626
PARTISAN REVIEW
The characteristic clarity of Heine that emerges from his poetry runs
counter to the modern penchant for the esoteric, so useful in obscuring our
realizations about the world. Heine: "What we do not realize is of no value
to us." Such sentiments show that he was not willing to abandon the
Enlightenment to lapse into some sort of mysticism of the occult. This is
the same spirit that speaks through this anthropocentric statement of
Goethe: "A distinction that gives the mind no foothold is no distinction
at all." If we add to that Heine's anachronistic creative ethic, the orienta–
tion of his mind becomes clear: "Creation is but pointless activity / That
bungles itself in moment's time; / But planning and thoughtful consider–
ation / Are what reveal the true artist." His erstwhile friend Laube thought
that Heine was born in the wrong era, compelled to rely on his purely
poetic makeup in a thoroughly political age. To put it another way: Heine
was a born classic, but for a Jew with the genius of a German classic born
in nineteenth-century Germany, there was no choice but to become the
peculiar case of Heine.
Translated from the German
by
Jim Tucker
ZBIGNIEW HERBERT
1924-1998
