L. Peeters - Das Kudrunepos H 413

107. I. SchrObler, Wikingisehe . . . . S. 107, FuBnote. 108. Kfibel, Das Fortleben, S. 53. 109. Caries, l~tudes Germaniques 20 (1965), S. 385. 110. Frenzel, G.R.M. 36 (1955), S. 162. 111. Die Olimpiaepisode in Ariosts Orlando Furioso ist aneh fOx die Werke des

Jonkers Jan van der Noot aus Antwerpen, Das Buch Extasis; Cort Begryp der XIL Boecken Olympiados; Abregd des douze livres Olympiades yon Interesse. Siehe dariiber C. A. Zaalberg, ,,Das Buch Extasis" van Jan van der Noot. Assert 1954 und C.A. Zaal- berg, The Olympia Epics of Jan van der Noot. Assert 1956.

C O S M I C V I S I O N I N L O H E N S T E I N ' S P O E T R Y

Though Daniel Casper von Lohenstein (1635-1683) has been re~va- luated as a playwright and novelist in recent decades, little has been accomplished toward correcting the distorted picture of him as an "artificial" poet which has come down to us almost directly f rom the tastemakers of the German Enlightenment 1. I t is revealing, for example, that Wentzlaff-Eggebert's attempt to rehabilitate Lohenstein's religious lyrics as "explanatory" and "objective" founders precisely through overzealous reaction to the commonplace charge of empty rationalism. Whereas the younger Lohenstein admittedly excels in mastery of psycho- logy, scholarly imagination, and linguistic virtuosity rather than deep religious feeling, his stoic ethos is supposedly shaken at the height of his artistic achievement, while writing Arminius, so that he grasps for a surer hold besides reason 2. But the sole evidence adduced is a histrionic sonnet expressing desperation and disgust over corporeal vileness. Its sentiments are not at all foreign to Hofmanaswaldau, especially in old age, nor to Giinther when plagued by doubts; yet both of these Silesian worldlings depict themselves much more frequently and convincingly as downcast self-martyrs. The point is simply that we must be cautious about con- eluding that Lohenstein changes his intellectual allegiance because he touches - as indeed he does a few times - on a religious theme shared by a genuinely pious contemporary such as Gryphius.

Critical preoccupation over Lohenstein's often impugned sincerity is misleading if we are mainly interested in vindicating his "hear t" at the expense of his "head." For although he but seldom achieves a religious emotion which approaches Gryphius, he consistently attains insights of a convincingly complex order in another sphere. Lohenstein's best verse, whether ostensibly sacred or secular, expounds a cosmic vision. When he speaks of the structure and dynamics of the creation, he thinks of a highest creative principle - of Godhead rather than a Creator. When he speaks of eternity, we detect no linear concept which, in the strictest terms, either continues the Christian eschatological world view or fore- shadows Enlightenment theodicy. Instead, Lohenstein sees a cyclical

414 GeraM Gillespie - Cosmic Vision in Lohenstein's Poetry

pattern of time in line with stoic thought. His universe must return into primeval fire, ultimate catastrophe hovers over all, and there is a parallel between the death-doomed individual, historically limited civilizations, and the cosmos. Leaving aside for now the matter of other levels in Lohenstein's stratified concept of fate (Verh/ingnis), it is clear that on the highest level the creation manifests for him an implicit purposefulness. Yet because he spins an elaborate network of relativizing comparisons in his works, some critics are tempted to overlook the system underlying it3.

