Nappanee High School - Napanet Yearbook (Nappanee, IN)

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evidence of a more matured taste, while some of his ballads and lyrics are unrivalled. In the poetry of the 19th century, noble representatives are found in the so-called Vaterlandsdichter. Among these we may instance Theodore Koerner and Arndt, whose spirited patriotic songs are intimately associated with the war of 181.’t against Napoleon in which Koerner fell gloriously righting. F. Rueckert and L. Uhland lielong to thisschool. The former is more especially noted for his translations from the oriental languages, and the latter for his exquisite romances and ballads. The greatest name of this school is that of Heinrich Heine, who almost ranks with Goethe and Schiller in poetic power. There are many other writers who are highly esteemed in their native country. Of late years the tendency of the German mind has been rather to science than fiction. In conclusion it may is said that among the German people, we find some of the greatest astronomers, physicians, mathematicians, musicians, historians and biographers, who by their labors have enriched the science of the world and at the same time enhanced the literary and scientific glory of their own country. Modern American Literature By EFF1E WEYBURN ITERATTRE has been defined jus the reflection and reproduction of the life of the people speaking the language in which it is written. English Literature is therefore the record of the thoughts, the feelings and the acts of the great English speaking race. This record extends a long way back into the past, is being made today and will be made for ages to come. Once this Literature was restricted to the British Isles. Since the Declaration of I tide-l endence the single stream of English Literature has been divided into tributaries and one of these divisions and the one. too, to which we shall restrict ourselves is the American branch. While we have an equal pride with the British in the splendid possession of the English Literature of the past, yet as the Americans of today differing as we do from Englishmen in many points of custom and of taste: we have a just pride in our own productions which are as strictly American as are many others of our national traits. For a century and a quarter Americans have grown up in a republic without caste or class distinction: with public schools open to rich and poor alike. All these things have had their effect on our people. We recognize that there is such a thing as Americanism defined as being, “that dignity of human nature which consists, perhaps, in not thinking yourself either lietter or worse than your neighbor by reason of any artificial distinction. This Americanism has stamped Itself upon our Literature and it is because of this that American Literature of recent date is of more interest to us than is that of the recent English writers. In the words of our definition of Literature, “it reproduces and reflects for us our own feelings, thoughts and deeds and it interests us. Although Ini- longing almost wholly to the nineteenth century American Literature has presented us a galaxy of great names. In the first half of the last century New York gave us Irving, Cooper and Bryant. Toward the middle of the century Boston and vicinity produced Emerson. Longfellow, Whittier. Lowell, Holmes and I’arkman. When these left us no successors remained of the same relative influence. Although there has never been so many authors as there are today, and although the average of literary skill is higher than ever before, there Is now no towering figure and no dominating personality. Those who are at the head of American Literature at the beginning of flic twentieth century are not men of the same general type as the greatly gifted New Englanders whom they succeeded. Their aims and their ideals are different. They have not the binding tie of birth in the same part of the country. for they come from the South and from the West as well as from the East. After the death of Whittier. Lowell and Holmes there was left no poet having at once a high standing and a wide popularity. Poets there are of lofty aspiration and of delicate skill. Here we find a great difference between the poetry of the nineteenth and that of the twentieth century. Longfellow’s “Evangeline” and Whittier’s “Snowbound charmed alike the farmhand and the college professor. No long poem published in the beginning of the present century has achieved this double distinction. Such a | oem may f e given us at any time, but with increasing vogue of fiction. Poetry seems less pre-eminent than it was in the past. Fifty years ago nearly all the w riters who stood at the head of the American Literature were poets. Less than half of the writers, at the head ”4

