There has probably never been a movement more productive of melancholy, religious doubt and pessimistie discontent than the Romantic Movement, and nowhere were its tragle results more plainly to be seen than among the minor German poets of the first half of the last century. Of these, Nikolous von Strehienan, better known as Nickolous Lenau, is a typical example. He was one of those unhappy natures for whom existence remains an eternal enigma. With a genius essentially lyrical and subjective, he was unable to raise himself above the tragedy of his own life. "No poet of Northern Europe," says Robertson, "expresses as intensely a Lenau the feeling of 'eternal autumn', of unrelieved depair. And it is almost always a tragic despair, rarely that withering cynicism first made fashionable, by Byron asd imitated by Heine." Finally, when his life seemed on the point of becoming happier and brighter, he suddenly went insane.

It is impossible when reading the works of the German romantic poets, and particularly of those who are usually called the minor poets, to escape this deep, depressing gloom which overshadowed their lives. Perhaps it was because they were almost great geniuses and the "almost" weighed too heavily upon them, imbued as they were with the subjective psychology of the movement in which they lived. Certainly they are not very pleasant reading, but they exercised an influence which affected the whole movement of at least German literature up to Richard Wagner.

At 12 o'clock this morning in Sever 6, Professor Burkhard will lecture on Lenau and two contemporaries somewhat related in spirit, Eduard Morike and Germany's foremost poetess. Annette von Droste-Hulshoff.

Other lectures of interest being given today are:

10 O'CLOCK

"The Background of Revolution", Professor Haring, Harvard 2. History 56.

11 O'CLOCK

"Palestrina", Professor Davison, Music Building, Music 3a.

"Roman Architecture: the Monuments", Professor Chase, Fogg Museum, Fine Arts 1c.

12 O'CLOCK

"France from 1860 to 1870. The Mexican Expedition and the Liberal Empire". Professor Langer. Harvard 6, History 30a.

2 O'CLOCK

"Milton the Prose Writer", Professor Murdock, Sever 11, English 50a.