Study Edition · Essay 56
Heine and the Philistines
Source: From “Heinrich Heine,” a lecture given at Oxford in 1863, printed in the Cornhill Magazine (August 1863) and in Essays in Criticism (1865). Text from Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold, ed. W. S. Johnson, Project Gutenberg #12628. EXCERPT: the central passage on Philistinism; Heine's long quotation about William Cobbett is omitted, as marked. Archaic verb forms modernized; vocabulary kept and glossed.
Matthew Arnold, poet, school inspector and Oxford Professor of Poetry, made the word “Philistine” famous in English. In German student slang a Philister was a narrow-minded townsman, as opposed to the students, who saw themselves as people of ideas. Arnold borrows the word from the German poet Heinrich Heine and turns it on his own countrymen. The English, he says, are practical and free but suspicious of ideas, and that makes them the world's great Philistines. Watch how he defines a term, tests other words for it, and builds an argument with long, balanced sentences, all in a calm and ironic voice.
30 sentences: 6 simple, 7 moderate, 17 complex. Hover a number for its paraphrase; click it for the full note.
Key Vocabulary
- prescriptionhere, rule by long custom or tradition
- sovereigna king or ruling prince
- wrestingseizing by force
- counseladvice
- Philistinismnarrow-minded, materialistic hostility to ideas and culture
- solecisma mistake in grammar or manners
- susceptibleeasily hurt or affected
- pervertedtwisted from its proper use
- prodigiousenormous; remarkable
- doggedstubbornly persistent
- remodellerone who reshapes or rebuilds
- robuststrong and healthy
- humdrumdull and ordinary
- paladina heroic champion (originally one of Charlemagne's knights)
- accessibilityopenness; being easy to reach
- detestationintense hatred
- precedentan earlier example used as a rule
- compensateto make up for
- ignoblyin a dishonourable, low way
- inaptitudelack of skill or fitness
The Essay
It was the year 1830; the German sovereigns had passed the preceding fifteen years in breaking the promises of freedom they had made to their subjects when they wanted their help in the final struggle with Napoleon.1 Great events were happening in France; the revolution, defeated in 1815, had arisen from its defeat, and was wresting from its adversaries the power.2 Heinrich Heine, a young man of genius, born at Hamburg, and with all the culture of Germany, but by race a Jew; with warm sympathies for France, whose revolution had given to his race the rights of citizenship, and whose rule had been, as is well known, popular in the Rhine provinces, where he passed his youth; with a passionate admiration for the great French Emperor, with a passionate contempt for the sovereigns who had overthrown him, for their agents, and for their policy, Heinrich Heine was in 1830 in no humor for any such gradual process of liberation from the old order of things as that which Goethe had followed.3 His counsel was for open war.4 Taking that terrible modern weapon, the pen, in his hand, he passed the remainder of his life in one fierce battle.5 What was that battle? the reader will ask.6 It was a life and death battle with Philistinism.7
Philistinism! We have not the expression in English.8 Perhaps we have not the word because we have so much of the thing.9 At Soli, I imagine, they did not talk of solecisms; and here, at the very headquarters of Goliath, nobody talks of Philistinism.10 The French have adopted the term épicier (grocer), to designate the sort of being whom the Germans designate by the Philistine; but the French term, besides that it casts a slur upon a respectable class, composed of living and susceptible members, while the original Philistines are dead and buried long ago, is really, I think, in itself much less apt and expressive than the German term.11 Efforts have been made to obtain in English some term equivalent to Philister or épicier; Mr. Carlyle has made several such efforts: “respectability with its thousand gigs,” he says; well, the occupant of every one of these gigs is, Mr. Carlyle means, a Philistine.12 However, the word respectable is far too valuable a word to be thus perverted from its proper meaning; if the English are ever to have a word for the thing we are speaking of, and so prodigious are the changes which the modern spirit is introducing, that even we English shall perhaps one day come to want such a word, I think we had much better take the term Philistine itself.13
Philistine must have originally meant, in the mind of those who invented the nickname, a strong, dogged, unenlightened opponent of the chosen people, of the children of the light.14 The party of change, the would-be remodellers of the old traditional European order, the invokers of reason against custom, the representatives of the modern spirit in every sphere where it is applicable, regarded themselves, with the robust self-confidence natural to reformers as a chosen people, as children of the light.15 They regarded their adversaries as humdrum people, slaves to routine, enemies to light; stupid and oppressive, but at the same time very strong.16 This explains the love which Heine, that Paladin of the modern spirit, has for France; it explains the preference which he gives to France over Germany: “The French,” he says, “are the chosen people of the new religion, its first gospels and dogmas have been drawn up in their language; Paris is the new Jerusalem, and the Rhine is the Jordan which divides the consecrated land of freedom from the land of the Philistines.”17 He means that the French, as a people, have shown more accessibility to ideas than any other people; that prescription and routine have had less hold upon them than upon any other people; that they have shown most readiness to move and to alter at the bidding (real or supposed) of reason.18 This explains, too, the