Professor Gordon Hall Gerould's article entitled “The Making of Ballads” is an attractive essay, written in the fluent and polished manner that we are accustomed to expect from this scholar. It has charm of style, and its positions, taken as a whole, may be termed accepted positions. Because of its literary quality, because it brings together in one paper what has hitherto been stressed in scattered places, and because of its appreciation of the poetical quality of those English and Scottish ballads sought out by the notable collectors of the earlier nineteenth century and made available in the volumes of Professor Child, the paper has real value for the student. That “The Making of Ballads” is a research article, the product of painstaking investigation, Professor Gerould would not, I think, himself maintain. He is a literary theorist in the realm of traditional song, rather than an experienced field worker or a practical folk-lorist. He brings forward little that has novelty for the special scholar. This circumstance would call for no particular comment except for the fact that the paper has been announced as new and subversive—as something independent of old theories. It has been referred to by several scholars as “The Gerould Theory of Ballad Origins.” The author himself leads us to expect something revolutionary when he asks us to—

Georg Büchner, poet and scientist, was born at Goddelau in the vicinity of Darmstadt, October 17, 1813. Not long afterwards the family moved to Darmstadt; this accounts for the fact that Darmstadt is frequently spoken of as Georg Büchner's native city. He studied the natural sciences, later also philosophy, at Strassburg and Giessen. While a student at Giessen he became involved in secret revolutionary activities, as a result of which, and particularly as a result of his connection with the composition, publication, and secret distribution of the inflammatory pamphlet, The Hessian Courier, he was forced to flee in March, 1835, to Strassburg. Henceforth he kept himself aloof from political and seditious machinations and devoted himself exclusively to scientific and philosophical studies and to literary work. For his achievements in science and philosophy the University of Zürich granted him the doctorate, and he began giving lectures there on comparative anatomy in October, 1836. He died of typhoid, February 19, 1837, just four months after his removal to Zürich, at the age of twenty-three years and six months, honored and lamented by his colleagues and students, upon whom he had made an unusually deep impression.

There are perhaps few persons now vitally concerned about American letters who would not concede that Walt Whitman is at least the most outstanding individualist—poet out of the beaten track—of our national literature. And yet a compilation of parallels and relationships of one kind and another which have been suggested as existing between Whitman's writings and the writings of others, would reach astounding proportions. Moreover, these suggestions, so far as I have been able to learn, have usually been reasonably pertinent. They have justified the intuition of Whitman's first brave sympathizer, Emerson, as recorded in the now famous letter of commendation of 1855, in which Emerson declared that Leaves of Grass “must have had a long foreground somewhere.” They have given an element of plausibility to the statement of John Burroughs, his best contemporary interpreter, that Whitman “had looked over the whole field of literature . . . . and absorbed the spirit of the great bards.” And they have tended, as Whitman has been more and more exploited, to confirm the poet's own words, however immodest they may seem: “Immense have been the preparations for me.”

The appearance in 1889 of a drama like Vor Sonnenaufgang as the work of a young genius, practically unknown, was startling. Though it would not be quite accurate to speak of it as the first drama written by Hauptmann, nothing was known of his earlier dramatic efforts. His lyrical works fared better. Both Promethidenloos and Das Bunte Buch had actually reached the public and are still treasured by their fortunate owners. Fasching and Bahnwärter Thiel had also appeared before 1889, as well as two short articles, almost unknown to-day—a review of Hermann Conradi's Lieder eines Sünders and an essay Gedanken über das Bemalen der Statuen.

Poesie und Prosa sind derart aufeinander angewiesen, dass sie sich zwar zeitweise voneinander entfernen und, wie zwei Arme eines Flusses, das Wasser sich abgraben können, dann aber immer wieder in Vereinigungen und neuen Verflechtungen sich gegenseitig stärken.

Deuten Rilkes Werke, da seiner Persönlichkeit entsprechend, aus ihr sprechend, sie aussprechend, im Zusammenhang, auf sein Wesen und seine Entwicklung hin, so kann der Cornet am ehesten gesondert, als “Dichtung an sich” verstanden werden. Diese schon 1899 geschriebene Weise mag, wie Heygrodt2 vermutet, nicht lange vor ihrem Ersterscheinen, 1906, als Rilke sein Buch der Bilder schrieb, endgiltige Gestalt erfahren haben. Friedrich von Oppeln-Bronikowski hat in seiner (damals fördernden) Arbeit3 auf den Cornet, da er im nämlichen Jahre erschien, wohl nicht mehr einzugehen vermocht. Fritz Strich aber, der den Weg des Gottsuchers und—künders darstellt, hat dieses am meisten entpersönlichten Werks am ehesten entraten zu können geglaubt.4 Vielleicht auch schenkte er ihm keine Beachtung, weil ihm der Rilke der Neuen Gedichte, Anderer Teil und des Buchs der Bilder am fernsten steht. Stellt er doch den “russischen” Rilke, der durch Tolstoi sein Selbst gefunden, als Typus dem “westlichen” George gegenüber, glaubt er doch, erst in den Sonetten an Orpheus und in den Duineser Elegien sei die Gefahr des Aesthetizismus überwunden.