The devotees of Apollo have to give a good account of themselves in Olympia before, they can become persona grata on Olympus. They spend their lives, more or less, at the various games of poetry. Some, like Goethe, win in the majority of trials, and then we study all of their records regardless of their individual excellence. Some like Immermann in Oberhof, win only once, but this is sufficient to insure immortality. Some play and joust, run and wrestle with constancy and grace; their records, just after starting and just before finishing, are interesting, but in the end they are always defeated. And when this is the case, posterity, lay and initiated, forgets their names and concerns itself in no wise with their records, unless it be for statistical purposes. It is to the latter class that Graf von Loeben[1] belongs. For twenty-five years he was a perpetual, loyal, chivalric contestant in the Olympic vale of poetry. His running was interesting, but he never won; he never wrote a single thing that everybody still reads for its own sake.

Aside from his connection with the Lorelei-matter, Graf von Loeben is, therefore, at present, a wholly obscure, indeed unknown, Poet. The large Konversations-Lexikons[2] of Meyer and Brockhaus say nothing about him, unless it be in the discussion of some other poet with whom he associated. Of the twenty best-known histories of German literature, some of which treat nothing but the nineteenth century, only six contain his name, and these simply mention him either as a member of the Dresden group of pseudo-romanticists, or as one of those Afterromantiker who did yeoman service by way of bringing real romanticism into disrepute through their unsubstantial, imitative, and formless works. And this is true despite the fact that Loeben was an exceedingly prolific writer and a very popular and influential man in. his day. Concerning his personality, Muncker says: "Die Tiefe und WÄrme seines leicht erregbaren GemÜthes, seine Herzensreinheit, seine schwÄrmerische Hingabe an alles SchÖne und Edle sowie sein zartes TactgefÜhl erwarben ihm bei Freunden und Bekannten das Lob einer schÖnen Seele in des Wortes schÖnster Bedeutung."[3]

As to his poetic ability from the point of view of quantity, one can only marvel at the amount he produced in the time at his disposal; his creative works cover all types and sorts of literature.[4] He is best known for his numerous poems and his magnus opus, Guido, a novel of 360 pages, written under the pen-name of "Isidorus Orientalis," and intended as a continuation of Novalis' Ofterdingen; he used Tieck's notes for this purpose. He wrote also a great number of letters, between 60 and 70 elaborate reviews, and some critical essays, the best of which seems to be his commentary to Madame de StaËl's De l'Allemagne, while he translated from Anacreon, Dante, Guarini, Horace, Ovid, Petrarch, Vergil, and others, and left a number of fragments including the outline of a pretentious novel of which Heinrich von Veldeke, whom he looked upon as "der Heilige des Enthusiasmus," was to be the hero. And he was, incidentally, an omnivorous reader, for, as he naÏvely said:

Viele BÜcher muss ich kennen,
Denn die Menschen kenn' ich gern.[5]

As to his originality, another confession is significant:

Ja, es gibt nur wenig Leute,
Deren SchÜler ich nicht bin.[6]

No attempt, however, has as yet been made at even an eclectic edition of his numerous finished works, a few of which are still unpublished, many of which are now rare.[7]

As to his standing with his literary contemporaries, Eichendorff admitted[8] that Loeben influenced him as a man and as a poet; it was he who induced Eichendorff to write some of his earlier works under the pen-name of "Florens." And Eichendorff in turn credited Goethe with the remark[9] that "Loeben war der vorzÜglichste Dichter jener Zeit." His influence on Platen[10] is not quite so certain; Loeben was Platen's senior by ten years, and they resembled each other in their ability to employ difficult verse and strophe forms, and Platen read Loeben in 1824. Kleist interested himself in Loeben sufficiently to publish one of his short stories in his AbendblÄtter, but only after he had so thoroughly revised it that Reinhold Steig says: "Ich wÜrde als Herausgeber die ErzÄhlung sogar unter Kleists Parerga aufnehmen."[11] His connection with, and influence upon, the Dresden group of romanticists, including Tieck, is a matter of record,[12] and FouquÉ looked upon him as a poet of uncommon ability.[13]

But let no one on this account believe that Loeben was a great poet and that the silence concerning him is therefore grimly unjust. Goethe, whether he made the foregoing remark or not, at least received[14] Loeben kindly; but he received others in the same way who were not poets at all. Eichendorff said: "Loeben. Wunderbar poetische Natur in stiller VerklÄrung."[15] But Eichendorff was then only nineteen years old, and he later took this back. Herder was moved to tears[16] on reading Loeben's Maria, but Herder was easily moved, and he died soon after; he would in all probability have changed his mind too. Friedrich Schlegel, on the other hand, was not justified in calling[17] the pastoral poems in Arkadien "Schafpoesie." Uhland praised[18] these same poems; but he reminded Loeben in no uncertain terms, that the chief characteristic of southern poetry was "Phantasie," while that of the northern poets was "GemÜth," and that the attempt to revive the spirit of Guarini, Cervantes, and their kind was not well taken.

That Loeben has been so totally neglected by historians and encyclopedists is simply a case of that disproportion that so frequently characterizes general treatises. Loeben is entitled to some space in large works on German literature; but he was, like many another who has been given space, a weak poet. And the sort of weakness, with which he was endowed can be brought out by a discussion of two of his novelettes, Das weisse Ross,[19] and Leda, neither of which is by any means his best work, and neither of which seems to be his worst. But, to judge from what has been said of his prose works in general, both are quite typical.

