Our lyric poetry, however, exhibits some of the external, material features of the genre that are traceable through all types of poetry. Even here, we find that public favor is curried far less by something original that emerges from the depths, than by something we might call “prescription poetry,” which involves creating new works according to models that are popular among the people. For some time, particular attention was devoted to the cultivation of antique lyric poetry and lyric epics. The lyric poetry of Weltschmerz, which is usually set in ancient meter, has never been as popular, but the same applies to it. Truly original creations were achieved only by a few poets, who, like Keller and Storm, needed decades to attract a small circle of readers who understood their works. Even their lyric poetry, though, is mostly a tranquil self-reflection upon a tranquil soul. The fact that almost all of our occasional poems, even when they owe their inspiration to the mightiest “occasions,” lapse into rhetoric reveals the following: that while the great movements of our times might well be approaching our poets’ intellect and sentiment, they do not yet dominate their inner perception and imagination, as is the case in other leading nations. Still today, many a poet in Germany, whether he wishes to admit or conceal it, would prefer to feel like a refugee from the world than a contributor to the shaping of his times. Very similar phenomena are revealed in our epic poetry. The antique genre of epic poetry was popular as well, especially in archaic novels, whose authors, both through their chosen subject and the archaizing style of their portrayals, finally exhibited a commonality that distinguished them from their predecessors. These days, one genre likely destined for a period of flowering is the German novella, which a number of highly intellectual men have elevated to a height that was never reached before and will be hard to surpass. If the narrow form of this genre virtually rules out its being anything more than a showcase for the storytellers’ mind, then this would not at all be the case with the modern novel. In it, however, we also rarely encounter the desire to feel the lifeblood of our culture pulsating through organic structures. With few exceptions, our fiction represents a revival of earlier literary currents, so that depending on the fancy, taste, and educational background of the individual in question, we repeatedly see gathered before us academics and rationalists, Sturm und Drang writers, Young Germans and Romantics, dreamers and pseudo-realists, and, finally, the most curious mixtures of the one and the other. A few glimpses of our drama would, mutatis mutandis, produce the same impression. Under such circumstances, it is no surprise that many members of our educated class are searching among the French, the Scandinavians, and even the Russians for what we are not yet capable of giving them.
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