detestation which Heine had for the English: “I might settle in England,” he says, in his exile, “if it were not that I should find there two things, coal-smoke and Englishmen; I cannot abide either.”19 What he hated in the English was the “ächtbrittische Beschränktheit,” as he calls it, the genuine British narrowness.20 In truth, the English, profoundly as they have modified the old Middle-Age order, great as is the liberty which they have secured for themselves, have in all their changes proceeded, to use a familiar expression, by the rule of thumb; what was intolerably inconvenient to them they have suppressed, and as they have suppressed it, not because it was irrational, but because it was practically inconvenient, they have seldom in suppressing it appealed to reason, but always, if possible, to some precedent, or form, or letter, which served as a convenient instrument for their purpose, and which saved them from the necessity of recurring to general principles.21 They have thus become, in a certain sense, of all people the most inaccessible to ideas and the most impatient of them; inaccessible to them, because of their want of familiarity with them; and impatient of them because they have got on so well without them, that they despise those who, not having got on as well as themselves, still make a fuss for what they themselves have done so well without.22 But there has certainly followed from hence, in this country, somewhat of a general depression of pure intelligence: Philistia has come to be thought by us the true Land of Promise, and it is anything but that; the born lover of ideas, the born hater of commonplaces, must feel in this country, that the sky over his head is of brass and iron.23 The enthusiast for the idea, for reason, values reason, the idea, in and for themselves; he values them, irrespectively of the practical conveniences which their triumph may obtain for him; and the man who regards the possession of these practical conveniences as something sufficient in itself, something which compensates for the absence or surrender of the idea, of reason, is, in his eyes, a Philistine.24 This is why Heine so often and so mercilessly attacks the liberals; much as he hates conservatism he hates Philistinism even more, and whoever attacks conservatism itself ignobly, not as a child of light, not in the name of the idea, is a Philistine.25 Our Cobbett is thus for him, much as he disliked our clergy and aristocracy whom Cobbett attacked, a Philistine with six fingers on every hand and on every foot six toes, four-and-twenty in number: a Philistine, the staff of whose spear is like a weaver's beam.26
… There is balm in Philistia as well as in Gilead.27 A chosen circle of children of the modern spirit, perfectly emancipated from prejudice and commonplace, regarding the ideal side of things in all its efforts for change, passionately despising half-measures and condescension to human folly and obstinacy, with a bewildered, timid, torpid multitude behind, conducts a country to the government of Herr von Bismarck.28 A nation regarding the practical side of things in its efforts for change, attacking not what is irrational, but what is pressingly inconvenient, and attacking this as one body, “moving altogether if it move at all,” and treating children of light like the very harshest of step-mothers, comes to the prosperity and liberty of modern England.29 For all that, however, Philistia (let me say it again) is not the true promised land, as we English commonly imagine it to be; and our excessive neglect of the idea, and consequent inaptitude for it, threatens us, at a moment when the idea is beginning to exercise a real power in human society, with serious future inconvenience, and, in the meanwhile, cuts us off from the sympathy of other nations, which feel its power more than we do.30
Sentence Notes
In plain English: It was 1830. For the previous fifteen years, the German princes had been breaking the promises of freedom they made to their people when they needed their help in the final fight against Napoleon.
Reference & context: After Napoleon's defeat (1813–15), many German rulers had promised constitutions; most never delivered them. Arnold has just described how Goethe worked slowly for “liberation” through poetry.
In plain English: Great things were happening in France: the revolution, beaten in 1815, had risen again and was taking power from its enemies.
Reference & context: The July Revolution of 1830 in Paris overthrew the restored Bourbon king Charles X.
In plain English: Heinrich Heine was a young genius, born in Hamburg, steeped in German culture, but Jewish by birth. He felt warmly toward France, whose revolution had given Jews the rights of citizens, and whose rule had been popular in the Rhineland where he grew up. He passionately admired Napoleon and passionately despised the kings who had overthrown him, their agents and their policies. So in 1830 he was in no mood for the slow, gradual liberation from the old order that Goethe had pursued.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A very long sentence that piles up Heine's background before arriving at its point, like a charge of energy building up.
Reference & context: Heine (1797–1856) was actually born in Düsseldorf, not Hamburg; Arnold's editor notes the error. Revolutionary France gave Jews full citizenship in 1791, and French rule extended those rights to the Rhineland.
In plain English: He was for open war.
In plain English: Taking up that fearsome modern weapon, the pen, he spent the rest of his life in one fierce battle.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The old saying that the pen is mightier than the sword, given new force.
In plain English: What battle? the reader will ask.
In plain English: It was a life-and-death battle against Philistinism.
In plain English: Philistinism! We don't have that word in English.