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Till : (tKRMAN JiAiNGl By LESTI 11E many dialects spoken by the t ribcs and confederacies of ancient Ger- many are all derivatives from one branch of the Aryan or Indo-German-lr family of languages which separated from the parent stock at a very early period. The co-existence of the two branches of Teutonic speech known as hlgh-Gerinan and low-German can lx traced back to the seventh century. There never was one Teutonic language which separated into two divisions. The various dialects of high and low German passed through stages of grammatical development. The high-German branch has been the literary language of Germany since the days of Charlemagne (798-814). There were three periods of high-German the old high-German extending from the seventh century to the twelfth century; the middle high-German dating from the twelfth century to the reformation, about lflth century: and the new high-German from Luther's time to our day. The translation of the Bible by Luther into high-German decided the fate of low-German. When Christianity was diffused among the German trilies it had the effect of changing their literature. Instead of the heroic songs and “lx ast epics” (tiikih-kpos) of a sanguinary paganism, there were scriptural paraphrases, legends, and hymns. By degrees the rhythmical arrangement of the Latin versification, common in the early periods of the middle ages, took the place of the ancient alliteration. Latin became the language of the court, the church and the law. under the Saxon emperors, while German was left to the common people. During tin rusades (1090-1290) under the rule of the lioh-enstauffen line of accomplished emperors, the ideas, which were diffused. l oth in regard to literature and language, had the effect of reviving the use and cultivation of the vernacular dialects, among which the Swabian, as the language of the court, soon acquired a marked preponderance over the others. I Hiring the 13tli and 14th centuries, in that age of chivalry and romance, the art of song was cherished by princes and nobles, many of whom belonged to the order of Minne-sanger. or singers of love, and composed In tlie Swabian or high-German dialect. The subjects chielly selected by both courtly and popular singers were based on the legendary lore of Charlemagne and bis paladins. and king Arthur and his knights, and of the Holy Grail. It is to this period that we must refer the Xibclungcn Lied and Gudrun. which rank as the greatest treasuresof German national literature. The period which succeeded the decline of chivalry, was marked by a t borough neglect, among tlit higher classes, of national literature. Thus it AGE ANI) LlTEUATI’RK •R WEBER fell Into the hands of the common people, to tin disorganization of all principles of Grammar. But to this age belongs the mass of the Volkslleder or national ballads, in which Germany is especially rich. The close of the Kith century was prolific in rhyming historical chronicles, in Kit I res on the clergy, and in theological writings for and against the tottering power of the Homisli church. The writings of Luther and other reformers were the most important events in the history of German literature from the close of the 15th to the middle of the lHth century. Luther not only addressed himself to the minds of his countrymen by his polemical writings, but also by those noble hymns, which, since his day have constituted one of the greatest treasures of the kind. The efforts of the devout reformers were followed by a period of literary degeneration which is, in a great measure, ascribed to the effect of the Thirty Years War U118-104K). It was not till in the 17lh century, when .1. ('. Gotts-died succeeded in his Grit leal Art of Poetry, in awakening a better taste. With the names of Klo|istock. leasing and Wieland U gan the brilliant e|»och of modem German literature. Kopstock's poems and his odes reached the tender piety of the old reformers and were thoroughly German in their spirit that they at once met with an enthusiastic response in the hearts of the people, while Lessing's tragedv Minna von Hamhelm and his drama Nathan der Weise may lie said to have created anew the dramatic art in Germany. Wieland was the complete antithesis of Klopstock. lie founded a new style, like his two great contemporaries, and gave a graceful flexibility t- German diction, which it had never before been made to assume. The influence exerted on German literature by these three writers, who may Ik regarded as its regenerators, was soon appreciable in all branches of knowledge. In poetry and belles-lettres the name of Goethe, who lived from 1749 t 1 32 is renowned, lie belonged to the school, known as the Sturm-und-Drang period. He had lieen proceeded in this school by Herder: its orginator whoso philosophical critiques of foreign and German literature contributed materially to the complete revolution, which ushered in the modern period of German poetry. The Sturm-und-Drang period closed with Schiller His early works. The Bobbers. Fiesco and Don Carlos threw the whole German people Into a frenzy of excitement. His later dramatic works, if not so exciting as these, give 13

