ABSTRACT
There is no essential discontinuity between the lyric poetry of the naturalist and expressionist periods and that of the preceding period. Even the experiments in verse or stanza form of Arno Holz, Mombert, and others conform to the basic laws of German versification: the longest Whitmanesque line or Nietzschean dithyramb and the shortest expressionist ejaculation are still a matter of lift and dip handled for emphasis. All difference is one of mood and spirit due to the poet’s personality, and the newness of the verse in this sense is in the measure of the poet’s greatness. It would not even be safe to say that traditional form is a criterion of mediocrity: Stefan George’s verse technique, for instance, is on close analysis traditional, the ballad writers of necessity keep to the old form of the ballad, and the expressionist hymn or ode is still as much a matter of variation of length of line as of rhetorical afflatus. The themes of poetry, too, are essentially the same: they are merely different in atmosphere and interpretation. Certain of the old themes may be neglected as outworn; but what is more likely is the rejuvenation of an outworn theme by fitting it to the need of the day or even (as is the case with Stefan George and his group) by conjuring new meaning into the abrased diction and phrasing of the theme. Thus sexual love is transformed from sentiment and glamour to Freudian realism; the poetry of the town takes on the form of Grossstadtpoesie; the eternal yearning for the regeneration of the world is renewed as chiliasm, or is variously transformed as salvation by sexuality, or by self-sacrifice to the common good or to the State; and the quest for God becomes an obsession. Themes that older poets rarely touched are freely interpreted: incest, paederasty, Lesbian love, the rotting of dead bodies. So intensified is the interpretation of such themes that merely to sort and classify them is a fascinating study (Motivgeschickte, Motivik). And all this thematic multiplicity can be ranged under the three headings of (1) Ichgehalt, that interest in self which necessarily inspires the Nietzschean or decadent cult of personality; (2) Weltgehalt, the cosmic feeling of those poets (Dehmel, Mombert, George, etc.) who would have the individual strive upward to a lofty ideal derived from contemplation of the divine; (3) Zeitgehalt or Tendenz, the lyric creed of those who would reform the institutions of temporal earth, and reverse traditional notions of morality, and either overthrow or glorify the State.
