ABSTRACT
Clemens Brentano is an uneven writer, whose immense talent is sometimes vitiated by the need to ventilate personal problems and whose inner fragility can lead to the dissipation of that talent in fragmentation and obscurity. But at his best he can control and counteract these tendencies and speak to the whole Gemüt in an authentic romantic tone, both sensuous and spiritual, individual and universal. Brentano lacks the philosophical profundity and cosmic sweep of Navalis; instead, he offers extreme sensitivity to sound and rhythm and an imaginative ability to penetrate into the essential nature of a sense-impression. There is certainly no lack of material in Brentano's work to justify at least the raising of the question. The mere appearance of the one word 'giftig' in the context mentioned above does not, of course, of itself prove a great deal. Certainly, Brentano feels and expresses a deep sense of deprivation; the paradise of simplicity and wholeness has been lost.