A dominant mentality shapes Lohenstein's presentation of the most diverse subjects, and everything, including the Christian world view, is subordinate within his larger polyhistoric framework. This shift in the order of values is evident in two long poems among his Himmel-Schlus- sel 4. The first, ,,Wtmder-Geburt unsers Erlrsers", is neither warmly Christological, as would be characteristic of Pietistic writing, nor ex- presses estrangement from this world in Gryphian mood; rather, it examines the concept of how God has "made this universe out of nothing" (In. 2). Fascinated by the entire scheme of human knowledge, Lohenstein cites ancient lore, the scriptures, history, the sciences, everything "'in the book of nature" (In. 128), which he is studiously footnoting. When he finds fault with heathen and Jewish concepts, it is really to show his command of the entire subject matter today known as the history of religion. Despite a more emotional evocation of the divine birth (In. 315 ft.), the sole important point is that something has happened to mankind, ,,dab Gottes Geist in Menschen sey gestiegen" (In. 339) and that ,,Die Menschheit ist vermischt mit seiner Gottheit Glantze" (In. 367). Following Italian models, the poet extols the Virgin as a "not small part of the miracle" (In. 564), cloyingly portrays her purity and motherhood, and e~ads with touches of sensualism (e.g., ln. 592 ft.) which infuses many Baroque treatments of saints by Catholic authors or those influenced by Catholic literature. Of course, sentimental bourgeois critics complained vociferously a generation later about his mixing of such "cold" historism and "hot" sensuality 5. But what they either failed to grasp or no longer were willing to accept was the symbolic role of Woman - and most especially that of the Virgin - as the human analogue to a vital macrocosm which could bring forth being.

This seventeenth-century context, implicit for Lohenstein but fading as his century waned, is indispensible for understanding the new symbolic role of Christ in the second, superior poem. ,,Leitung der Vernunfft zu der ewigen Zeugung und Menschwerdang des Sohns Gottes" widens rapidly into an explanation of the infinite creative principle which resides in Godhead and the purpose of a f inite universe. It describes the totality of creation as a process in which the stage of the Son is a transitional means of fulfillment of the original, generative impulse of the Father. The Christ-theme has become a metaphor for the mysterious happening in

Gerald Gillespie - Cosmic Vision in Lohenstein" s Poetry 415

which mankind participates, becauses Lohenstein is really broaching the idea of a system of spiritual energy, cosmic flow toward a higher state. The arcane moving principle called Love has a specific analogy in the processes of human thought during the generation of a positive resolve:

Wie der Verstand gebiehrt in der Vernunft den Willen/ So r/ihrt ein Drittes noeh yon Sohn und Vater her;

Umb die Vollkommenheit des Zeugens zuerftillen] Dis ist der Liebe Geist und unersch6pflich Meer.

(p. 34)

The immediate parallel is between the creative involution of mind (Godhead) in matter and the housing of man's spirit in his body (p. 36). The higher parallel is between the creation of the entire universe and the birth of Christ, for the mating of God and the Virgin is a representative marriage of Heaven and Earth (p. 40). Since ,,der Liebende" is also ,,die Liebe selber" and ,,sein Lieben nun auch ein selbst/indig Wesen" (p. 33), we have the trinity as an evolutionary metaphor on every level. A network of symbolic relationships links all phenomena: Christ as God-man represents man as soul-nature, and man "the little world" lives in corre- spondence to the universe infused with divine creative energy.

Lohenstein's interpretation of the Virgin is not daring; he merely uses a theme familiar in Silesian thought - as may be illustrated by Friedrich yon Logau's couplet, ,,Der Mai":

Dieser Monat ist ein KuB, den der Himmel gibt der Erde, DaB sic jetzund seine Braut, kflnftig eine Mutter werde 6

Behind this trope of the marriage of Heaven and Earth is the serious view of Woman as epitome of beauteous, fertile nature. The greatest talents such as Paul Fleming, drawing on both the Paracelsian and Petrarchan traditions, celebrated the female of the species as the true embodiment of the "perfection" and "charm" and "divinity" in God's creation 7. Precisely because they were so self-explanatory, a poet could manipulate many formulas of glorification as effectively compact terms in briefer lyrics. Many epithalamia of the day did, however, give their full significance, expatiating on the correspondences between human sexu- ality and the operations of nature and the universe.

The ecstatic bridal song closing part one of Arrninius reveals how deep and positive is Lohenstein's fascination with such a vitalism. No dis- appointed rationalist turning back to religion exults over the splendor of life in these lines:

Was ist nun herrlicher als dieser Erden-KreiB? Was ist der grossen Himmels-Kugel gleiche/ Der Sternen Burg/der Gttter Ktnigreiche? Sic zwey sind aber stets yon Liebe gl/iend-heiB. Kein Bliek vergeht: dab sie yon sfissen Flammen

416 Gerald Gillespie - Cosmic Vision in Lohenstein' s Poetry

Nicht fliissen gleiehsam sehmeltzende zusammen. Der Himmel ist der Mann/die Erd ist Braut und Weib Sein Saamen ist die Glut/ Ihr Saame Saltz und Flut/ Und ihre sehwang're SchoB ein stets gebehrend Leib.

