Germany
has had philosophers and historians of high rank; but in pure
literature, in what used to be called "belles-lettres," from the death
of Goethe in 1832 to the advent of the younger generation of dramatists,
Sudermann and Hauptmann and the rest, in the final decade of the
nineteenth century--that is to say, for a period of nearly sixty
years--only one German author succeeded in winning a worldwide
celebrity--and Heine was a Hebrew, who died in Paris, out of favor with
his countrymen, perhaps because he had been unceasing in calling
attention to the deficiencies of German culture. There were in Germany
many writers who appealed strongly to their fellow-countrymen, but
except only the solitary Heine no German writer attained to the
international fame achieved by Cooper and by Poe, by Walt Whitman and by
Mark Twain. And it was during these threescore years of literary aridity
in Germany that there was a superb literary fecundity in Great Britain
and in France, and that each of these countries produced at least a
score of authors whose names are known throughout the world. Even
sparsely settled Scandinavia brought forth a triumvirate, Bjoernsen,
Ibsen, and Brandes, without compeers in Germany.
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