Reception
First reactions to the Song of the Bell were without exception positive. Its success was attributed to each person’s being able to find meaning in it. At a solemn meeting of the Royal Academy in Schiller Year 1859, Jacob Grimm praised “this incomparable poem, far superior to what other peoples can offer,” and declared it to be a national symbol of unity ). But despite great enthusiasm for Schiller’s longest poem there was also considerable criticism. It was too emotional, to lofty, too garrulous; people criticized technical details, and over 100 parodies were written. Those of the 19th century were not critical of the original, which was greatly admired, but instead strived to make use of this very well known poem for their own ends. Many Bell parodies shifted the observations about the production process to the production of food and drinks like bread, beer and coffee.
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Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“To the United States the Third World often takes the form of a black woman who has been made pregnant in a moment of passion and who shows up one day in the reception room on the forty-ninth floor threatening to make a scene. The lawyers pay the woman off; sometimes uniformed guards accompany her to the elevators.”
—Lewis H. Lapham (b. 1935)