(in. 42-51)

Composed in a form anticipating eighteenth-century hyrnnic free verse, this paean to love stands midway between Fleming and Brockes in its rhythms and subject matter, omitting no sector of the animal, vegetable, and mineral kingdoms in its survey of amorous pulsations. Lohenstein's works contain many notable images of circles wheels, clocks, and chains expressing the interlocked, finite natural order 8. But one of the most pithy usages is a statement in this poem which fuses the Baroque vitalistic (Lucretius, Paracelsus) and mechanistic (Descartes) explanations:

Kurtz aUe Regtmg der Natur Ist eine wahre Liebes-Uhr.

(In. 38-39)

The opening words of the prose-poem ,,Vereinbarung der Sterne und der Gemtither" (Rosen, p. 116) emphasizes hidden processes, mysterious affinities, an innate charm in life: ,,Der weise Baumeister dieses Allen hat theils eine erg/itzende Wiederwartigkeit gewissen Sachen eingepflantzet/ meist aber die grossen Gesch6pffe der Welt re_it einer wunderbaren Kette der Eintracht vereinigt/ und ihre an sich selbst wiederw/irtige Eigen- schafften durch eine annehmliche Zusammenstimmung mit einander verm~ihlet." This coincidence of opposites occurs not only in the cosmos, but in the attraction of two hearts. His image for the "something" that guides us is a needle in the psyche (p. 126). Man's purpose is guaranteed through internal correspondence with universal laws as well as external analogy to the macrocosm: ,,Die allergrSste Gleichf6rmigkeit aber hat der Mensch/als ein ewiges Gesch/Spffe mit der Eigenschafft des Himmels" (p. 124).

Ordinarily, the poet identifies this "property of heaven" with man's spirit or reason. Excited by his own thoughts in ,,Leitung~derlVernunfft...," Lohenstein describes reason as the Zoroastrian winged soul, a motif familiar to seventeenth-century readers in the emblem of the eagle which can soar into the sun:

Kanstu's begreifen nicht/Vermin(t? So schwing die Flftgel Zur Sonne/die ihm Gott zum Schatten hat erkiest.

Sie zeugt das Lieht in sich/und wird ihr eigen Spiegel; Nun lerne: dab auch Gott ein Licht und fruchtbar ist.

(p. 34)

This imagery of apotheosis rings not with religious joy, but with the pride of the mind on the crossroads of scientific discovery. The collection

Gerald Gillespie - Cosmic Vision in Lohenstein's Poetry 417

o f memor ia l s cal led Hyacinthen makes i t abundan t l y clear tha t Lohen- stein no longer speaks o f the " sou l " jus t in the Chr is t ian sense, bu t o f m a n ' s a l l -conquer ing intellect. They too are replete with a l lus ions to the s idereal or igins o f " f iery" reason and recall p re -Socra t ic doct r ines o f an ae ther which mot ivates the wor ld and Lucre t ius ' theory o f an act ivat ing impulse.

Lohens te in ' s freest eulogy, , ,Die H~She des Menschl ichen Geis tes : f iber das Abs t e rben Hn. Andreae Gryph i i , " begins unmis t akab ly as a hymn to man ' s divine intel l igence:

Wohin hat sieh der Geist der Menschen nieht geschwungen? Die kleine Welt reicht bin/wie weit die grosse grRntzt. Derm ist der spriede Leib gleich nur yon Thon' entsprungen] So sieht man doch: das Gott aus diesen Schlacken gl~intzt. DaB iehtwas Himmlisehes beseele das Gehirne/ Der Uhrsprung sey yon Gott/das Wesen vom Gestime.

Die Sonne der Vemunft/das Auge des GemOttes/ Maeht uns zu Herrn der Welt] zu Meistem der Natur.

