Heroes of the Exile

Notes

[1]

 

[2] Klopstock's Messias.

[3]Siegwart: Eine Klostergeschichte by Miller appeared in 1776 and is typical of the sentimental trend in literature at the time.

[4] Goethe, Faust I. Faust's Study. Translated by Louis Macneice and E. L. Stahl.

[5] Ibid.

[6] A reference to the Confessions of a beautiful soul which occur in Goethe's novel Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship and which epitomise the cult of sentiment.

[7] Wagner was the naive assistant of Faust.

[8] Wolfram von Eschenbach and Gottfried von Strasbourg were the two chief exponents of the courtly epic in Germany. Their principal works were Parzival (Wolfram) and Tristan (Gottfried).

[9] Platen (1796-1835) was a neo-classical poet who attacked both the Romantics and the Philistines; essentially second-rate he was himself the object of a notoriously violent satire by Heine.

[10] Chamisso, the well-known author of Peter Schlemihl also published the Deutscher Musenalmanach which appeared in Leipzig from 1833 to 1839. Albert Knapp was the editor of Christoterpe. Ein Taschenbuch für christliche Leser, Heidelberg 1833-53.

[11] The supreme Hindu deity Shiva was also known as Mahadeva. In the form used by Marx, Mahadoh, there is an echo of Goethe's poem Der Gott und die Bajadere.

[12] The conflict between duty and inclination is seen by the mature Schiller as central to tragedy.

[13] Christian Heinrich Spiess (1755-99), Heinrich Clauren (177I-1854), and Karl Gottlob Cramer (1758-1817) were all writers of popular novels or adventure stories.

[14] Heinrich von Ofterdingen by Novalis was a paradigmatic work of the German Romantic school. The hero -- modelled on a mediaeval poet of that name -- spends his life in a search for the "blue flower" which becomes a symbol of that infinite romantic longing for the ideal, poetic realm removed from that of reality.

[15] The concluding lines of Goethe's Zahme Xenien in which he makes fum of Pustkuchen's Wanderjahre, a work parasitic on his own Wilhem Meister and one which was for a while thought to be from his own pen. Goethe's own Italian Journey marks a decisive change in his career.

[16] Kotzebue was an immensely popular writer of superficial melodramas.

[17] Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, Berlin 1832, pp. 392 ff.

[18] Schiller's Kabale und Liebe was one of the chief works of the German Storm and Stress period.

[19] Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling (1740-1817) a sentimental, pietistic writer.

[20] Bettina von Arnim had managed to captivate the aging Goethe while she was herself scarcely more than a precocious child. Her publication of Goethe's Briefwechsel mit einem Kinde brought her a certain notoriety.

[21] The critical movement, i.e. the Young Hegelians, Strauss, Bruno Bauer and Feuerbach.

[22] Tale by Clemens Brentano, one of the chief exponents of German Romanticism.

[23] The Göttinger Hain poets (Holty and Voss were the most important) were active from 1772 to 1774. Influenced by Klopstock and Bürger they played an important role in the formation of German literature before subsiding into philistinism.

[24] The reference is to the artisans' congresses that took place in various towns in Germany in 1848 and which produced programmes for restoring the guilds to their former prosperity in accordance with Wmkelblech's utopian theories.

[25] The dictated constitution was introduced by Frederick William IV on December 5, 1848. The Lower Chamber met on February 26, 1849, but was dissolved by the government on April 27, 1849.

[26] The battle of Rastatt took place on June 29 & 30, 1849. The defeat of the democratic forces at the hands of the Prussian troops marked the end of the Baden campagne.

[27] The reference is to Goethe's celebrated novel, The Sufferings of Young Werther.

[28] May 1852, i.e. the French presidential election which the democratic movement and especially the émigré's hoped would inaugurate a new democratic epoch.

[29] I.e. the campagne for the Imperial Constitution whose defeat at Rastatt ended the revolutionary struggles.

[30] The Camphausen Ministry in Prussia lasted from March to June 1848.

[31] The Prussian Assembly was dissolved in November 1848.

[32] The Neue Preussische Zeitung also known as the "Kreuzzeitung" was founded in June 1848. It was the organ of the extreme right-wing court camarilla. As such it opposed Manteuffel's more moderate conservatism.

[33] The Dresden Uprising lasted from May 3 to May 8, 1849. It broke out when the King of Saxony refused to recognise the Imperial Constitution. The insurrection was led by Bakunin and Samuel Tzschirner and involved workers and artisans. Hence an appeal to the bourgeois democrats of Leipzig went unheeded.

[34] The reference is to June 13, 1849, when Louis Napoleon defeated a challenge to his power by Ledru-Rollin and the Montagne. The influence of the Montagne was now broken and Ledru and others fled into exile.

[35] Brüggemann was chief editor of the Kölnische Zeitung, 1840-1855.

[36] Arnold Winkelried was the half-legendary popular hero of the Swiss war of liberation against the Habsburgs. According to tradition he opened the attack in the decisive battle of Sempach (1386) with the cry "Der Freiheit eine Gasse!"

