SOURCE: "The Evaluation of Heine's Neue Gedichte," in Wächter und Hüter: Festschrift für Hermann J. Weigand, edited by Curt von Faber du Faur, Konstantin Reichardt, and Heinz Bluhm, Department of Germanic Language, Yale University, 1957, pp. 99-107.

In the following essay, Atkins surveys critical opinion of Heine's relatively neglected Neue Gedichte.

One of the great curiosities of German literary history is the division of opinion which has long prevailed on the subject of Heine's stature as a poet. Outside the German-speaking world Heine may properly be named in the same breath with Goethe or Rilke, for an overwhelming majority of non-German critics, even those knowing something of his complex character and personality, have agreed and continue to agree that Heine is a lyric poet of incontestable greatness.¹ Yet Emil Ermatinger, writing in Switzerland between 1943 and 1946, has classed him among "Forcierte Talente," moralistically condemned him for a...