(p. 23)

I l lus t ra t ions o f man ' s sciences since ancient t imes, t r ibutes to all forms o f explora t ion , to co loniza t ion and civilizing acts follow. The poe t comment s wi th sat isfact ion:

Ja eines Menschen Geist kan tausend Wunder stifften] Wenn Fleis die Sinnen scharft] mad Weisheit den Verstand. Die Welt/das Grosse Buch/steckt in gelehrten Schrifften/ Daraus uns der Natur Geheimntis wird bekant; Ja ein scharfsichtig Geist ist fiihig diB zu lernen/ Was fiber die Natur/was auser Welt und Sternen.

In dem Gehime steckt's Register der Geschichte/ Und sein Ged~ichtnfis ist die Mappe gantzter Welt/ Er zeucht Wald/Stein und Wild durch Harffen mad Getichte Schafft durch Beredsamkeit: DaB Grimm mad P6fel f~illt. Zwingt durchs Gesetzes Zaum der rauhen V61cker Sitten; DaB tausend L~indern kan ein einig Haupt gebitten.

(p. 24f.)

The preface to the panegyr ic concludes assert ing tha t m a n can even in te rpre t the na ture o f G o d :

Jedoch shad alles dis ibm noch zu enge Schrancken Weil er von Gott herkomrnt] so schwingt er sich zu Gott] Vergeistert Andachts-voll die Himmlischen Gedancken/ Umbarmt die Ewigkeit urnbschr~tnckt mit Angst und Tod/ Durchforscht die hohe Schrifft/ha der uns Gott heist lesen/ Ja Glaub' und Liebe fast der Gottheit tieffes Wesen.

Herr Gryphens Seele war ein Muster solcher Geister . . . (p. 26 f.)

Of course, the pansoph ic idea o f in terpre t ing the " b o o k s " of the wor ld - N a t u r e and S c r i p t u r e - was a l ready thorough ly deve loped by grea t Chr is t ian educat ional is ts l ike Comenius ; and even Lohens te in ' s descr ip-

418 GeraM Gillespie - Cosmic Vision in Lohenstein' s Poetry

tion of the brain as "the register of history" and "portfolio of the entire world" has nothing revolutionary about it, so far as contemporary thought was concerned. Earlier polyhistors had already adumbrated the encyclopaedism of the eighteenth century, whose first monument is roughly Pierre Bayle's rationalist dictionary of 1699. But Lohenstein's concentration on the heroic quality of the intellect which wins freedom from transitoriness has an intense, fervent ring.

Gryphius will live on ,,in tausend Seel'n/als reinen Tempeln," that is, in the minds of humankind's dite. Gryphius' soul has climbed so high that, even after time is over, it will be building itself in eternity ,,ein neues Siegs-Altar" (p. 31). As this hyperbole asserts, there is no rest for ambition, no limit to the scope of heroism, but only striving. Man's divine spark makes him virtually godlike in an endless expansion of innate powers as he participates in a titanic drama of discovery, which is also the realization of his own mission - an apotheosis! Uniquely, Lohenstein is able to link wisdom and activity, creating a dynamic area of freedom within the acknowledged limitations of nature, and does not thll back on a passive or purely contemplative view of virtue 9. If we now relate this poem on Gryphius to ,,Leitlmg der Vernurtfft . . . . " the Platonistic tone of the imagery of a return to origins assumes a more dynamic sense. The creation, a rationalistic natura naturans, is actually transfigured through the meaningful actions of humanity.

If we may even use Wentzlaff-Eggebert's term "crisis," the evidence shows not so much religious, as intellectual reservations, on Lohenstein's part regarding reason. His conception of fate (Verh~ingnis) is not synony- mous with providence (Vorsehung) and incorporates elements from antiquity. Positively, reason is a potential for response to the world in whatever particular constellation the reasoner discovers it, but reason can only "play" with the shifting situation given by destiny 10. Negatively, reason is merely one factor - albeit an exalted one - among a plurality of factors; and Lohenstein's trust in its powers weakened to the extent that he probed the significance of the affects and the mind as a wellspring of irrational impulses, too. This development is more discernible in his plays and, unfortunately, lies outside the province of this paper. It must suffice here to point to the connection between his poetic fascination for erotic themes and overall tendency to relativize values. The "epical" celebration of love in Lohenstein's long poem "Venus" exhibits his interest in passion and suggests an ideal of harmony with reason, a thought which also occurs in Arminius 1L Though the motifs of light, fire, flame, sun, and similar terms have a distinct set of functions in seventeenth-century love poetry, Lohenstein is ultimately tempted to associate the religious-philosophical ("soul," "mind," "reason") with the amorous-vitalistic ("love," "passion," "life") meanings. This imagery finally provides a formalistic bridge over the chasm separating the spirit and the flesh, as we notice so strikingly in the play Sophonisbe 12. Here

Gerald Gillespie - Cosmic Vision in Lohenstein's Poetry 419

Lohenstein interprets the Venus principle, too, as deriving from the primal fire that moves all things, thus truly divine.