[37] Boiardo, L'Orlando inamorato, canto 17.

[38] I.e. the Karlsruher Zeitung.

[39] A popular sentimental novel by J. T. Hermes.

[40] The March Clubs were the branches, existing in various German cities of the Central March Club, that had been founded in November 1848 by members of the Frankfurt Left. They were frequency attacked by Marx and Engels in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung for their failure to take action.

[41] Ludwig Börne was the founder of modern polemical German literature. Widely read in his day he exercised a profound influence on the style of Engels and perhaps also Marx. He is now unjustly neglected.

[42] Jakob Venedey, Preussen und Preussentum. Mannheim 1839.

[43] Alcina figures both in the Orlandofurioso of Ariosto and the Orlando Inamorato of Boiardo.

[44] The “wet” Quakers were a reformist trend within the movement in the Twenties of the 19th century.

[45] See Note 3 to the "Revelations".

[46] Bronzell was the site of an unimportant skirmish between Prussian and Austrian troops on November 8, 1850. It resulted from the claims of both sides to have the sole right to intervene in the affairs of Hesse and to crush an uprising there. Austria received diplomatic support from Russia and so Prussia had to yield. The agreement then reached at Olmütz effectively consolidated the Reaction.

[47] I.e. in Die Jobsiade. Ein komisches Heldengedicht by K. A. Kortum.

[48] The Hambacher Fest was a political demonstration by South German liberals and radicals in the castle of Hambach (in the Bavarian Palatinate) on May 27, 1832. It resulted in the complete abolition of the freedom of the press and association.

[49] The invasion of Savoy was organised by Mazzini and took place in 1834. A detachment of émigrés of various nationalities marched on Savoy under the leadership of Ramorino, but was defeated by Piedmontese troops.

[50] In June 1844 the Bandiera brothers, who were members of a secret conspiratorial organisation, landed on the Calabrian coast with the intention of sparking off an insurrection against the Neapolitan Bourbons and the Austrian yoke. They were betrayed by one of their number, taken prisoner and shot.

[51] The Dukes of Augustenburg were a branch of the Holstein Ducal House. Their denial of the claims of the Danish kings to Schleswig-Holstem was a factor in German Danish relations and the complicated Schleswig-Holstein Question.

[52] At the Warsaw Conference in October 1850 which was attended by Russia, Austria and Prussia the attempt was made to force Prussia to abandon all plans to unite Germany under its own hegemony.

[53] The anniversary of the abdication of Louis Philippe on February 24, 1848.

[54] The Vorpariament met in Frankfurt from March 31 and April 4, 1848, pending the election of an all-German Assembly and the formulation of a definitive constitution. It was moderate, i.e. constitutionalist and monarchist in character.

[55] A famous relic in Trier, said to be the seamless coat of Christ for which thc soldiers at the Crucifixion cast lots (see John I9, 23).

[56] Paulus was a Protestant theologiam, Wilhelm Traugott Krug was Kent's successor in the Konigsberg chair of philosophy.

[57] Alessandro Gavazzi was an Italian priest who took part in the Revolution of 1848-49 in Italy. After the defeat of the Revolution he emigrated to England, agitated against the Catholic Church and the temporal power of the Pope. Later a supporter of Garibaldi.

[58] Goethe, Anmerkungen über Personen und Gegenstande, deren im dem Dialog “Rameau's Neffe” erwähnt wird

[59] Jean-Victor Moreau, a general in the French Revolutionary army; as commander of the Rhine Moselle Army he gained fame with a brilliantly conducted retreat in face of superior enemy forces in 1797.

[60] Black, red and yellow or gold were the colours of the revolutionaries in 1848.

 

[61] Both Mathy and Romer were liberals in the Frankfurt National Assembly. Romer was also prime minister of Württemberg (1848-49).

[62] The reference is to Willesen's book Theorie des Grossen Krieges angewendet auf den russisch-polnischen Feldzug von 1831 (1840) in which he based the science of war on abstract propositions rather than on the observable facts.

[63] Both Peter the Hermit and Walther von Habenichts were peasant leaders in the First Crusade.

[64] Cavalieri della ventura and cavalier) del dense are, respectively, "knights of fortune" and "knights of the knapsack".

[65] The duodecimal, i.e. petty, war.

[66] Goethe, Faust I.

[67] Abraham a Sancta Clara (1664-1709) was Court preacher in Vienna. He is known for his biting satires.

[68] Imperial Administrator (Reichsverweser) is a reference to the appointment of Archduke Johann to this post in 1848. It points to both the grandeur and the meaninglessness of Ruge's office.

[69] Kaulbach's painting, the Battle of the Huns, shows the ghosts of the warriors who fell on the Catalaunian Plains in A.D. 451 continuing to fight.

[70] Ludwig Simon was a lawyer from Trier who became a left-wing member of the Frankfurt National Assembly; Franz Raveaux was one ofthe leaders of the Left-Centre in the Vorparlament and National Assembly; later he joined the provisional government in Baden. Both emigrated after the collapse of the revolution.