Neuphilologisches Centralblatt

Abstract

again toward the close. The catastrophe is not motivated, and the drama is not an organic whole.Space will not permit a detailed account of Lessing's criticism, but in the main it is as follows: Lessing says that in the Kinstlerdrama everything must be founded on psychologic necessity. If Grillparzer wanted to portray the conflict between art and life, he should have made Sappho herself responsible for the separation from Phaon. There is no place for accident or whim in a drama of this kind. Grillparzer, says Lessing, has not conceived his problem deeply enough. He gives Sappho no opportunity to measure herself with the real forces of life. What might have been her fate, he asks, if she had been placed among people who were her equals, who admired, loved, and understood her? Here Lessing with great acumen detects the real defect in the drama, and the utter inability of Phaon and Melitta to pose as Sappho's antagonists. Lessing maintains that Grillparzer has not given dramatic expression to the conflict between life and art in Sappho, and that when this conflict is treated at all it is only in lyrical form.The essay is of interest because it affords us a glimpse into the workmanship of the author, and also because it is typical of the articles favored by Euphorionthose in which trained scientific and literary criticism is brought to bear on the subject in hand. NEUPHILOLOGISCHES CENTRALBLATT THERESA DILLON