HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Heinrich Heine
ness of diction and a terseness of expression which
would have done honor even to Goethe. Fane
went so far as to find a resemblance between Heine
and the gentle Wordsworth in simplicity of style
and in the selection and treatment of some subjects.
In other qualities, however. Fane saw a much
closer affinity of Heine to the fierce, fretful soul
of Byron. Despite Heine's satirical invective, which
respected neither things human nor things divine,
he was not really misanthropic. His apparently
fiendish characteristics resulted from disappointed
idealism. The tender, imaginative poet, who, like
Wordsworth, could clothe simple thoughts in a
purity of language not unbecoming the lips of a
saint, learned, as a result of his life's bitter experiences,
to scoff with the temerity of Voltaire, to
ridicule with the savageness of Swift, and to rail
with the spleen of Byron. When Heine's youthful
faith collapsed, he lost his anchor in fife. He ceased
to be an earnest man or to retain any consistency
in his approach to morals or politics. He did not
know whether he should smile blandly or snarl
bitterly at humanity. He was a most perplexing
figure: "Indeed, the wanton insults which he
heaped upon his countrymen, the unjustifiable personalities
in which he has approached subjects the
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