But, in spite of its attractiveness, life is still held under the polyhistor's ironic glass for examination in poems which, like the often anthologized ,,Aufschrift eines Labyrinths," offer pure definitions. This conceptual tour de force with the motifs of a path and deviations ends in a neutral epigram, because it utters established truth and natural law. The poet's severe gaze at transitoriness is in itself an example of an act of heroic intellect, needing no personal endorsement. The Pauline race of which Gryphius speaks is matched by Lohenstein's picture of the dark labyrinth- both externally in the world, and internally in the human brain.

The poem typically presents "vice" as the anti-principle manifest in the various weaknesses of the ages of man, a creature in confused motion between birth and death. Yet the implication of the "structure" of the "temple" (body/world) is positive: though the finite microcosm and macrocosm are subject to decay, they reveal infinity and essence. For the temple, as the title already states, bears an "inscription" or signatura, whose meaning can be deciphered. Through reason - as Lohenstein once again reiterates with his standard metaphor of the winged soul - man can ascend to the Godhead, return to the wellspring of being.

The motif of the labyrinth in later German poetry is so familiar that today's reader will, in recalling Wieland's ,,Labyrinth des Lebens," Goethe's ,,Labyrinth der Brust," and other variations, not fail to detect in Lohenstein's formulation a hint of things to come:

Wer abet dureh den Bau verniinftig irregeht, Wird seines Heiles Weg, der Wahrheit Richtschnur finden.

(In. 17-18)

The phrase ,,verniinftig irregehen" suggests the dark urge of Faustian striving not because Lohenstein generated the idea, but because he was affected here by the language and thought of his times, out of which eventually emerged the organic view. Its roots are in late Renaissance nature philosophy and mysticism (Andreae, B6hme, Comenius, et aL). Intrigued by Mediterranean lore, humanists introduced into educated speech in the sixteenth century exciting terms such as "labyrinth" and "hieroglyph" which were destined to expand poetically and serve in the expression of that peculiarly German sort of metaphysical quest for a key to unity and inner illumination. What is notable in Lohenstein's cosmolo- gical vision in the Himmel-Schliissel is the lack of an obsessive central issue. One clearly emerges in the early decades of the eighteenth century when Albrecht yon Hailer (1708-1777) writes his famous poem ,,l~ber den Ursprung des f0bels" with a related, but intenser, grandiloquence. Though Lohenstein touches on the fundamental and troublesome paradox that ,,Aus dieser Liebe [i.e., the Creator's] wiichst die Wurtzel alles B~Ssen" (,,Leitung der Vernunfft . . . . " p. 37), he never penetrates deeply

420 GeraM Gillespie - Cosmic Vision in Lohenstein's Poetry

into the Brhmean idea of man's story as a drama of love contending against hate. We perceive the pattern of dialectical processes in Lohen- stein, but his emphasis is constantly on man's triumphant return self- transfigured to his origins.

Despite careful approbations, and even some ecstatic glorification, of earthly love, Lohenstein still portrays the "soul" in an older pose of martyrdom as the imprisoned divine likeness. His ambivalent attitude rests on a clear hierarchy of humane attributes, among which heroic fortitude (virtus) is supreme. It is thus Hofmannswaldau, rather than Lohenstein, who lays the more immediate groundwork for urbane worldly lyricism, a poetry of certainty about the goodness of the body as man's instrument. The Baroque yearning for apotheosis begins to look ridi- culous to those confident in terrestial progress, the faith of the Enlighten- ment. A new generation of celebrators of the pleasure principle and civilizing instincts relapses less and less into despising friendly nature, because in and through it, they believe, the whole human race can achieve an implicit spiritual evolution. Lohenstein, as polyhistor, contributes to the formulation of natural in place of theological law, but is not an advanced exponent of all the poetic corollaries. Gradually, his kind of glorification of individual "superhumanity" seems to transgress the beneficent order of the creation; and, inevitably, the true forerunners of Enlightenment attitude broach the matter. Hofmannswaldau, for example, specifically disabuses himself of his own era's exhausted concep- tion of grandeur and reinterprets it with gentle irony in the poem ,,Seine Geliebte wolte ins Kloster gehen", wittily pillorying motif by motif the whole metaphor complex of ascension - Lohenstein's favorite means to express the dignity of Heroic Reason.

