Nor am I sure that Dr. Brandes means
to imply so much; but in all of his writings there is manifested a deep
sympathy with the law-breaker whose Titanic soul refuses to be bound by
the obligations of morality which limit the freedom of ordinary mortals.
Only petty and pusillanimous souls, according to him, submit to these
restraints; the heroic soul breaks them, as did Byron and Shelley,
because he has outgrown them, or because he is too great to recognize
the right of any power to limit his freedom of action or restrain him in
the free assertion of his individuality. This is the undertone in
everything Dr. Brandes has written; but nowhere does it ring out more
boldly than in his treatment of Byron and Shelley, unless it be in the
fifth course of his "Main Currents" dealing with "Young Germany."
These four courses of lectures have been published under the collective
title "The Main Literary Currents in the Nineteenth Century"
(_Hovedstroemningerne i det Nittende Aarhundredes Litteratur_). The
German translation is entitled _Hauptstroemungen in der Litteratur des
Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts_.
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