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of American Literature of today are poets. Perhaps fame is not now won so rapidly in any other line as it is by a striking short story. For that reason the young author is less tempted to confine himself to verse than he was half a century ago. Fiction is the form of Literature in which many of the leading American authors of today find their natural medium of expression. Both the novel and the short story flourish as never before. Two of the more recent developments of fiction are especially noteworthy. The first of these is called the “international novel. This name is given to a study of American character seen against a foreign background. In these we are forced to see ourselves as others see us. and to recognize some of our own peculiarities to which we had chosen to be blind. The purpose of the greatest writers of fiction lias not been simply to delight and amuse by fanciful and fantastic tales, but to interpret the life they themselves best knew. This is what has been done with great success by authors who have taken part in the second of the two recent developments of American fiction. As interesting as the “international novel” is the “local short story. We mean by this a story in which we find set forth the people and the scenery and the dialect of a particular locality. Our first great short stories while they dealt with American life, turned aside from those commonplace and prosaic phases of it with which they were daily brought In contact: and selected those more romantic themes which borrowed some charm from remoteness and unfamiliarity. Let us take for example the works of the four great masters of the earlier period. Irving recreated the vanished life of Manhatten: Cooper found his romantic coloring in the Indian: Hawthorne contrived to envelope even his stories of American life, with a magical moonlight atmosphere which withdrew them from the light of day: while l’oe, the master of the terrible and the grotesque, was as IIK I'nlted States as a nation has seemingly from Its birth been regarded by Deity as a nation of His chosen people. Blessings have been ! -stowed upon tier as upon no other nation. At the late National Stock Exhibition at the Chicago yards, an animal was brought there and because of tlie fact that its weight so far exceeded other specimens on the grounds it was not taken into the exhibition for want of something w ith which to compare it. It is in such a position as this that one is obliged to view the achievements of our nation when opposed to those of The Yell( By CURTIS remote as Hawthorne from the bustling money seeking world that surrounds us. Hut when we recall the best known novels and short stories written in America today, we Immediately see that by far the greater number of them differ from the romantic stories of the four great writers just mentioned. Mal»y of the Southern and Western tales, even more than tlie New York and New England on which they are modeled, abound in humor. Franklin was the earliest humorist, after him came Irving and Lowell. Today they have many followers not unworthy of them. The earliest historians, Prescott. Motley, and l'arkman have also many not unworthy followers working now as earnestly asdld their predecessors. At no time since the I'nlted States became an inde( endent nation has there been greater interest in historical works. At no time have more able writers devoted themselves to tlie history of our own country. We have now no essayists of the stimulating force of Emerson and no critic with the insight of Lowell, yet there is no lack of delightful essayists and of great critics. American criticism has advanced since tlie day of Poe. Tire American critics of today are more independent and self-reliant than they were fifty years ago. An American poet or novelist or historian is not now unduly praised or unduly condemned because he Is an American. He is Judged on his own merits, and compared with the leading writers of Kngland. of France, of Germany and of Spain. In conclusion we may say that our present day Literature is nothing more than an earnest of a better yet to come and that Its shun- in our higher life must depend on our faithfulness as American people to our highest ideals. We believe that a great future lies l efore us as a nation, we should believe that the same is true of our Literature. We have great native ability, our possibilities are limitless. Let us see to it that our Literature becomes one of the greatest possessions of the race. )W Pkrij. MILLER other nations. The rapidity of her progress has exceeded that of every other nation. Her greatest blessing has been a constant line of men and women who have considered the welfare of the nation a thing for which years, and If need be, lives of study might be spent. Such people have given their all to their respective causes and have our nation as she now stands. It is to such magnanimous beings that we owe the continual discrimination of the impending evils of the day. They have considered immigration and have legislated ilia manner not lobe questioned. They have warned us against the Oriental