Aspasia: A Romance of Art and Love in Ancient Hellas
Robert Hamerling
9781465508065
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
If this romance, according to a much quoted saying of our time, “seeks out as its work,” a nation—the old Hellenic race—will not a shade of thought and pedantry seem to cling to the description of this kind of toil, since the universal labor of the Greek people was that of the artist, poet, and thinker? Will it not be inferior in freshness of sensation, to scenes drawn from the spring of simple, vigorous life, whose poetry is not yet exhausted? And, on the other hand, must not such an attempt also lack the charm of the cleverness—in the modern sense of the word—piquant realism, and bright, vivid coloring of the literary productions of the present day? Ought Hellenic life to be represented otherwise than with Hellenic simplicity, and should its chronicler strive for any thing except to gain a breath of the Hellenic spirit, the Hellenic grace? Is it not especially difficult to describe a vanished life? Minute painting of modern existence is praised as charmingly realistic; that of ancient times will produce on many the chilling impression of erudition. Indeed, whoever merely turns over the leaves of this book, noticing that the different portions disclose views of the various sides of Hellenic life, will promptly form the opinion that he has a mere sketch-book of loose sheets, or at most a historical romance, which according to the idea of most persons, is about the same thing as no romance at all. And yet—if the romance, as an artistic work, is distinguished by its internal and external form from biography, history and mere narrative, if it is not only the expression of a life and destiny contained within itself, but also of a conflict which has a logical development and solution, what I relate here is a romance. It not merely contains, in a positive form, beautiful sensuality glorified by intellect, in its development, prime and decay; but the conflict between the æsthetic and moral ideal of existence arises and is decided in the life of an individual, and the destiny of a nation. This parallelism between the fate of individuals and nations, individual and universal life, has always hovered before me as the art-secret of epic poetry, its supreme principle, its peculiar model. Not, however, that the particulars related of individual life and those of national existence run side by side, one as it were an episode of the other, but both as far as possible, relate to one and the same detail, and resemble an organic structure, closely interwoven and blended together. The conflict could be only slightly indicated, in order not to destroy the pure, pleasing impression of the picture—it was only permitted to advance by easy stages, and thus the action will perhaps appear to move on a very slender thread. But whatever may seem like a digression in conversations or descriptions, will without exception, at last appear in its proper light, show its necessity in relation to the whole, the idea. Yet not to an idea in the abstract meaning of the word. Let not the reader be misled by the thought, that the course of this story turns, or is modelled, upon any “tendency” to love. What I shall relate is the unfalsified, impartial truth. I shall describe human nature and the course of the world, I shall relate the acts and conduct, the struggles and aspirations of men, and the words with which they defend them. I have no tendency in view save that of life, no moral save that of necessity, no logic save that of facts, which consist of thrust and counter-thrust, as constant and regular as the swaying to and fro of a pine-tree in the wind. Philosophers are right in asserting that the idea never merges wholly into reality. The poet of tendency pursues it to a high point of its development, holds it forcibly at a spot which it really only touches in passing, makes it shimmer and sparkle for the pleasure of mortals, and converts the soap-bubble into the fixed star.
