No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Hans Breitmann
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
Elizabeth Robins Pennell, die sehr gewandte Biograpbin ihres vergötterten Onkels, Ch. G. Leland schreibt mit einer etwas belehrenden Ueberlegenheit:
I have heard it said the “younger generation” does not read the “Breitmann Ballads.” But, for all that, Breitmann has in him the stuff that endures, the stuff that ensured his success from the start.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1939
References
1 Pennell, E. R., Ch. G. Leland, a Biography (Boston, 1906), i, 337 ff.Google Scholar
2 Bradley, E. S., “Hans Breitmann in England and America,” Colophon, n.s. ii (1936), pp. 65–81.Google Scholar
3 Pennell, op. cit., i, 341 ff.
4 Bradley, E. Sculley, G. E. Baker (Philadelphia 1927), pp. 262, 269.Google Scholar
5 Leland, Charles G., Memoirs (New York, 1893), pp. 191 ff.Google Scholar
6 Ch. G. Leland, Memoirs, p. 336. With the exception of Dan Rice's circus song “der good oldt Sherman Shentleman” and a rather flat parody of “Jessie” I had never seen or heard of any specimen of Anglo-German poetry.
7 Breitmann in Maryland, Breitmann in Kansas, Breitmann and the Turners, Hans Breitmann's Party, Hans Breitmann's Christmas.
8 Geist, Wein, Schnitzerl's Philosopede... .Google Scholar
9 Leland, eigener Bericht an Frank Fisher, seinen Vetter, am 25. April 1848 als Vorlage der Ballade “H. B. in forty-eight”: I turned out in the grande Revolution armed like a smuggler with dirk and pistols, saw some fusillades, helped build several barricades, was capitaine at one nice little one in our quartier ... it was great fun while it lasted—was that said same Revolution.
10 Leland bewegt sich in “H. Breitmann as an Uhlan” ganz im Kriegsstil der ihm wohl bekannten Revue des deux Mondes, die in den Jahren 70/71 zahlreiche Artikel über Les Allemands dans le Nord, en Lorraine, en Bougogne etc. brachte.
11 Pennell, E. R., i, 24 ff.Google Scholar
12 Ch. G. Leland, Memoirs, pp. 57, 94 ff.
13 Leland, Munich, 1 April 1847. They write works too refined, too delicate for mere mortals ... and they may be found in a Kneipe, drinking beer, smoking pipes and playing billards. I heard a beautiful young lady, the daughter of a King's secretary, say to day that she had had nothing all day long to eat or to drink except a quart of it. Heidelberg, 24. Juli 1846. How well these Dutch waltz—every dirty blackguard and servant girl in Germany can dance well.
14 Bradley, E. S., G. H. Boker, pp. 257 ff.Google Scholar
15 Pennell, E. R., Ch. G. Leland, op. cit., i, 205.Google Scholar
16 John L. Motley, in O. W. Long, Literary Pioneers, (Harvard Unïv. Press, 1935), p. 213. It is a singular anomaly—the whole German student existence. The German students are no more German than they are Sandwich Islanders. They have, in fact, less similarity with Germans, than any other nation. You see in them a distinct and strongly characterized nation, moving in a definite, though irregular orbit of its own, and totally independent of the laws which regulate the rest of the social system of Germany. It represents the regular phenomenon of a rude, though regularly organized republic, existing in the heart of a despotism. In fact, every one of the main points of the German character is directly opposite of those of the German student... . Lastly, the German is habitually sober, and the student invariably drunk.
17 Ch. G. Leland, Memoirs, pp. 84 ff.
18 Ch. G. Leland, Memoirs, p. 27. The Lelands, however, were rather dour and grim in their honesty, or more Northern than the Godfreys. This was accounted for by the fact, that while my father's family was Puritan of the purest, and only intermarried with Puritan stock, the Godfreys had in Rhode Island received an infusion of French Huguenot blood.
19 Memoirs, p. 144. Having come to Europe with a soul literally attenuated and starved for want of the ordinary gaiety and amusement which all youth requires, my life in Princeton having been one continued strain of a sobriety which continually sank into subdued melancholy. ... I grew vigorous and healthy.
