Es ist in der neueren Literatur über die deutsche Dorfpoesie verschiedentlich versucht worden, die eigenartige Stellung des Dichters Neidhart von Reuental zu erklären, ihn gleichsam zu erlösen aus seiner “splendid isolation,” in der er sich als Anreger einer vorher in der deutschen Literatur nie überlieferten Gattung befindet. Für. seine formellen und stilistischen Eigenheiten wurde auf die Carmina Burana verwiesen. Sicher bestehen auch direkte Beziehungen zwischen Neidharts Dichtung und der früheren Vagantenlyrik, wie das Günther darstellt. Aber trotz vieler verblüffender Übereinstimmungen, trotz Natureingang, Mutter-Tochterdialogen, Gespielinnen- und Tanzliedern, die alle schon bei den Vaganten vertreten sind und von hier z.T. über die lateinische Schulpoesie bis auf spätklassische Vorbilder zurückgeführt werden können, bleiben doch bei Neidhart und seiner Schule eine Menge neuer Motive. Namentlich die Winterlieder sind reich an Zügen, die der Vagantenlyrik fremd sind und die auch die Pastourelle nicht kennt. Zu einem Teil sind sie geschichtlich bedingt, wie die Kritik der protzigen, süddeutschen Bauern, die fast gleichzeitig in der ganzen mhd. Literatur auftaucht, aber doch von Baiern-Österreich ausgeht. Dann aber handelt es sich auch um mehr oder weniger geschickte dichterische Ausgestaltung älterer Anekdoten, wie sie besonders von den Neidhartianern eifrig gepflegt wurde.

In his comprehensive work, Das deutsche Lehnsprichwort, Friedrich Seiler traces the apparent origin of a vast number of proverbs and proverbial expressions current in Germany. He finds that the Greek and Roman classics, the Bible and the works of the Church Fathers yield many of the ancient proverbs still in common use. With regard to the large number of proverbs that have seemingly come from the French, Seiler, as he well realizes, treads on uncertain ground, and much of the material that he here gathers together will have to be reëxamined. It is quite evident that many of the proverbs in this latter group are common medieval proverbs, current over a large part of Europe, which first appear in the vernacular literature and collections of proverbs of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. To attribute French source to them often requires more evidence than Seiler presents. In his treatment of this large body of medieval and international proverbs that seem to have arisen during the Middle Ages and the early modern period—proverbs that give him the most difficulty in finding a possible source—Seiler quite overlooks influences that may have come from the oriental languages, through the Arabic via Spain or into southern Europe via North Africa, or, still more probably for many of these proverbs, via the eastern European countries bordering on Tartaric, Arabic, or Turkish territory.

During the last decade of the seventeenth century the rapidly increasing influence of female readers found public acknowledgment in many of the projects of John Dunton, London book-seller and publisher. To the Fair Sex he dedicated in 1691 and 1692, first monthly, then fortnightly, and finally weekly numbers of his Athenian Mercury; to them he made special appeal when sales were slow; and to them he presented, in 1693, a short-lived and most unedifying Ladies' Mercury, a publication that may fairly be called the first English periodical for women.

During the earlier portion of the [18th] century, an English scholar, Francis Knapp, a graduate of St. John's College, Oxford, lived the life of a literary recluse at Watertown [Mass.]; and glorying in a personal acquaintance with Alexander Pope, he attempted to reproduce, on “the bleak Atlantic shore,” and amid “solitudes obscene,” the poetic notes of his master.

Dass die Metapher recht eigentlich das Wesen der Poesie, deren Urzelle, die kleinste Einheit des dichterischen Schaffens darstelle, ist eine Verallgemeinerung und Hyperbel, die man oft wiederholt findet in der Literatur über Stilistik und Metaphorik. So sagt etwa Gottschall: das Bild ist nur die Abbreviatur dessen, was die Dichtung im Ganzen und Grossen ist (nämlich: Versinnlichung des Geistigen und Vergeistigung des Sinnlichen). So meint auch Hugo von Hofmannsthal: Die Handlungen, die Gestalten sind nichts anderes, wofern man das Wort nur recht versteht, als Gleichnisse aus vielen Gleichnissen zusammengesetzt. Und so nennt denn auch Hermann Pongs, der in seinem tiefgründigen Werke die Metaphernkunde auf eine neue Grundlage stellt, das dichterische Bild die originäre dichterische Einheit, das Urphänomen des .

