"Singe, unsterbliche Seele der sdudigen Menschen Erldsung" [2]
[Sing, immortal soul the redemption of fallen mankind] -- through Gottfried Kinkel.
G ottfried Kinkel was born some 40 years ago. The story of his life has been made available to us in an autobiography, Gottfried Kinkel. Truth without Poetry. A Biographical sketch-book. Edited by Adolph Strodtmann. (Hamburg, Hoffmann & Campe, 1850, octavo.)Gottfried is the hero of that democratic Siegwart [3] epoch that flooded Germany with endless torrents of tearful lament and patriotic melancholy. He made his debut as a simple lyrical Siegwart.
We are indebted to Strodtmann the Apostle, whose "narrative compilation"we follow here, both for the diary-like fragments in which his pilgrimage on this earth is paraded before the reader, and for the glaring lack of discretion of the revelations they contain.
"Bonn, February -- September 1834 Like his friend, Paul Zeller, young Gottfried studied Protestant theology and his piety and industry earned him the admiration of his celebrated teachers" (Sack, Nitzsch and Bleck, p. 5).
From the very beginning he is "obviously immersed in weighty speculations"(p. 4), he is "tormented and gloomy" as befits a budding genius. "Gottfried's gloomily flashing brown eyes" "lit upon" some youths "in brown jackets and pale-blue overcoats"; he at once sensed that these youths wished "to make up for their inner emptiness by outer show" (p. 6). He explains his moral indignation by pointing out that he had "defended Hegel and Marheinicke"when these lads had called Marheinicke a "blockhead"; later, when he himself goes to study in Berlin and is himself in the position of having to learn from Marheinicke he characterises him in his diary with the following belletristic epigram (p. 61):
"Ein Kerl ,der spekuliert, ist wie ein Tier auf dürrer Heide von einem loosen Geist im Kreis herumgeführt, und ringsumher ist schöne grüne Weide."[I tell you a chap who's intellectual Is like a beast on a blasted heath Driven in circles by a demon While a fine green meadow lies round beneath.] [4]
Gottfried has clearly forgotten that other verse in which Mephistopheles makes fun of the student thirsting for knowledge:
"Verachte nur Verstand und Wissenschaff!"[Only look down on knowledge and reason!] [5]
However, the whole moralising Student Scene serves merely as an introduction enabling the future Liberator of the World to make the following revelation (p. 6).
Listen to Gottfried:
"This race will not perish, unless a great war comes.... Only strong remedies will raise this age up from the mire!""A second Flood with you as a second and improved edition of Noah!"his friend replied.
The light brown overcoats have helped Gottfried to the point where he can proclaim himself the "Noah in a new Flood". His friend responds with a comment that might well have served as the motto to the whole biography.
"My father and I have often had occasion to smile at your passion for unclear ideas!"Throughout these Confessions of a Beautiful Soul [6] we find repeated only one "dear idea", namely that Kinkel was a great man from the moment of his conception. The most trivial things that occur to all trivial people become momentous events; the petty joys and sorrows that every student of theology experiences in a more interesting form, the conflicts with bourgeois conditions to be found by the dozen in every consistory and refectory in Germany become world-shaking events from which Gottfried, overwhelmed by Weltschmerz, fashions a perpetual comedy.
[Thus we find that these confessions consistently present a double aspect -- there is firstly the comedy , the amusing way in which Gottfried interprets the smallest trivia as signs of his future greatness and casts himself in relief from the outset. And then there is the rodomontade , his trick of complacently embellishing in retrospect every little occurrence in his theologico-lyrical past. Having established these two basic features we can return to the further developments in Gottfried's story.]
The family [of his "friend Paul" leaves Bonn and] returns to Württemberg. Gottfried stages this event in the following manner.
Gottfried loves Paul's sister and uses the occasion to explain that he has "already been in love twice before"! His present love, however, is no ordinary love but a "fervent and authentic act of divine worship"(p. 13). Gottfried climbs the Drachenfels together with friend Paul and against this romantic backcloth he breaks into dithyrambs:
"Farewell to friendship! -- I shall find a brother in our Saviour;-- Farewell to love -- Faith shall be my bride; -- Farewell to sisterly loyalty -- I am come to the commune of many thousands of just souls! Away then, O my youthful heart, learn to be alone with your God; struggle with him until you conquer him and force him to give you a new name, that of Holy Israel which no-one knows but he who receives it! I give you greetings, you glorious rising sun, image of my awakening soul!" (p. 17).
We see how the departure of his friend gives Gottfried the opportunity to sing an ecstatic hymn to his own soul. As if that were not enough, his friend too must join in the hymn. For while Gottfried exults ecstatically he speaks "with exalted voice and glowing countenance", he "forgets the presence of his friend", "his gaze is transfigured", "his voice inspired", etc. (p. 17) -- in short we have the vision of the Prophet Elijah as it appears in the Bible complete in every detail.
"Smiling sorrowfully Paul looked at him with his loyal gaze and said:
'You have a mightier heart in your bosom than I and will surely outdistance me -- but let me be your friend -- even when I am far away.' Joyfully Gottfried clasped the proferred hand and renewed the ancient covenant"(p. 18).
Gottfried has got what he wants from this Transfiguration on the Mount.
