and when in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries we can trace German influence on English thought and writ, taste had changed, and the Parzival was well-nigh forgotten in its own land. It remained so almost until our own days. The Quest after Perfection still haunted the German mind, but it was conceived of on altogether different lines from those of the twelfth century poet. The nation of scholars pictured the quester as a student, not as a knight. When it took shape in the dreary period of Protestant scholasticism the quest is wholly cursed. Faust's pursuit of knowledge is unlawful, a rebellion against God, which dooms him irrevocably. Not until Goethe's day is the full significance of the legend perceived, is the theme widened to embrace the totality of human striving. Thus the last glimpse we have of Faust is of one devoted to the service of man; the last words of the poem are a recognition of the divine element in the love of man and woman.[1]
In Germany, as in England, the old legend has appealed afresh to poets and thinkers, and then, as was natural, they turned to Germany's greatest mediæval poet. Wagner's Parsifal would, in any case, be interesting as an expression of one of the strongest dramatic geniuses of the century. Considered purely as a work of literature, apart from the music, it has rare beauty and profound significance. The essentially dramatic bent of Wagner's mind, the stage destination of the poem, must be borne in mind when considering it. Wolfram's conception—youthful folly and inexperience chastised by reproof, followed by doubt and strife, cancelled by the faithful steadfastness of the full-grown man—is obviously unsuited for dramatic purposes. At no one point of Wolfram's poem do we find that clash of motives and of characters which the stage requires. In building up his conception Wagner has utilised every hint of his predecessor with wonderful ingenuity. Klinschor, the magician, becomes with him the active opponent of the Grail King, Amfortas, from whom he has wrested the holy
- ↑ In the Geheimnisse Goethe shows some slight trace of the Parzival legend, and the words in which the teaching of the poem are summed up: "Von der Gewalt, die alle Wesen bindet, Befreit der Mensch sich der sich überwindet," may be looked upon as an eighteenth century rendering of Wolfram's conception.
