Conclusion: Great Books, Or: The Laurel Wreath as a Mixed Blessing

Summary

NOVELS FROM THE Age of Emotion show a preoccupation with feelings and reflection; however, a comparative glance at the genre of poetry reveals parallel interests and a similar phenomenon, the prevalence of men among canonical poets. Indeed, poets are quick to thematize the issue of posthumous honor that the laurel wreath represents. Johanne Charlotte Unzer, known as “die Zieglerin,” remarks on the well-deserved admiration that truly sublime works receive from posterity: “Doch, wem die gütige Natur / Den Geist, der fähig ist, zu leben, / Und in erhabnen Werken nur / Sein edles Leben führt, bey der Geburt gegeben, / Der wird nicht nur von seiner Zeit / Bewundert.” (However, he to whom good nature / a spirit capable of life / living only in sublime works a noble life / he will be—and not merely by his own time / admired.) Thirty years later, the poet Anna Louise Karsch replies to Unzer's observation in one of her own poems: “Die Zieglerin, im Lorbeerkranze / Schön abgebildet, war berühmt, als kaum an mir / Das Auge ward gebaut; und jetzo spricht die ganze / Gelehrte Welt nicht mehr von ihr.” (Mrs. Ziegler, with a laurel wreath / beautifully depicted, was famous, when I had hardly / an eye turned to me; and now the entire / Learned World no longer speaks of her.) Karsch is an eyewitness to the trivialization of her predecessor, and she thus wonders whether her contemporaries’ admiration for her poetry will endure. She clearly wishes not to have her work branded as trivial and subsequently forgotten.

German and English both use the word “trivial,” and its meaning in the two languages generally overlaps. Literature can be saved for posterity either by refraining from labeling it as trivial, or by reconsidering the connotation of the word. Writing around 1800 in England, Wordsworth selects precisely this word in his now celebrated poem “Tintern Abbey,” when he reflects on the issues of beauty and emotions and correlates them with acts and ideas of no trivial importance. His poem speaks poignantly of emotions and muses about the possibility of their permanence: