With the ancients the suffering results from the action; their tragedy was really a triumph of instinct.  The first bold lightning flash of half-awakened consciousness illuminated the empty Olympus, and because man found the halls of the gods deserted, he sought in his own breast a centre for the circle of his existence.  But when, revolving around himself and thereby denying the pole of the world, he stood, in his stubborn isolation, in the way of the great whole, the invisible fly-wheel which drives the universe seized him with tremendous power and flung him mockingly into an abyss.  He felt that he had sinned, and did not know in what way.  He found himself justified in his earthly relations and yet could not shake off the oppressive nightmare of a secret monstrous guilt.  Then he shudderingly divined that sin can go further than knowledge, that in things and in events, as well as in human thought and feeling, there lies a mysterious final something, which, of whatever nature it may be and whatever its effect, must be regarded as holy.  Let us remember Oedipus and the way in which in this drama one riddle is always solved by another riddle.

In the modern drama, on the contrary, the suffering as a rule first begets action.  The hero gets into the whirlpool, he does not himself know how, but when near destruction he shows himself to be a brave, fearless swimmer.  This comes from the attempt, not so much to reconcile, as to compare the idea of Freedom with the idea of Necessity.  Modern tragedy has, therefore, when placed beside the ancient, a sickly hue, which is still further intensified by the circumstance that its point of departure is the individual.  I should like to have time to indicate all the consequences of these opposite conceptions.

If I should be asked to express in brief the fundamental idea of modern tragedy I should find it in the harsh fetters that bind the highest nobility of human nature, in suffering and death, and in the resistance of the world—­occasioned thereby, nay presupposed as a necessity—­which the world offers to all greatness as it strives for self-realization.

Wienbarg, after his general preliminary remarks, proceeds to make an analysis of Uhland’s drama, Louis the Bavarian. It is excellent and accomplishes everything that it should accomplish, by combining the characterization of the poet with the characterization of the German drama in its totality, of which totality the individual drama is an organic part.  Of course every reader will wish that Wienbarg had rendered the tragedy, Duke Ernest, the same friendly service, of which Uhland’s dramas, in their unostentatious simplicity, stand so much in need, if they are ever to receive the appreciation which they deserve.  Were it fitting to prolong the criticism of a criticism to such an extent, I should myself attempt to elucidate this most German of tragedies in all its ramifications; perhaps this will be done in another place.  We are rich and consider ourselves poor; we have the diamonds, and there shall not be wanting people who know how to cut them.  May the second part of Wienbarg’s treatise very soon appear!  Many a one is now pushing forward the hand on the horologe of time and hastening nothing thereby but the hour of his own execution.  Wienbarg is not one of these.