MESSIAH, The (
The theme is the redemption of mankind, and the poem starts with Christ's entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the most exalted subject at hand for the young Jena student of theology, who at the academy of Pforta had come under the influence of Milton through the writings of Bodmer. On going to Leipzig in 1747 Klopstock recast the prose beginnings into hexameters, thus breaking with the tradi tional Alexandrines and loosing a storm of criticism on his head from the school of Gott sched, while that of Bodmer applauded. It has been said that the work of no German poet before Richard Wagner aroused such contro versy. Goethe's Autobiography tells us that his father banished the book from the house because of its blank verse. However,. Klop stock broke the sway of the French in epic verse as Lessing did later in the drama, demonstrating the nearer affinity of German to English. He learned a great deal from Milton, but his nature was essentially lyrical, contem plative, mystic, and he often smothers the epic possibilities of his subject in a flood of fervent, more or less seraphic, religious ecstasy, which exhausts the reader. Instead of strong con trasts, going from darkness to light, from misery to bliss, he attempts to portray a mental state of continuous, dazzling brilliancy. In
stead of an alternation of clashes there is a contemplative passivity, from which result end less repetitions and long drawn out speeches; so to speak, a massive elaboration of the text of Handel's oratorio, which was but seven years older. Certain descriptions, however, are very successful, such as those of hell, the coun cil of the devils, their punishment through transformation, the trips through the universe made by angels and devils, and especially the vision of the last judgment. Klopstock's tak ing over of the Mihomc cosmography gave him the opportunity of portraying a great struggle between the powers of light and darkness for the soul of Christ and therefore of man, but instead his angels paralyze their adversaries with a look, which method of warfare is not epic, though perhaps pietistic. His forte is to excite feeling and to lend ex pression to the inexpressible even when his characters become speechless. No German poet before him had so mastered the capacities of the language, whether in choice of words or in rhythmic cadence. In a sense he became the creator of modern poetic diction. A flood of epic• imitations on various biblical subjects ry attested his contemporary influence, and all the younger poets of his day learned from him, but the 19th century admired him from an ever increasing distance. Edition : (Werke,' Franz Muncker (Vols. I and II, Stuttgart 1893) ; (Messias und Oden' (Halle 1910). Critical: Wilhelm Scherer, (Geschichte der deutschen Literatur' (12th ed., 1910) ; Franz Muncker, (Klopstocks Leben' (Chap. 4, Stuttgart 1893) ; G. E. Lessing (Briefe,) XV, (Brief: Ueber das Heldengedicht: Der Messias' (1753).