Three kinds of forces virtually determine the general trend of all artistic development as, indeed, of all other forms of evolution—­forces which constitute the sum total of those that we comprehend under the joint name of tradition, a sum total of progressive tendencies which we will designate as esthetic ideals, and, mediating between the two, the typical development of the individuals themselves—­above all, naturally, individuals of genius who really create literature.

These powers are present everywhere, but in very different proportion.  Characteristic of Romance literatures and also of the English, is the great predominance of the conservative elements.  Thus not only is the literature of the constitutional mother-country democratic, but also the literature of France, otherwise so decidedly aristocratic:  a majority dictates its laws to the distinguished individual and is inclined to ostracize him, if too headstrong, and exile him from the “Republic of Letters.”  This, for instance, is what happened to Lord Byron among the British.  On the other hand, German literature, like Germanic literatures in general, is disposed to concede, at least at times, a dictatorial leadership to the individual, even at the cost of tradition—­as, for example, to a Klopstock, a Goethe, or a Richard Wagner.  But, in exchange, the leader is often forced to uphold his power, no matter how much it may have been due to his achievements, by coercive measures—­as, again for example, by means of a praetorian guard of partisans, such as Klopstock first created for himself in the Goettinger “Hain,” but which was most effectively organized by Wagner, and such as Victor Hugo, imitating the German model, possessed in the Young Guard which applauded Hernani.  Another method of enforcing his mastery is the organization of a systematic reign of terror, consisting of bitter satires, such as Schiller and Goethe (after the model of Pope) founded in the Xenien, and the Romanticists established in many different forms—­satires much more personal and much better aimed than was the general sort of mockery which the Romance or Romanized imitators of Horace flung at Bavius and Maevius.  In saying all this, however, we have at the same time made it clear that the power and influence of the individual of genius receives much more positive expression in German literature than in those which produced men like Corneille, Calderon, yes, even Dante and Shakespeare.  German literary history is, more than any other, occupied with the Individual.

If we now try rapidly to comprehend to what extent each one of the already enumerated literary forces has participated in the development of modern German literature, we must, first of all, emphasize the fact that here the question is, intrinsically, one of construction—­of a really new creation.