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    to stir within himlie found be in liis h...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Oehuensciilager's Aladdin. Aladdin; Or, ...

    romantic and thoughtful disposition—used to dream away his time , looking at the paintings , reading novels hy the hundred as fast as he could get them from a circulating library at the capital , arid building castles m the air . His mother was a German by birth , and partly by blood , but her mother was a Dane : and the youth was bred up in the Danish language and read none but Danish books . The parents spoke in the same tongue , except when they wanted to talk to one another without the children understanding them , when they employed German , which , indeed , was their vernacular . The boy thus nursed in a taste for ideality was Adam Gottlob Oehlenschlager , destined to be one of the greatest ornaments of his country s literature and a dramatic poet whom his fellow Danes , m the flush of their pride and gratitude , have not hesitated to compare to Shalcspeare . lhe literary life of Oehlenschlager was an almost uninterrupted series of triumphs . He soon found out that the tendency of bis mind was towards poetry , and more especially to the dramatic form of that art ; and he was doubtless encouraged in his literary aspirations by two fellow students with whom he lodged at Copenhagen—the illustrious brothers Oersted , one of them the discoverer of electro-magnetism , the other an eminent lawyer , and at one time Prime Minister of the kingdom . The young poet witnessed

    from a balcony the attack by Nelson on the Danish fleet ofl Copenhagen m 1801—Nelson , the Englishman whom some Danes , to soothe their national self-love , have said must have been of Danish descent , if there be any faith in names . That battle , Oehlenschlager afterwards stated , inspired the Danes with a love of poetry , as the battles of Marathon and Salamis inspired the Greeks , and the defeat of the Spanish Armada the English . Two years later , Oehlenschlager appeared as a poet , and soon made a name for himself . He travelled in Germany , became acquainted with Goethe , and the other great Teutonic -writers of that time , and wrote plays in -German , translating others , which he had originally composed in Danish , into the sister tongue . Before quitting Germany , he was accidentally present at Weimar on the day of the double battle of Auerstadt and Jena . He afterwards went to Paris , and composed there his tragedy of Pabtaloke , by some esteemed liis finest work . This he read to his countryman Baggesen ,

    who had previously occupied the highest position among the Danish poets ; -and that writer , in a transport of admiration , flung himself at the feet of the younger poet . The act was noble ; but—alas for human nature !—Baggesen afterwards became jealous of the increasing fame of his rival , and attacked him with much bitterness . For this he got into such disfavour with the populace that he expatriated himself in a passion of wrath and jealousy , and died abroad . ' " In the meanwhile , Oehlenschlager waxed day by day in renown and prosperity- Paying a visit to Sweden in 1829 , he was received with a perfect ovation , as if he had been a conqueror returning from the wars . He was met by a procession of students on the high road ; was addressed in acknowled b

    the cathedral of Lund by Tegner * the bishop of Wexio ( ged y . all as the chief poet of Sweden ) , who delivered a panegyric in hexameters ; and was crowned with laurel in the midst of a storm of music and cannon , and in the presence of an immense crowd , including his wife and children . Indeed , he appears to have been regarded with something of a Pan-Scandinavian feeling , as throwing a glory on the whole northern race . A second visit to Sweden , and one to Norway , were equally triumphant ; and he was patronized , not only by his own monarch , but by those who could have had no sympathy of race with him—namely , by Louis Philippe , and by Leopold of Belgium . A grand festival was given in his honour at Copenhagen on his seventieth birthday , November 14 th , 1849 , on which occasion he recited a poetical address of thanks , wherein he

    observed—The feast I share is not my funeral feast . It was nearly so , however ; for , on the 20 th of January , 1850— little more than two months after he had spoken those words—he died . He had been a vain man all his life , and on his dt-ath-bed his egotism ripened to an enorinous growth . An hour and a half before he breathedhis last , he requested his son to read to him that portion of a scene in his tragedy of Socrates where the great philosopher speaks of death . " Jt is , " he remarked , " so unspeakably beautiful . " He heard the passage read with great emotion , " looking round , " says a biographer , " with a smile of pleasure . When it was concluded , he put an end " to the reading , and took leave of his" family . " He had previously directed that the same tragedy should bo performed at the theatre on the occasion of his funeral . . _ . .

