The Adventurous Simplicissimus being the description of the Life of a Strange vagabond named Melchior Sternfels von Fuchshaim

Excerpt

INTRODUCTION

The translation here presented to the public is intended rather as a contribution to the history, or perhaps it should be said the sociology, of the momentous period to which the romance of "Simplicissimus" belongs, than as a specimen of literature. Effective though its situations are, consistent and artistic though its composition is (up to a certain point), its interest lies chiefly in the pictures, or rather photographs, of contemporary manners and characters which it presents. It has been said with some truth that if succeeding romancers had striven as perseveringly as our author to embody the spirit and reflect the ways of the people, German fiction might long ago have reached as high a development as the English novel. As it is, there is little of such spirit to be discovered in the prose romances which appeared between the time of Grimmelshausen and that of Jean Paul Richter. But the influence of the latter was completely swept away in the torrent of idealism by which the fictions of the idolised Goethe and his followers were characterised, and his domestic realism has only of late made its reappearance in disquieting and sordid forms.

It should be remembered as an apology for the stress now laid upon the sociological side of the history of the Thirty Years War, that that side has by historians been resolutely thrust into the background. The most detailed and painstaking narratives of the war are either bare records of military operations or, worse still, represent merely meticulous and valueless unravellings of the web of intrigue with which the pedants of the time deceived themselves into the belief that they were very Machiavels of subtlety and resource. While the Empire was bleeding to death, the chancelleries of half Europe were intent on the detaching from one side or the other of a venal general, or the patching up of some partial armistice that might afford breathing-time to organise further mischief. It does not matter much to any one whether Wallenstein was knave or fool, but it did matter and does matter that the war crippled for two hundred years the finances, the agriculture, and the enterprise of the German people, and dealt a blow to their patriotism from the like of which few nations could have recovered. Even the character of the civil administration was completely altered when the struggle ended. An army of capable bourgeois secretaries and councillors had for centuries served their princes and their fellow subjects well. It is wonderful that throughout the devastating wars waged by Wallenstein and Weimar, and even later on during the organised raids of Wrangel and Königsmark, the records were kept, the village business administered (where there was a village left), and even revenue collected with wellnigh as much regularity as in time of peace. These functionaries, who had worked so well, were at the end of the war gradually dispossessed of their influence, and their posts were taken by a swarm of young place-hunters of noble birth whom the peace had deprived of their proper employment, and whose pride was only equalled by their incapacity....