On Discovering a Forgotten Voice: “On the Prevalence of the German Drama” (Gentleman’s Magazine, November 1800)
Few pleasures equal that of opening a long-forgotten volume of the historical press and encountering a voice from another age—alive with irony, aesthetic conviction, and the pulse of cultural debate. Among the pages of the Gentleman’s Magazine for November 1800, in the section Poetry, Antient and Modern, I came across a remarkable anonymous poem entitled “On the Prevalence of the German Drama.”
The poem vividly captures a moment of literary tension in late eighteenth-century Britain, when the works of August von Kotzebue, then immensely popular across Europe, began to dominate the English stage. The anonymous author responds with both wit and patriotic concern, defending Shakespeare’s legacy against what was perceived as the “foreign invasion” of the German theatre. This short poem not only reflects the anxieties of taste and influence in a transnational literary market but also reveals how deeply intertwined questions of art, morality, and national identity had become around 1800.
Reading such pieces in the historical press is always a profitable and delightful pursuit. Periodicals like the Gentleman’s Magazine—with their mixture of reportage, criticism, and verse—offer a living chronicle of literary reception and cultural exchange. The discovery of this poem, with its spirited defence of British dramatic genius, evokes precisely that joy of unexpected encounter which makes archival research so rewarding.
The text below is presented exactly as it appeared in the Gentleman’s Magazine.

“On the Prevalence of the German Drama,” The Gentleman’s Magazine, Vol. LXX, November 1800, pp. 1084-1085.
On the Prevalence of the
German Drama
Say, from what cause proceeds the modern rage
For German Dramas on the British stage?
Must British tears for ever cease to flow,
Save through the fount which streams from German woe?
And Laughter lose its empire o’er the pit,
Except when forc’d from heavy German wit?
Shine Thames’s Swans less bright than those which lave
Their silver plumage in the Danube’s wave?
Or are their dying notes aught less divine
Than those which echo on the boasted Rhine?
Immortal Shakspeare! how shall we appease
Thy shade, indignant now at wrongs like these?
Thy day declining though true Genius weeps,
“Still on that bank thy own bright moonlight sleeps”[1]
[1085]
And lovely Viola, not yet outdone,
Though rivall’d now by Virgins of the Sun[2];
Unequall’d still, of peerless maids the chief,
“Like monumental Patience smiles at grief”[3].
While furious Richard mounts his fiery steed,
And, proudly emulous of martial meed,
Unsheaths his sword, and calls his warrior train
“To scourge these strangers o’er the seas again”[4].
O Thou[5], whose wit our plaudits can command,
Whose genuine Dramas speak a master’s hand,
Whose patriot voice so-oft is heard to rise
ln proud disdain of foreign hir’d allies,
See how thy own once verdant laurels fade,
Since thou canst stoop to call in foreign aid,
Since thou canst join the tame translating crew,
And banish Avon’s Bard for Kotzebue.
Is lndolence the God before whose shrine
Devoutly bend the votaries of the Nine?
Coy are the Muses, and will ne’er inspire
The Bard who slumbers o’er the living lyre;
The blooming garden and the fruitful soil
Yield not their treasures unsubdu’d by toil.
What truthe, what morals gives the German stage,
ln wisdom’s paths to guide a fickle age?
There passion lawless, wild, and unconfin’d,
Usurps its empire o’er the yielding mind,
Spurns at all rule, and, owning no controul,
At length to frenzy drives the feeling soul.
There Sensibility, with sickly mien,
Sheds her pale languor o’er Iife’s vary’d scene,
And at each fancy’d ill with groundless fear
Heaves the deep sigh and calls the starting tear.
By her enfeebled, can we climb the steep,
Where self-denying Virtue loves to keep
Her awsul seat? inexorably just,
She ever mindful of her sacred trust,
Bids by her sons this law be understood,
In partial evil dwells the general good.
[1] Merchant of Venice.
[2] Pizarro.
[3] Twelfth Night.
[4] Richard the Third.
[5] Mr. Sheridan.
OpenEdition schlägt Ihnen vor, diesen Beitrag wie folgt zu zitieren:
Anna Ananieva (4. Oktober 2025). On Discovering a Forgotten Voice: “On the Prevalence of the German Drama” (Gentleman’s Magazine, November 1800). Kotzebue International. Abgerufen am 16. Januar 2026 von https://doi.org/10.58079/14y9b