    Nqyels and poums , as well as plays , flowed from the fertile pen of Oehlenschlager . The former arc not greatly esteemed j but the dramatic works have given him a European reputation . His tragedies are twenty-four m number , and nineteen are on Scandinavian subjects—so thoroughly northern and . national was his mind . To these he added several comedies and operas . We have been at the pains of collecting these few particulars of the poet s literary life , because wo bulicvo Oehlenschluger is not much known in England , and such little bits of personal identity may be pleasant to any reader whom we may induce to go to the translation now before us , Aladdin was one of the dramatist's earliest works , and Oehlenschlager used to say that in it he had discovered his own wonderful lamp '—that is' tp say , the vein

    of poetry , which was destined to give him fame and fortune . Some portions , says Mr . Martin , in hid Preface , were translated in Blao / ncovd ' s Magazine , by Mr . It . P . GilliuB , in 181 G ; but he does not suem to bo aware that portions were also translated by the late Archdeacon Hare in a Miscellany issued in 1820 by Mr . Oilier . The Archdeucon ( who ia known hy hia lino rendering of La Motto Fouqud ' s Sintmm ) was peculiarly quulified for sucli a task , by his great knowledge of , and intonse sympathy with , tho northern languages . Mr . Theodore Martin also is known as a previous translator of O © hlcnsclilttg 0 Trhwing-in-l-8 d , 4 ^ poet's Corroggio ; and ho seems to have gone to his task -with enthusiasm and love . Of tho present play ho romnrks : —

