The
year 1831--a turning-point in the mental history of Carlyle, for it
was also the year in which _Sartor Resartus_ took shape "among the
mountain solitudes"--was largely devoted to Essays on the history of
German literature, of which one, that on the _Nibelungenlied_, is
specially memorable. And some ten years later (1840) he again took up
the theme in the first of his lectures on Heroes, which still remains
the most enlightening, because the most poetic, account of the primitive
Norse faith, or rather successive layers of faith, in our language.
[Footnote: See _Lectures on Heroes_, p. 20; compare _Corpus Poeticum
Borealt_, i. p. ci. ] But what mainly concerns us here is that Carlyle,
in this matter as in others, had clearly realized and as clearly defines
the goal which the student, in this case the student of literary
history, should set before his eyes.
"A History ... of any national Poetry would form, taken in its complete
sense, one of the most arduous enterprises any writer could engage in.
Poetry, were it the rudest, so it be sincere, is the attempt which man
makes to render his existence harmonious, the utmost he can do for
that end; it springs, therefore, from his whole feelings, opinions,
activity, and takes its character from these.
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