... But I am convinced that
all poetic treatment of a theme belonging to a past age demands its
modernization; and that everything antiquarian is here a mistake.
This holds good not only in regard to the northern tone but also in
regard to the Greek. Look, for instance, at Goethe's 'Iphigenie.'
Who does not admire the beautiful, simple, noble, Hellenic form?
And yet who has ever felt his soul warmed by this image of
stone?... No living spirit has been breathed into these nostrils;
the staring eyes gaze upon me without life and animation; no heart
beats under the Hellenically rounded marble bosom. The whole is a
mistake, infinitely more beautiful than 'Frithjof,' but fashioned
according to the game principles of art. The Greeks said that the
Muse was the daughter of Memory; but this refers only to the
material, the theme itself, which is everywhere of minor
consequence. The question, then, is as to the proper treatment.
Where it tends toward the antiquarian it misses the mark; it
represents, like 'Frithjof,' only a restored ruin.
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