XX.—Wilhelm Hauff's Specific Relation to Walter Scott

Extract

In 1899 Dr. C. W. Eastman read a paper before the Modern Language Association, in which he maintained that of all Scott's novels Ivanhoe served Hauff most completely as the source of his historical romance, Lichtenstein. In 1903 this claim was disputed by Dr. W. H. Carruth, who thro the same channel advanced his reasons for believing that Waverley and not Ivanhoe was the model in question. A year later Max Schuster in a monograph discussed Hauff's relation to his historical sources; and almost simultaneously the whole problem of his historical and literary dependence was treated by Max Drescher. Incisive and scholarly as these inquiries are, it has seemed to us in the light of our own studies that one phase of the matter still offered opportunity for further investigation. The evidence of Hauff's attitude toward Walter Scott is by no means meagre or indirect; and we have never been able to persuade ourselves that this specific relation has been adequately determined. In any case it is insufficient merely to ask whether Waverley or Ivanhoe was the prototype, or, as Drescher did, arbitrarily to choose only six of Scott's novels for comparison. The situation demanded rather a most careful study of all the works to which Hauff had access, and an equally careful analysis of the evidence thus obtained.