Hermann Lingg. Zum 70. Geburtstag

This document presents a printed review of Julius Grosse (1828-1902) on a literary personality in the context of the "crocodiles": Hermann Lingg (1820-1905). Further reviews can be found in the estate of Emanuel Geibel (1815-1884) and Friedrich Bodenstedt (1819-1892). While the memorial sheet to Geibel is a personal obituary for the deceased, Bodenstedt and Lingg were celebrated as poets on their 70th birthdays.

In contrast to the naturalistic poet Michael Georg Conrad (1846-1927), in Grosse's Lebensskizze (Life Sketch) for example, the positive assessments of the celebrated man predominate and he speaks in almost hymnal tones:

"If everything went according to plan, Lingg's 'Völkerwanderung' would long have been available in its thirtieth and fortieth editions and no university, as well as no academy, would be able to refrain from devoting its attention to this masterpiece. The same advantages apply to his lyrical poems: dazzling splendour of colour, intoxicating imagination - which knows how to conjure up lost times and figures with magical charm, can be found to an even greater degree in this epic. The power of the poet grows with his material and even in the similarity of some events in battles, conquests, raids. Lingg knows how to strike ever new tones, so that even a parallel passage is not noticeable, an inexhaustibility and variety of the creative power in which none of the living poets of Germany can equal him."

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