The plot so far as the action[20] is concerned is as follows: Otto owes the victory he won at a tournament in NÜrnberg largely to the beauty and agility of his great white horse Bellerophon. Siegenot von der Aue had seen him and his horse perform and determined to obtain Bellerophon, if possible, for, owing to a curse pronounced on his family by a remote ancestor, Siegenot must either win at the next tournament or become a monk, which he does not wish to do. Both he and Otto love Felicitas, the niece of Graf Berthald. Siegenot secures Bellerophon, is victorious at the tournament, though seriously wounded, and is nursed back to health by Otto and Felicitas. It is Otto, however, who wins Felicitas through his chivalric treatment of his rival. The two are married, while Siegenot rides away on the great white horse Bellerophon.

It is such creations that make us turn away from Loeben. Alas for German romanticism if this story were wholly typical of it! It contains the traditional conceits of the orthodox romanticists, but applied in such a sweet, lovely, pretty fashion! One woman is placed between two men, for in that way Loeben could best bring out his philosophy of friendship. The only change, it seems, that he ever made in this arrangement was to place one man between two women. The sick-bed is poetized as the cradle of knowledge, for in it, or on it, we become introspective and learn life. Old chronicles, tournaments, jewelry, precious stones, Maryism, nature from every conceivable point of view, dreams and premonitions, visions and hallucinations, religion of the renunciatory type, the pain that clarifies, the friendship that weeps, Catholic painting and lute music, and love—human and divine—these are the main themes in this tale. Lyrics and episodic stories are interpolated, obsolete words and stylistic archaisms occur. In short, the novelette reads like an amalgamation of Novalis without his philosophy, Waekenroder without his suggestiveness, and Tieck without his constructive ability.

The story[21] entitled Leda is again typical of Loeben. Briefly stated, the plot is as follows: Leda, the daughter of a Roman duke, loves Cephalo, who is a gentleman but not a nobleman, and is loved by him. Her father, however, has forced her to become engaged to Alberto, a man of high degree, whom she does not love. The wedding is imminent, and Leda is sorely perplexed. Her father does not know why she is so indifferent to the approaching event and accordingly sends her to a distant and lonely castle in the hope that she may become interested, at least, in her own nuptials. While there she drowns herself in the swan lake. Alberto drops out of the story, and Cephalo becomes the intimate friend of the duke. Previous to this Alberto had ordered a certain painter to paint a picture of "Leda and the Swan." Danae, the daughter of an old, unscrupulous antiquarian, was seen by Cephalo while posing as a model for Leda. Enraged at this, she tells her father that she will not be appeased until married to Cephalo. But she loses her life through the falling of an old, dilapidated castle wherein she has been keeping an unconventional tryst, and Cephalo becomes the intimate friend of the painter.

Loeben's ideas and technique stand out in every line of this story. One woman is placed between two men, unexpected friendships are developed, the lute and the zither are played in the moonlight, love and longing abound, nature is made a confidant, der Zaubern der Kunst is overdone, familiar stories—Leda and the Swan, Actaeon and Danae—are interwoven, there are manifest reminiscences of Emilia Galotti and Ofterdingen, and the prose is uncommonly fluent. The only character in the entire narrative who has any virility is the antiquarian, and he is one of the meanest Loeben ever drew. Alberto has no will at all, Leda not much, Cephalo less than Leda, and Danae is without character. In short, the only valuable, part of the story lies in its approach to a development of the psychology of love in art. But it is only an approach; and it does not make one feel inclined to read a vast deal more of the prose works of Graf von Loeben.

As to Loeben's lyrics,[22] they are irregular, inconsistent, and odd as to orthography,[23] melodious and flowing in form, poor in ideas, rich in feeling that frequently sounds forced, representative of nearly all the important Germanic, Romance, and Oriental verse and strophe forms, reminiscent of his reading[24] in many instances, and romantic as a whole, especially in their constant portrayal of longing. Loeben was the poet of Sehnsucht. He tried always das Nahe zu entfernen und das Ferne sich nahe zu bringen. With a few conspicuous exceptions, his lyrics resemble those of Geibel somewhat in form and treatment. Poetry and individual poets receive grateful consideration, the seasons are overworked, love rarely fails and nature never, wine and the Rhine are not forgotten, and the South is poetized as the land of undying inspiration. Of their kind, and in their way, Loeben's poems are nearly perfect.[25] There are no expressions that repel, no verses that jar, no poems that wholly lack fancy, and there are occasional evidences of the inspiration that rebounds. It would be presumptuous to ask for a more amiable poem than "FrÜhlingstrost" (46), or for a neater one than "Der NichterhÖrte" (121), or for a more gently roguish one than the triolett[26] entitled "Frage" (55).

But be his poems never so good, there is no reason why Loeben should be revived for the general reader. His prose works lack artistic measure and objective plausibility; his lyrics lack clarity and virility; his creations in general lack the story-telling property that holds attention and the human-interest touches that move the soul. His thirty-nine years were too empty of real experience;[27] his works are not filled with the matter that endures. And it is for this reason that they ceased to live after their author had died. His connection with this earth was always just at the snapping-point. His works constitute, in many instances, a poetic rearrangement of what he had just latterly read. And when he is original he is vacuous. To emphasize his works for their own sake would consequently be to set up false values. Loeben can be studied with profit only by those people who believe that great poets can be better understood and appreciated by a study of the literary than by a study of the economic background. To know Loeben[28] throws light on some of his much greater contemporaries—Goethe, Eichendorff, Kleist, Novalis, Arnim, Brentano, Uhland, GÖrres, Tieck, and possibly Heine.