If Lohenstein ever read this poem in manuscript, he doubtless enjoyed his friend's elegant argument, which depends for its effect on contempo- rary familiarity with the values and forms being mocked. And as a participant in the gallant mode, Lohenstein himself sometimes chides unreasonable, i.e., inappropriate, behavior by fleshly mortals. There is, however, no evidence of personal wavering in his belief that the mind could transcend the human situation. - But the new age favors accep- tance; it rebukes man for struggling against his own nature; pleasure even becomes a duty; and reason grows tender. The tense days of the generalis- simo and cavalier and other sorts of viri elari cede to the calmer times of burgher satisfaction. The validity of heroic transcendence is refocused upon an 61itist idyll of human happiness in the short-rived Arcadia of rococo lyrics. Gallant wit is tempered in sociable playfulness. As the connections to Lohenstein's poetic temperament fade, he becomes a kind of representative anachronism.

These remarks have attempted to sketch how Lohenstein's lyrics resemble his dramas and novel in their treatment of traditional philo- sophic and religious materials as relative, almost decorative, elements to

Gerald Gillespie - Cosmic Vision in Lohenstein" s Poetry 421

be manipula ted by intellect. His cosmic vision of the creation and of Love's operat ions conveys primari ly his own excitement over a new capacity in m a n for dialectical perceptions of vast complexity. We can detect in his exul tant command of disparate and exotic "facts" a new principle - the complete au tonomy of the creative mind, loosened f rom the ideological contexts with which it plays.

State University o f New York, Binghamton.

GERALD GILLESPIE.

Notes

1. Helmut MOiler, Studien iiber die Lyrik D. C. yon Lohensteins (diss. Greifswald, 1921) treats older formal questions and fails to probe the poet's themes. Albrecht Schfine shows a hopeful new direction in his oh. on ,,Das Spiel der Sinnbilder in Lohen- steins Sophonisbe" in Emblematik und Drama im Zeitalter des Barock (MOncben, 1964), pp. 98-114.

2. Friedrich-Wilhelm Wentzlaff-Eggebert, Das Problem des Todes in der deutschen Lyrik des 17. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1931), pp. 183-192.

3. Edward Verhofstadt, Daniel Casper yon Lohenstein: Untergehende Wertwelt und gisthetischer lllusionismus (Br~igge, 1964), argues that no really stable reference points exist in the imposing edifice of Lohenstein's polyhistorism, which he ably investigates in detail, and that it therefore is empty of genuine values. The poetry is dismissed com- pletely.

4. Lohenstein's poems will be cited according to pagination or line as given in each respective group from the collection brought out by Fellgibel (Breslau, 1680).

5. The complex story of the shift in tastes is best told by Manfred Windfuhr, Die barocke Bildlichkeit und ihre Kritiker: Stilhaltungen in tier deutschen Literatur des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (Metzler, 1966).

6. Deutsche Gedichte des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts, ed. Werner Milch (Heidelberg, 1954), p. 106. Readers will recognize that this trope is still alive in Eichendorff's famous poem ,,Mondnacht," beginning: ,,Es war, als h/itt' der Himmel/Die Erde still gekflBt,/ Dal3 sie im Bl~itenschimmer / Von lhm nun tr/iumen m~iBt."

7. Lucretius' influence on Renaissance nature philosophy, the poetic treatment of love's cosmic significance, and woman's special microcosmic divinity are best presented by Hans Pyritz, Paul Flemings Liebeslyrik: Zur Geschichte des Petrarkismus (G6ttin- gen, 1963), pp. 233-261.

