Heine in der Romania by Gerhart HoffmeisterReview by: Ingrid G. DaemmrichNineteenth-Century French Studies, Vol. 32, No. 1/2 (FALL—WINTER 2003-2004), pp. 150-151Published by: University of Nebraska PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/23538160 .

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survivors spent their remaining years in exile, or prison. Harsin concludes her book

by retracing the fate of a few of these individuals. Even those such as Blanqui who

survived the Commune never saw their dream realized, for the Third Republic, which

finally emerged after the Commune was repressed, was founded on bourgeois

consensus, not on personal courage, self-sacrifice and victory on the barricades.

Hoffmeister, Gerhart. Heine in der Romania. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2002.

Pp. 208. ISBN 3-503-96127-4

Ingrid G. Daemmrich, Drexel University

With this study, Gerhart Hoffmeister joins a long succession of literary critics who

have investigated the impact of the nineteenth-century German-Jewish writer on the

literature of the Romance languages. Hoffmeister carefully balances summarizing the

interpretations of his predecessors with his own clearly enunciated perception of

Heine's poetry as pivotal to the development of poetry from Romanticism to

Symbolism. He attributes Heine's influence to two sources: Nerval's "rhythmically

lyrical" translations of excerpts from Heine's Buch der Lieder {Le Livre des chants),

Lyrisches Intermezzo, Die Nordsee {La Mer du nord), and Atta Troll and the role of the

Revue des Deux Mondes in making Heine's poetry, as well as articles by and about him,

accessible to speakers of Romance languages.

Hoffmeister devotes nearly half of his study to Heine's fluctuating career and

fortune in Paris. Heine emigrated to Paris in 1831 to escape Prussian censorship of his

political writings. Warmly welcomed into Parisian literary circles because of his wit

and charm, he soon became acquainted with Hugo, Dumas-père, Musset, Marie

d'Argoult, Caroline Jaubert, George Sand, Nodier, Vigny, and most importantly,

Nerval and Gautier. He also conceived several contradictory goals: first to study

Saint-Simonism, then to become part of the contemporary life of Paris, to achieve

financial stability by selling his work in the Parisian literary marketplace, and to

correct the false image of Germany as a land of mystic enchantment propagated

twenty years earlier by Madame de Staël's De l'Allemagne. Hoffmeister delineates how

all these projects failed. A quarrel with Victor Cousin led to isolation from the

political-philosophical scene. Heine's inability to write French as fluently and wittily

as he spoke it restricted his ability to earn a living by writing in Paris. And the French

remained obstinately devoted to Madame de Staël's image of Germany. Despite the

publication of eight sections in Victor Bohain's newly launched L'Europe littéraire, his

De l'Allemagne received little attention and garnered few sales. Heine's self

characterization as "ce pauvre rossignol allemand qui a fait son nid dans la perruque

de M. de Voltaire" in a letter to Sainte René Taillandier a year before his death

demonstrates the poet's acute awareness of his inability to gain recognition for his

philosophical and political ideas.

Hoffmeister convincingly traces the far greater success of Heine's poetry in

challenging the traditional French romantic image of Germany as the land of poetic

dreamers and in influencing the development of French poetry. The partial

translation of Reisebilder as Tableaux de Voyage by Renduel in 1832 won Heine praise

150 Reviews

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for its satirical-ironic tone. It became Heine's most popular book in France. Nerval's

lyrical translations of excerpts from Heine's poetry in the Revue des Deux Mondes in

1844 and his rhythmic prose poem translations of sixteen poems from Heine's

masterpiece, Buch der Lieder (Le Livre des chants), in the 15 September 1848 issue of

the Revue des Deux Mondes introduced the French to Heine's peculiar combination of

musical lyricism with witty sarcasm. The publication of his Œuvres complètes by

Michel Lévy-frères in 1855, followed by a second edition in 1857, sealed Heine's

reputation in France as the poet who could masterfully interplay lyrical songs about

unrequited love with mocking irony. According to critics cited by Hoffmeister, in

particular, Boeck (1972), Hôhn (1994), Weinberg (1954), and Werner (1978, 1991).

Heine's coupling of romantic longing and mystery with wit and irony inspired

numerous imitations by both Romantic and post-Romantic French poets ranging

from Nerval and Gautier to Baudelaire, Mallarmé, Banville, and Laforgue and

extending to the twentieth-century writers Apollinaire and Gide. Hoffmeister

concludes with a section on André Suarès's image of Heine as a fellow exile and victim

of anti-Semitism.

In the second half of his study, Hoffmeister demonstrates the central role played

by both Nerval's translations and the Revue des Deux Mondes in introducing Heine's

work to writers, critics, academics, and the reading public in other romance

languages, particularly in Italy, Spain, and South America. The two French sources

accounted for the rapid spread of the cult of Heinismo, starting in 1831 and continuing

into the twentieth century. But they also facilitated the first impression of Heine as a

sentimental lyricist. Once poets and critics had access to Heine's political and ironic,

witty writings through translations into their own tongues, Heine's influence on the

evolution of poetry from Romanticism to modern movements became evident.

Hoffmeister concludes his study by citing Suarès's 1946 affirmation that Heine's

lasting contribution is the compact song form which compresses many conflicting

moods and thoughts into a few lines. The book includes an extensive bibliography of

Heine editions, translations, and secondary literature but unfortunately lacks an

index.

Although Hoffmeister's presentation of Heine's general influence on French and

Romanic poetry is convincing, scholars will likely question whether it is possible to

ascertain this influence for specific poems. Nevertheless, this meticulously researched

and succinctly presented study should interest all students of nineteenth-century

French and European literature and culture. Specialists in the development of poetry

and the role of the literary magazine in the diffusion of poetry will want to pay special

attention to this book.

Nineteenth-Century French Studies 32, Nos. 1 8î 2 Fall-Winter 2003-2004

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