20 Pennell, i, 383, Sept. 26, 1869. Our room faces on the Rhine and the view is very beautiful—wonderful. To the left we see the blue outline of the seven Hills, including the spot where Siegfried killed the dragon—there are towers and churches—and we are quite near the river. E. S. Bradley, E. Boker, p. 257. Here are four young English ladies, all full of senses, brains and fine arts, to look after.
21 Ch. G. Leland, Memoirs, p. 403. The German Minister in London ordered 6 copies, and the Times made the work, with all the facts and figures, into an editorial article, omitting, I regret to say, to mention the source whence it was derived ... when Prince Bismarck conversed with the French Commissioners to arrange terms of peace, he met this argument of not driving the French to extremes with the phrase so closely like the one which I have used in my pamphlet, that neither Mr. Trübner nor several others hesitated to declare to me that it was beyond question taken from it.
22 P. 222. There was in Philadelphia at this time a German bookseller named Christern ... he had a burly, honest, rather gross assistant named Ruhl, who had been a student in Munich, then a Revolutionist and exile, and finally a refugee to America ... about this time the great—I forgot his name; or was it Schöffel? who had been President of the Frankfurt Parliament, opened a lager beer establishment in Race Street, 234. There was also in the city a kind of irregular club known as the Bohemians, who had been inspired by Murger's novel of that name to imitate the life of its hero. They met every evening at a lager beer restaurant kept by a German named Pfaff, 273.I had two young friends named Colton, who had been in the war from the beginning to the end, and experienced its changes to the utmost. Neither was over twenty-one. William Colton, the elder, was a captain in the regular cavalry and the younger, Balduin, was his orderly. It was a man in the Captain's company, named Yost, who furnished the type of Breitmann as a soldier. An G. H. Boker (Aug. 1870) As for Breitmann not being true to life—why I knew a great German giant named Ruehl, who could talk Latin and who always talked patois and who for beer and Breitmannism went far beyond Hans.—Leland hat sich in diesem rowdy Breitmann vielfach auf den Boden gestellt, den er als zeitcharakteristisch anführt: Memoirs, 217 ff: A slight examination of the newspapers and cheap broadside literature of that time will amply confirm all that I here state. “Jakey” was the typical fireman; he was the brutal hero of a vulgar play, and the ideal of nineteen youths out of twenty... . I have a large collection of the popular songs of Philadelphia of that time, in all of which there is a striving downwards into blackguardism and brutality, vileness and ignorance.
23 Angell, J. D., “German Immigration to America,” North American Review, lxxxii (1856), 263–268, and after the close of the tragi-comedy (1848) thousands were obliged to flee from their homes for safety. These were not alone the poor and helpless, but a large proportion of their number were possessed of moderate wealth and of good education and talent. Among them were the most intellectual and accomplished of our German population.—Thomas D. Shipman, Report on the State of the Labor Market in New York (1866), N. 5, pp. 74–75. The German is quiet, persevering, frugal and cautious; he seldom commits himself by noisy demonstrations and acts in his new home with becoming discretion.—Andrew D. White at a farewell banquet given by the German-Americans, New York, May 22, 1897, pp. 9–10. Whether they have called themselves Republicans or Democrats, they have been almost to a man opposed to all wild fiscal experiments, to all financial tricks and efforts to outwit the eternal laws of nature.—Thomas S. Barclay, The liberal republican Movement in Missouri 1865–1871 (Columbia, 1926) p. 18.Google Scholar
The radical plans were opposed also by the representatives of the German element. The part played by the Germans of Missouri in 1861 and thereafter was well and deservedly known; they had been from the first loyal to the Union cause and the pronounced opponents of slavery. Their leaders in the convention, it is true, were Radicals, but of rather a more idealistic bent than was deemed necessary by the practical politicians present.
24 Pennell, E. R., Ch. G. Leland, op. cit., i, 349. Leland, Memoirs, pp. 240 ff. Now it is a law of humanity that in all great crises, or whenever energy and manliness is needed, pessimism is a benumbing poison, and the strongest optimism the very elixir vitae itself. And by a marvellously strange inspiration ... I at this most critical and depressing time, rose to extremest hope and confidence.Google Scholar