    begun - , , as says Autobiograpy , a Aladdin ' s Lamp . His own passion sought a vent iu depicting Aladdin ' s for Gulnare , and bis tears for a loving and much-loved mother overflowed as he wrote the Dirge of the Eastern bo } ' at the grave of Blorgiana . Thus heart and fancy were thrown intensely into the poem , and they give to it a \ ivid charm beyond that of his more mature and faultless works . The poet has not ventured to deviate from the familiar incidents of the Eastern tale . Indeed , he follows them with such minuteness , that occasionally the action , drags , and the'dialogue labours . In a few instances the translator has ventured to compress passages which are open to this objection , more particularly where the humour is of a texture too flimsy for the taste of a nation nursed in the schools of Shakspeare and Fielding . This liberty might , perhaps , have been carried further , without injury to the poem ; but even the flaws of a work of genius possess an interest for the student . There is no doubt that the drama might have been further compressed with great advantage . It consists of no less than ten acts , and is sometimes diffuse and feeble . ° The humour is frequently pleasant and genial , but is not always equally good , and even the poetry at times suffers from tenuity . Yet , notwithstanding these drawbacks , the Aladdin of Oehlenschlager is a charming work . If it have the faults of youth , it has also the excellencies —a bright vivacity , a happy dance of fancy , a luxuriance of feeling and perception ( making some a " mends for the want of profound insight into the complex mysteries of the heart ) , and the unmistakable presence of a feeling of enjoyment , enthusiasm , and hopefulness on the part of the writer . The genii of poetry were attending on his beck , and had not tired of fetching him rich dowries from the haunted depths of imagination . He fills with a new life the glorious story which came to him from tho lands of the East ( but of which , by ° the-by , no Arabic or Persian original can now be traced ) ; and causes to pass before our vision the gorgeousness and stately splendours of Ispahan , the enchantments of the lamp and ring , the rich and subtle world of Persian faery , the humble abodes of Oriental poverty , and the strange vicissitudes of Oriental life . His descriptions are warm and bright with tropic sunshine and the glimmer of magic ; and he has interspersed his drama with several charming lyrics , which trill and murmur in the pauses 6 £ the blank verse , like the singing of the nymphs in ' elf-land . Very complete , delicate , and affluent is the poet ' s perception of the supernatural part of the story , which , however , exhibits traces of the writer ' s northern birth . To the Persian world of genii he joins the Teutonic world of elves and fairiesas Shakspeare introduced Puck , Oberon , and Titania into _ the woods of ancient Attica . But this overshadowing of the North shows itself in other respects . Aladdin , in the Second Part , becomes a kind of chivalric hero , bearing , indeed , a resemblance to the liustum of Persian and the Antar of Arabian fable , hut also touched with something of the Christian ideal . The character of Aladdin is excellently discriminated in the 1 irst and Second Parts . At the commencement , he is a gay , thoughtless boy , speaking much as any other boy with a vivacious nature would do ; but afterwards , as he ascends into the regions of royalty , and passes through the extremes of prosperity and misfortune , the language heightens and expands with the circumstances , and often rises into grandeur or softens into pathos . The drama differs from . the original story m making the death of Aladdin's mother an incident ; and this leads to some affecting scenes . Aldadin , conceiving that he has hastened her death by neglect , and being at the same time under a temporary reverse of fortune , goes mad for a while ; but this deviation from the story , as well as some others , is gladly received for the sake of the fine writing it brings along with it . The love passages are often full of languid and seductive sweetness , sometimes reminding the reader ( though they are on a lower scale ) of similar speeches in llomeo and Juliet ^ and a ° others seeming as if inspired by the flaunting and superabundant genius of Marlowe . The character of the homely , garrulous , affectionate mother of Aladdin is also effectively sketched , and is well contrasted , in all its humble simplicity and Sancho Panza-like wealth of proverbs , with the ideal aspirationsof the son . # We had marked several passages for extract , but space forbids our giving more than two . Here is a sketch of the marvellous subterranean garden . Aladdin is speaking in a style of boyish wonderment : — Oh me ! what a strange garden ! All the trees Pull of such pretty fruit ! Kipe ,, rodv- apples , Gr « en-gnges , peaches with a purple bloom , And oranges like iluino ; white gooseberries , And , oil me ! grapes!—some blue as lieuvuu itself , And others clear an water in a stream . 1 \ u \ v Hweetly wind * tho little brook through nil ! Oh , what a pity there ia ne ' er a bird To wuorblo in and out among the leaves ! How very still it is ! What pretty ( lowers , Yellow and filigrecd , like ruddy gold ! llu , -wliut tremendous lilies ! How they shine , As though each leaf were out of silver carved ! I'll smell to one of them ! They have no smell ! How comes it now they have no smell , J wonder V My undo , I must own , wua in the right ; This sort of thing is only worth a look , And thon good-by . —liut aeo ! there hangs tho lamp ! How strangely does its steady gleam light up AH round about , and make it beautiful I And hero is Aladdin's account of his journey through tho air with the the gonio who releases him from the cavern : — My lie-ud is all unpin . Well ! such a journey I novor made iu all my lifo boforo ! He caught mo by tlio waist ; the parting air Around me flowed , like water in tho bath . - — , — , intlicTcloarrmoonsliiiior wliat-alieJght . hij-ll ( 3 w . } .. _ , —_ : , —„ ,. And oh , how strangely small tho earth bectuuu ! Groat Ispahan itself , with all its lights , That iu tho dbtimco one by ono went out , Looked liko a bit of paper which wo burn , And boo tho boys all running out of school , In a . wide olrolo round tho sky ho wheeled , Tliitf I might viuw tho wide expanse ol ( . 'urtli ,

    Tho Aladdin' of OehlonachlUger beam tho murks of youth—but it Is tho youth of genius , rich in tho oxubaranuo of a fearlobB fancy , and revelling in tlio exercise of a . newly awakenoU power . Whun it was writLon , OehlonBohliigor w «» In tho first bloom ofunuihood ; ho wuh in love , and ho had rcotmtly lost bia mother . Aladdin a story seemed to havo uu nfliuily to hla own . In tho fuoulty of poetic creation whloh had

    To Stir Within Himlie Found Be In Liis H...

    to stir within himlie found be in liis h veritable No . 412 . J Pbbbuaby 13 , 1858 . ] T H E LEADER 163 _

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 13, 1858, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_13021858/page/19/