Vischer’s lectures, which were recreated from a number of notes by his students and from some early manuscripts, assembled by his son Robert; they provide a comprehensive study of Shakespeare’s work and contain detailed analysis of all of Shakespeare’s tragedies and histories, but do not include the comedies or The Merchant of Venice. Their value for us today lies not so much in new insights or a particularly controversial interpreta- tion of Shakespeare’s plays, but in their hermeneutics, displaying not only an 1 August Wilhelm Schlegel translated 17 plays (1797–1810), among them Hamlet (1808). Doro- thea Tieck and Wolf Heinrich Graf von Baudissin completed the project between 1825 and 1833. Schlegel based his Hamlet translation both on the Folio and the Quarto edition. Friedrich Theodor Vischer’s Shakespeare Criticism 5 astonishing breadth of knowledge, but also a refreshing common sense approach to many problematic aspects which his contemporaries often failed to emphasise (see Schröder 1900, 299–300). Vischer excelled in combining a close reading of the text, accompanied by an in-depth commentary and an examination of exist- ing translations. His study of Shakespearian characters meets a trend which once again seems popular among today’s Shakespeare critics, having previously been rejected by critics from the schools of New Criticism and from representa- tives of post-structural studies. Today’s thinking suggests that “characterization is central to Shakespeare’s art and his politics” while a “reduction of character to the effects of what are claimed to be larger and more stable entities – such as dra- matic genres, texts, or social structures – has come to seem dated over the past twenty years” (Yachnin and Slights 2009, 2–3). Vischer’s detailed account of eighteenth and nineteenth-century German Shakespeare criticism must be seen in the context of his nationalist, anti-French sentiments. In the introduction to his Shakespeare lectures he hails the Day of Sedan2 as a “Weltgericht” (“Judgement Day”) (Vischer 1905, 71), where a century- long injustice, suffered by Germany, had ended and “[die] gehäufte Schuld Frank- reichs” (“France’s accumulated guilt”) (Vischer 1905, 474) would be paid back. Germany would finally take its rightful place among Europe’s nations. According to him, neither France nor any other Romance nation can appreciate Shakespeare, whose real home is “das stamm- und geistesverwandte Deutschland” (“Germany, related by race and spirit”) (Vischer 1905, 190). Hamlet and Ophelia, Juliet and Desdemona, together with other young heroic figures in Shakespeare’s plays, are considered as true figures of “der deutschen Geistesart” (“German cast of mind”) (Vischer 1860, 137). Such remarks are typical for the cultural imperialism that gained ground after 1848; they led to a misunderstanding of Shakespeare lasting well into the twentieth century (cf. Muschg 1964). Vischer traces the German love of Shakespeare back to the Baroque period, with references to Andreas Gryphius who introduced the clown on to the German stage – very much in opposition to Francophile critics. He rightly associated Shakespeare with the rise of German literature during the 1750s. Lessing figures prominently in Vischer’s account, especially his controversy with Johann Chris- toph Gottsched who maintained his adherence to the French school. Wieland occupies a transitional position; still wedded to a French enlightened elegance and its “eudämonistische Halbmoral” (“eudemonic pseudo-morality”), he could not fathom Shakespeare’s “knorrige Kraft” (“robust strength”) (Vischer 1905, 193). 2 A reference to the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871), when French forces were defeated. 6 Hans-Joachim Hahn The young Goethe and his Strasbourg circle are given a prominent position. Herder, Goethe and Jakob Reinhold Michael Lenz are seen as chief promoters of Shakespeare during this time, though Vischer’s polemics against the classical Goethe already begin to shine through, as when Herder is quoted as the defender of Shakespeare’s Nordic English nature against ancient Greek idealism (Vischer 1905, 199). Schiller is discussed as another enthusiastic Shakespeare admirer; while his early plays breathe the bard’s tragic fire and boundless enthusiasm, they suffer from an at times exaggerated and absurd manner (Vischer 1905, 201). Vischer views the romantic period as the first genuinely learned approach to Shakespeare and the Elizabethan stage. August Wilhelm Schlegel occupies the most prominent position in Vischer’s review. He celebrates his translation of Shakespeare into blank verse as “eine erquickende Wohltat” (“a refreshing benefit”) (Vischer 1905, 202) for the German people which turned the bard into ‘one of us.’ Nevertheless, Vischer felt the need to replace the occasional word or phrase in the light of more recent research or to avoid certain “Sprachhärten” (“harsh language”) (Vischer 1905, 203). He also criticises Schlegel’s ellipses since