HEINRICH HEINE - Repositories

Hellenist and Cultural Pessimist
Richard Wagner but also in Victorian England
from the version in prose and verse by Richard
Monckton Milnes, entitled The Goddess Venus in
the Middle Ages to William Morris' poetic narrative
The Hill of Venus, Swinburne's lyrical
monologue Laus Veneris, and John Davidson's
New Ballad of Tannhauser. The goddess who was
once the world's delight again charmed the imagination
of poets — and not she alone. Christ, "the
leavings of racks and rods," was contrasted with
Apollo, the lord of light. As in the ancient days
there had reverberated the lament that the great
god Pan was dead, so in Victorian days there often
arose in hterary circles the triumphant shout of
the coming end of the Nazarene's rule.
Under the heading. Great Christ is Dead!, James
Thomson, acknowledging himself a disciple of
Heine, heralded, in 1875, the overthrow of the
celestial dynasty that for almost two millennia had
supplanted the Olympians: "More than eighteen
hundred years have passed since the death of the
great god Pan was proclaimed; and now it is full
time to proclaim the death of the great god Christ.
Eighteen hundred years make a fairly long period
even for a celestial dynasty; but this one in its perishing
must difiFer from all that have perished be-
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