In letters to his friends he never
wearied of pointing out the faults of "Frithjof" and his own
shortcomings as a poet. In a letter to the poet Leopold (August 17,
1825), who had praised the poem to the skies, he argues seriously to
prove that his admiration is misplaced:
"My great fault in 'Frithjof' was not that I chose my theme from
the old cycle of sagas, but that I treated it in a tone and with a
manner which was neither ancient nor modern, neither antiquarian
nor poetical, but hovered, as it were, on the boundary of both. For
what does it mean to treat a subject poetically if not this, to
eliminate everything which belongs to an alien and past age and now
no longer appeals to any heart? The hearts to which it once did
appeal are now all dust. Other modes of thought and feeling are
current. It is impossible to properly translate one age into
another. But to poetry nothing is really past. Poetry is the
beautifying life of the moment; she wears the colors of the day;
she cannot conceive of anything as dead.
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