In October, 1805, in his twentieth year, John Wilson, gentleman commoner of Oxford, purchased some ground on Lake Windermere. Here it was that, after his brilliant graduation in March, 1807, the winner of the first Newdigate prize settled in his cottage of Elleray. Through diffidence he had been unwilling to intrude upon Wordsworth during his early visits to the Lake District; but by 1808 he had made the acquaintance of the poet and his family, and for the next few years he was on most intimate terms with them, as the letters of Dorothy Wordsworth show. Naturally, too, he became acquainted with the other members of the “Lake School.” De Quincey first saw “Wilson of Elleray” at the dances held at Low Brathay, home of Charles Lloyd, and was introduced to his lifelong friend by Wordsworth at Allan Bank, “at the latter end of 1808,” at a time when both De Quincey and Coleridge were on a visit to Wordsworth, the introduction taking place in a room used as a study by Coleridge. Southey likewise dined in Wilson's company at Lloyd's, and breakfasted with him at Keswick shortly after, but whereas Wilson always felt warm regard for the laureate, the latter could not recover from his abhorrence when he learned of the younger man's passion for cockfighting. “I could not tolerate his manner of life enough to accept the advances which he made towards an intimacy,” writes Southey, with entirely unnecessary indignation, in 1819. Precisely when Coleridge met his fellow-laker is uncertain. We know that Coleridge invited Eliza Nevins, Wilson, and Mrs. Wilson to Grasmere in September, 1808, and that, together with the Wordsworths and De Quincey, he paid Wilson a visit at Christmas, 1809, during which, Dorothy Wordsworth informs us, “we enjoyed ourselves very much, in a pleasant mixture of merriment and thoughtful discourse.” We know that in the seventeenth number of Coleridge's The Friend, on December 14, 1809, appeared that splendid tribute to Wordsworth, the letter of Mathetes, joint production of Wilson and his friend, Alexander Blair.

When Wuthering Heights first appeared the immediate and quite predictable reaction of Victorian readers and reviewers was to view with dismay, if not with disgust, the wildness and brutality of the characters and emotions described in it. Charlotte Brontë herself, while professing great admiration for her sister's work, doubted whether it was right to create men like Heathcliff. Today the wonder of critics is turned upon another aspect of the book; namely, how could a girl in Emily's situation, with her limited experience and living her secluded life, write such a book at all? The researches of biographers have thrown little light on this problem, largely because of the very meager sources to which they may turn. Emily was a fiercely reticent person. She seems to have had no friends and hardly any acquaintances outside her family circle. As to people beyond that circle, Charlotte tells us that “she had scarcely more knowledge of the peasantry amongst whom she lived than a nun has of the country people who sometimes pass her convent gates.” Her letters and manuscripts were with very few exceptions—two brief letters and some manuscripts of her poems—destroyed either by Charlotte or herself.

In the midst of the stormiest days of his career at the Collège de France, we find Edgar Quinet plunged in the Essays of Emerson. The striking example of a great French teacher and reformer taking refuge in the writings of the Concord philosopher, then practically unknown, during so violent and eventful an academic year as was 1844–45, is clearly shown in Quinet's lectures and commonplace book of that same period. Doubtless he found in the pages of the American essayist at this trying period both inspiration and solace. Little wonder, then, that he proclaimed enthusiastically to his auditors at the Collège de France that America had given birth to an original philosophy; and furthermore, that Emerson “was the most idealistic writer of our time.”

Among the autograph letters in the collection of Fernando Palha, now in the Harvard Library, is one by George Ticknor to Francisque Michel. The letter is in French in Ticknor's own handwriting, on note paper 4½ by 7 inches. The letter is interesting as showing Michel's appreciation of Ticknor's recently published History of Spanish Literature, as well as Ticknor's eagerness to see the Cancionero de Baena as soon as it should appear, and his kindly interest in Francis J. Child, then a young student in Europe.

Le 10 Avril 1853, dans une lettre à Louise Colet récemment publiée, Flaubert écrivait:

La seule chance que j'aie de me faire reconnaître, ce sera quand Bovary sera publiée; et mes compatriotes rugiront, car la couleur normande du livre sera si vraie qu'elle les scandalisera.

