6 - Frankenstein

Summary

French Painters and Conditions in France illustrate one side of Heine's self-chosen activity in Paris: keeping German readers informed of significant happenings in France and explaining the French to the Germans in such a way that better understanding might lead to friendship and alliance. The works that were ultimately entitled Towards a History of Religion and Philosophy in Germany (Zur Geschichte der Religion und Philosophic in Deutschland) and The Romantic School (Die romantische Schule) represent the other, complementary side: here Heine tried to explain the Germans to the French, but to do this in such a way that the resulting works would be of interest to German readers, too. Two-thirds of what was to become The Romantic School was written first; Towards a History came next; and then The Romantic School was completed, along with another, related work entitled Elemental Spirits (Elementargeister). Portions of these works made their first public appearance in French translation in L'Europe littéraire and the Revue des deux mondes, from March 1833 onwards; they later appeared again in a collected edition entitled De l'Allemagne (1835). The German text of Towards a History then made up the second volume of Heine's Salon (Der Salon. Zweiter Band, 1834); and The Romantic School appeared under the German form of that title in 1836, parts of it having made an earlier appearance under the title Towards a History of German belles lettres in Recent Times (Zur Geschichte der neueren schönen Literatur in Deutschland, 1833).