8. Cf. Wilhelm Vosskamp, Zeit- und Geschichtsauffassung im 17. Jahrhundert bei Gryphius undLohenstein (Bonn, 1967), pp. 167 ft. As Vosskamp points out, Lohenstein draws much from ancient thought, e.g., Pythagoras and the Stoics, for his cosmology. No adequate study yet exists of the penetration of Cartesian thought per se, but in any case it affected Germany rather late in the seventeenth century; Lohenstein's sense of the kinetics of a system embracing the totality of the universe probably evinces only certain affinities but no filiation with Descartes.

9. Vosskamp clearly explicates Lohenstein's view of man as both subject and object of history (p. 173), the polarity of "fortune" and "virtue" (manliness) (p. 201 f.), and the primacy of intellect in fulfilling the mandate of the "occasion" (p. 209).

10. Lohenstein's idea of ,,verniinftiges Spielen" from the foreword to Sophonisbe is discussed by Vosskamp, p. 210 f., and in my study Daniel Casper yon Lohenstein's Historical Tragedies (Columbus, 1965).

11. Charlotte Lang Brancaforte's dissertation ,,Daniel Casper von Lohensteins Preisgedicht Venus: Eine Untersuchung yon Text, Struktur, Quellen und Sprache" (University of Illinois, 1966) treats the use of neo-Platonic and pantheistic ideas of love as a creative force in nature and humanity, and analogies with other erotic encomnia of the Baroque. ,,Venus" is available in the critical edition by A. G. de Capua and E. A. Philippson of the first vol. of Benjamin Neukirch's anthology Herrn yon Hoffmannswaldau und andrer Deutschen auserlesener und biflher ungedruckter Gedichte (Tiibingen, 1961),

422 Gerald Gillespie - Cosmic Vision in Lohenstein's Poetry

12. Fuller treatment of the themes alluded to in this paragraph are given in Daniel Casper yon Lohenstein's Historical Tragedies. On queen Sophonisbe's important speech, which connects the theme of primal energy (sun, fire, etc.), the theme of in- fecundation of feminine nature (,,beseelet Erd und Meer"), the motif complex of the stars and mankind's astral origins, the love emblems (flame, fire), and the emblem of sublime consummation and ascension or return to her fiery origins, (wings, soaring), see pp. 135 ft.

B L A K E A N D " E L E C T R I C A L M A G I C "

" M y wife," Blake wrote to Hayley, 23rd. October , 1804, " . . . is surpr is ingly recovered. Electr ici ty is the wonderfu l c a u s e ; . . . " 1 A n d on 18th December to the same co r re sponden t : " M y wife cont inues well, thanks to Mr . Birch 's Electr ical Magic , which she has d iscont inued these three mon ths . " 2

John Birch, surgeon (1745-1815) was in fact an o ld friend. Blake sends a message to him, via Butts, in a del. let ter o f 1 l t h September , 1801, 3 and ment ions h im in ano ther let ter on 25th Apr i l , 1803.4 I t was Blake ' s f r iend Johnson who, in 1802, publ i shed Birch 's Essay on the Medical Application o f Electricity, in which he compla ins :

I a m . . . obliged to limit the hospital practice to particular cases, which I attend to myself, because I can so seldom prevail on a young student to take the necessary pains which are required to become an able electrician. 5

The hospi ta l where Birch ran his electrical depa r tmen t s ingle-handed for so many years was St. Thomas ' s , which m a y explain the wa rmth of Blake 's t r ibute to tha t ins t i tu t ion in his prose on "The Can te rbury Pi lgr ims" in 1810:

St. Thomas's Hospi ta l . . . is one of the most amiable features of the Christian Church; it belonged to the Monastery of St. Mary Overies and was dedicated to Thomas a Becket. The Pilgrims, if sick or lame, on their Journey to and from his Shrine, were received at this House. Even at this day every friendless wretch who wants the succour of it, is considered as a Pilgrim travelling through this Journey of Life. 6

Consider ing Blake 's j o y at his wife 's recovery, it is no t surpris ing tha t electricity provides an impor t an t image in Milton. N o t electricity in general , bu t " M r . Birch 's Electr ical M a g i c " :

Now Albion's sleeping Humanity began to turn upon his Couch,

Feeling the electric flame of Milton's awful precipitate descent. 7

This descent o f Mi l ton has a l ready been descr ibed as