So it came about that the poet triumphed over the social reformer, in spite of himself; and while in his own parish, at Luetzelflueh in the Canton of Berne—­where he was installed as minister of the Gospel in 1832 after having spent some time there as a vicar—­he is remembered to this day for his self-sacrificing activity in every walk of life, the world at large knows him only as one of the great prose writers of Germany in the nineteenth century.  His first work, Bauernspiegel ("The Peasants’ Mirror"), was published in 1836, when he was thirty-nine years old.  From that time on until his death in 1854, his productivity was most marvelous. The Peasants’ Mirror is the first village story that deserves the name; here, for the first time, the world of the peasant was presented as a distinct world by itself.[1] It is at the same time one of the earliest, as well as the most splendid, products of realistic art; and, considered in connection with his later writings, must be regarded as his creed and program.  For the motives of the several chapters reappear later, worked out into complete books, and thus both Uli der Knecht ("Uli, the Farmhand,” 1841) and Uli der Paechter ("Uli, the Tenant,” 1849) are foreshadowed here.

As a literary artist Gotthelf shows barely any progress in his whole career, and intentionally so.  Few writers of note have been so perfectly indifferent to matters of form.  The same Gottfried Keller who calls Gotthelf “without exception the greatest epic genius that has lived in a long time, or perhaps will live for a long time to come,” characterizes him thus as to his style:  “With his strong, sharp spade he will dig out a large piece of soil, load it on his literary wheelbarrow, and to the accompaniment of strong language upset it before our feet; good garden soil, grass, flowers and weeds, manure and stones, precious gold coins and old shoes, fragments of crockery and bones—­they all come to light and mingle their sweet and foul smells in peaceful harmony.”  His adherence to the principle Naturalia non sunt turpia is indeed so strict that at times a sensitive reader is tempted to hold his nose.  It is to be regretted that so great a genius in his outspoken preference for all that is characteristic should have been so partial to the rude, the crude, and the brutal.  For Gotthelf’s literary influence—­which, to be sure, did not make itself felt at once—­has misled many less original writers to consider these qualities as essential to naturalistic style.

Very largely in consequence of his indifference to form and the naturalistic tendencies mentioned—­for to all intents and purposes Gotthelf must be regarded as the precursor of naturalism—­the Swiss writer did not gain immediate recognition in the world of letters, and the credit rightfully belonging to him fell, as already mentioned, to Berthold Auerbach (1812-1882), a native of the village of Nordstetten in the Wuerttemberg portion of the Black Forest.