Als Hauptcharakterzug des Impressionismus gilt fast unbestritten, dass er im wesentlichen Oberflächenkunst sei, dass er spiegele, ohne Wertungen zu versuchen, dass er die Unterscheidung von Gut und Schlecht grundsätzlich unterdrücke. Namentlich der Wiener Impressionismus streite dem Menschen alles höher gestimmte Fühlen ab und führe sein ganzes Handeln auf niedrigste Triebe zurück; das sei zum wenigsten der Gesamteindruck.

The l-sound, which we may consider to be without any special timbre, be it light or dark, is the alveolar or dental l, in the formation of which the tip of the tongue, resting at or near the teeth, plays an important part. For all nations, even those which otherwise show colored variations of it, apply this l at the beginning of words in order to introduce the vowel. This l cannot be affected by any preceding vowel. It is also the same colorless l which elocutionists (in England, D. Jones of Oxford; in America, W. Tilly of Columbia University, New York) recommend for use in all cases. According to their opinion, the dark semivelar sound, heard so frequently in English, is looked upon as vulgar. It may, however, be an open question whether such a procedure is not a strongly artificial interference with a natural, long-drawn-out development in the course of many centuries.

Es Gehörte von je zu den Lieblingsthemen der deutschen Ästhetik, die verschiedenen Dichtungsgattungen miteinander zu vergleichen und gegeneinander abzugrenzen. Dabei wurde die Lyrik gewöhnlich als rein subjektive Kunstform gegenüber der gemischten Epik und der gänzlich objektiven Dramatik bezeichnet. Die Begriffe der Subjektivität und Objektivität erschienen als die geeignetste Grundlage für den Aufbau der vergleichenden Gattungspoetik. Dabei ist gleich hier zu fragen, in welchem Sinne sie in diesem Zusammenhang zu verstehen sind, um von vornherein Mißverständnissen vorzubeugen. Denn jede starke Dichtung, so kann eingewendet werden, ist, gleichgültig, welcher Gattung sie angehören mag, gewissermaßen immer subjektiv, erfüllt von dem individuellen künstlerischen Temperament des Schöpfers, das sich selbst in dem naturalistischsten Werk, sofern es wirklich Kunstwerk ist, kundgibt und daher sogar in Zolas Definition des Kunstwerks: “Une œuvre d'art est un coin de la nature vu à travers un tempérament” seinen gebührenden Platz erhält. Diese künstlerische Subjektivität ist allen Gattungen immanent, kann also in der Gattungspoetik nicht gemeint sein. Diese hat vielmehr bei der vergleichenden Betrachtung die rein menschliche Subjektivität im Auge, das Mehr oder Weniger an persönlichem Erlebnisgehalt. Von diesem Standpunkt gesehen erscheint die künstlerische Subjektivität, d. h. die individuelle Prägung, die Form-, die Gestaltgebung, als das Objektive. Als subjektive Gattung wird daher die betrachtet, welche persönliche Erlebnisse des Dichters umfassend, unmittelbar und ohne starke Umformung zum Ausdruck bringt, als objektive diejenige, in der das individuelle Erleben zurücktritt oder völlig umgeformt wird, da der Dichter sich in erster Linie den Forderungen der Form der Gattung fügen muß. Oder: Eine Gattung ist subjektiv, wenn ihr Wesen und damit ihr künstlerischer Wert vorwiegend auf dem subjektiven Erlebnisgehalt beruht, sie ist dagegen objektiv, wenn die künstlerische Wirkung vor allem von der Form abhängt.

The Middle English Dictionary inherited from the Oxford Dictionary about 450,000 slips containing Middle English quotations, generously donated to us by the Delegates of the Clarendon Press. We have also about 175,000 slips collected at Cornell under the editorship of Professor C. S. Northup. Before beginning to collect material on our own account it seemed wise to study the material we already had in order to discover just what material was needed to supplement it. For testing the Oxford Dictionary material we prepared what we called a “cross section.” We first selected 150 words which should be fairly representative of the whole Middle English vocabulary. All of the slips for these 150 words were removed from the files and were rearranged according to the texts from which they were taken, so that for every important text read for the Oxford Dictionary we have a sample body of slips running in number from 10 or 20 to 2200.