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Heinrich Heine: Poetry and Politics

Heinrich Heine: Poetry and Politics KEVIEWS tellect as divisive, and therefore accepts the tenets o f Koman tic populism, seeking the expression of the sound and healthy instincts of the common people in the conventions o f folk poetry. Hut this allegiance will not work, for, as Schiller had already seen, modern self-awareness cannot be reversed, atid the problem emerges early in Heine’s modeling upon the Lzecfei-of’ Wilhelm Miiller, which already exhibit modern artifice and ironic self-consciousness. In an attempt to go forward in a this-worldly and revolir tionary direction, Heine becomes the typical Left Hegelian, requiring action a s the consequence of intellectual and literary work, and criticizing the immediate past for its aloofness. However, Heine’s historical eschatology is coristari tly beset by the fear that history may be cyclical rather than progressive, that the veridical poetic consciousness he ascribed to himself is irretrievably in exile, and that the world will prove “impervious to his vision” (p. 189). His physical collapse causes this alternative finally to overwhelm him. T h e advantage o f this account is that i t historicizes Heine more accurately than some others, with a stronger involvement in an abstract philosophy o f history, have heen able t http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary History Duke University Press

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Publisher
Duke University Press
Copyright
Copyright 1975 by University of Washington
ISSN
0026-7929
eISSN
1527-1943
DOI
10.1215/00267929-36-2-207
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

KEVIEWS tellect as divisive, and therefore accepts the tenets o f Koman tic populism, seeking the expression of the sound and healthy instincts of the common people in the conventions o f folk poetry. Hut this allegiance will not work, for, as Schiller had already seen, modern self-awareness cannot be reversed, atid the problem emerges early in Heine’s modeling upon the Lzecfei-of’ Wilhelm Miiller, which already exhibit modern artifice and ironic self-consciousness. In an attempt to go forward in a this-worldly and revolir tionary direction, Heine becomes the typical Left Hegelian, requiring action a s the consequence of intellectual and literary work, and criticizing the immediate past for its aloofness. However, Heine’s historical eschatology is coristari tly beset by the fear that history may be cyclical rather than progressive, that the veridical poetic consciousness he ascribed to himself is irretrievably in exile, and that the world will prove “impervious to his vision” (p. 189). His physical collapse causes this alternative finally to overwhelm him. T h e advantage o f this account is that i t historicizes Heine more accurately than some others, with a stronger involvement in an abstract philosophy o f history, have heen able t

Journal

Modern Language Quarterly: A Journal of Literary HistoryDuke University Press

Published: Jan 1, 1975

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