Under the inspiration of
Friederike's simplicity he had written lyrics which were as pure in
form as direct in feeling. Now we have him indulging in a vein of
artificial sentiment, which, it might have been supposed, he had for
ever left behind as the result of his schooling in Strassburg.
In two pieces belonging to the same period, however, is revealed in
fullest measure the true self of the poet, with all the emotional and
intellectual preoccupations which he had brought with him from
Strassburg. Of the one, _Wanderers Sturmlied_, he has given in his
Autobiography an account which is fully borne out by the character of
the poem itself. It was composed, he tells us, in a terrific storm on
one of his restless journeys between Frankfort and Darmstadt, and at a
time when the memory of Friederike was still haunting him. Of
Friederike, however, there is no direct suggestion in the poem; from
first to last it is a paean of the _Sturm und Drang_, composed in a
form directly imitated from Pindar, whom he had been ardently studying
since his return to Frankfort. The theme is the glorification of
genius--genius in its upwelling and original force as manifest in
Pindar, not as in poets like Anacreon and Theocritus.
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