SEVENTH PERIOD. From Heine to Hauptmann (1832-1900). This period, though excluding the earlier work of Heine, embraces that which en titled him to be called 'the continuator of Goethe.' It was Heine that transferred into the political and social field the activity of Goethe in a liter ary one, and perceived more clearly than any other in Germany the hollowness of inherited so cial conditions. In an age of democratic upheaval he bore the banner of revolutionary reform, and as he grew more realistic he came more in touch with the questioning dissatisfied spirit of an age that had parted from its old ethical moorings and had not yet found a new anchorage. He was less positive therefore than Goethe, but "incomparably the most important figure of that quarter of a century that follows Goethe's death" (Matthew Arnold). His influence can be seen in almost every field, though what he wrought by lyric poetry has come to be more and more the function of the novel and of drama. The more noteworthy Poets of the generation preceding the Franco-Ger man War and the foundation of the German Em pire were: Freiligrath (1810-76) ; von Dingel stedt ( 1814-81 ) ; Kinkel ( 1815-82 ) ; von Redwitz (1823-91) ; Anastasius Griin (1816-76) ; Scheffel (1826-86) ; F. W. Weber (1813-94) ; Simrock (1802-76) ; Jordan (born 1819) ; Bodenstedt (1819-92) ; Lingg (1820) ; Giebel (1815-84) ; Fontane (1819-98) ; and the composer Wagner (1813-83).
Fiction in this period shows a blending of that of Wieland, of Goethe, and of Schlegel. But from its beginnings it is, as a. result of the French up heaval of 1830 and the romantic movement there, predominatingly social, especially after the Ger man movement of 1848. The 'Young Germany' of 1833-35, begun by Wienbarg, headed by Gutz kow, supported by Laube and Borne, was essen tially political. With Heine and the women Rahel Varnhagen, Bettina von Arnim, and Char lotte Stieglitz it tended to a strike for social freedom, for 'the emancipation of the flesh,' and this is strongly marked in the earlier novels of Luise Miihlbach (1814-73), Luise Ashton, Ida Frick, Ida Hahn-Hahn (1805-73), Fanny Le 1% ald (1811-89), and in her younger days Marlitt (1825-87). These emancipationists make of the novel a political pamphlet. Though there was some reaction after 1848, fiction turning for a time from the political to the purely literary field, and to the historical novel, of which Alexis ( 1798-1871 ) , Spindler ( 1795-1855 ) , Laube ( 1806 84 ) , and Scheffel (1826-86) were the chief repre sentatives.
The serious drama in the period before the Franco-Prussian War is best represented by Gutz kow (1811-78), Laube (1806-84), Hebbel (1813 64), Mosen (1803-67), and IIeyse (1830). Melodrama is represented by Friedrich Halm (1806-71), Charlotte Birch-Pfeiffer (1800-68), and Salomon von Mosenthal (1821-77) ; com edy by Freytag (1816-95) and Benedix (1811 73 ). The most distinguished critic of the period is Gervinus (1805-71) ; its best-known his torians, Menzel (1798-1873), von Ewald (1803 75) , and later Mommsen ( 1817) , Ranke (1795 1886), Droysen (1806-84), and Ernst Curtius (1814-96). The most renowned scholars of this period were the brothers Jakob (1785-1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (1786-1859). In formal philos ophy its most distinguished names are Schopen hauer (1788-1860), Lotz (1817-81), Ulrici (1806 84), Ueberweg (1826-71) ; Schwegler (1819-57), Kuno Fischer (1824), and von Hartmann (1842).
In the generation following the Franco-Prus sian War antiquarian fiction was cultivated by Ebers while the tradition of the na tional and political novel was continued in the work of Dahn (1834) and Freytag (1816.95) ; Meyer (1825-89) ; Gottschall (1823), and a numerous group of minor writers among whom Spielhagen (1829) is chief. Romanticism is continued in Keller (1819-89), Storm (1817 88) , and Mailiff (1825.27) ; and the naturalistic movement makes itself felt in Heyse (1830), Wilbrandt (1837) , Sudermann (1857), Lin dau (1839) , and in its extreme form in Matith ner (1849). Ring (1817.1901), and Kretzer (1854) ; while Jensen (1837), and Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830) represent a psy chologic school, and in Lobo Kirschner (1834) and Baroness von Suttner (1843) the social and democratic interest is again obvious. As an offshoot of this last we have the village fiction of Auerbach (1812-82), Anzengruber (1839-89), Rosegger (1843), and Raabe (1831). Exotic sensation is cultivated by Franzos (1848) and Sacher-Masoch (1836--), and urban humor by Stinde (1841) and Eckstein (1845-1900). The most powerful writers of fiction during the period are Heyse, Dahn, and Freytag.