In plain English: Perhaps we don't have the word because we have so much of the thing itself.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Arnold's most famous ironic sentence: what is everywhere goes unnamed.
In plain English: In Soli, I imagine, nobody talked about solecisms, and here in England, the very headquarters of Goliath, nobody talks about Philistinism.
Reference & context: “Solecism” comes from Soli, a Greek colony in Cilicia whose people were said to speak bad Greek. Goliath was the giant champion of the Philistines in the Bible (1 Samuel 17), killed by the young David.
In plain English: The French use the word épicier (grocer) for the kind of person the Germans call a Philistine. But the French word insults a respectable trade made up of living people with feelings, whereas the original Philistines died long ago; and in any case I think it is much less fitting and expressive than the German word.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A gently comic aside: better to insult a dead nation than living grocers.
In plain English: People have tried to find an English word equal to Philister or épicier. Mr. Carlyle has tried several times: he speaks of “respectability with its thousand gigs,” and he means that every person riding in one of those gigs is a Philistine.
Reference & context: A gig is a light two-wheeled carriage. At a murder trial in 1823 a witness called the accused “respectable” because “he kept a gig”; Carlyle seized on “gigmanship” as his word for shallow middle-class respectability.
In plain English: But “respectable” is far too useful a word to be twisted out of its proper meaning like that. If the English are ever to have a word for the thing we're discussing (and the modern spirit is bringing such huge changes that perhaps even we English will one day need one), I think we'd do much better to adopt the word Philistine itself.
Reference & context: Arnold succeeded: “Philistine” in this sense is now standard English, largely because of this essay and his book Culture and Anarchy (1869).
In plain English: In the minds of the people who invented the nickname, Philistine must originally have meant a strong, stubborn, unenlightened enemy of the chosen people, the children of light.
Reference & context: In the Bible the Philistines are the enemies of Israel, “the chosen people.” “Children of light” is from the New Testament (e.g., Ephesians 5:8).
In plain English: The party of change, those who wanted to reshape the old traditional order of Europe, who appealed to reason against custom, who stood for the modern spirit wherever it applied, saw themselves, with the sturdy self-confidence natural to reformers, as a chosen people, as children of light.
In plain English: They saw their opponents as dull people, slaves to routine, enemies of light: stupid and oppressive, but also very strong.
In plain English: This explains why Heine, that heroic champion of the modern spirit, loves France and prefers it to Germany. “The French,” he says, “are the chosen people of the new religion; its first gospels and doctrines were written in their language. Paris is the new Jerusalem, and the Rhine is the River Jordan that separates the holy land of freedom from the land of the Philistines.”
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Heine maps the Bible onto modern Europe: France is the Promised Land, Germany the land of the enemy.
Reference & context: Heine, English Fragments. In the Bible the Israelites cross the River Jordan into the Promised Land.
In plain English: He means that the French as a nation have been more open to ideas than any other; that custom and routine have had less grip on them than on anyone else; and that they have been the most willing to move and change when reason (really or supposedly) told them to.
In plain English: This also explains Heine's hatred of the English. “I might settle in England,” he said during his exile, “except that I'd find two things there, coal smoke and Englishmen, and I can't stand either.”
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Heine's insult is quoted with evident relish; Arnold enjoys provoking his English audience.
Reference & context: Heine lived in exile in Paris from 1831 until his death in 1856. He had visited London in 1827.
In plain English: What he hated in the English was what he called their “true-British narrow-mindedness.”
In plain English: In fact, although the English have deeply changed the old medieval order and won great freedom for themselves, they have made all their changes by rule of thumb. Whatever became unbearably inconvenient, they got rid of; and because they got rid of it for being inconvenient, not for being unreasonable, they rarely appealed to reason in doing so. Instead, whenever possible, they appealed to some precedent, formality or legal wording that served their purpose and spared them from having to fall back on general principles.
Reference & context: Arnold is describing the English habit of reform through Parliament and common law, by small practical steps, rather than through revolutions in the name of abstract rights, as in France.
In plain English: So in a way they have become the people least open to ideas and least patient with them: closed to ideas because they aren't used to them, and impatient with them because they have done so well without ideas that they look down on people who, having done less well, still make a fuss about the ideas the English managed perfectly well without.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: A balanced, chiasmus-like structure (inaccessible… impatient; inaccessible because… impatient because…) that dissects a national character.
In plain English: But one result in this country has been a general lowering of pure intelligence. We have come to think Philistia is the true Promised Land, and it is anything but. Anyone who is born loving ideas and hating clichés must feel in England that the sky over his head is made of brass and iron.
Reference & context: “The heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron” (Deuteronomy 28:23), a curse of drought and barrenness.
In plain English: Someone who is passionate about ideas and reason values them for their own sake, regardless of the practical benefits their victory might bring him. And anyone who thinks those practical benefits are enough on their own, enough to make up for the lack or surrender of ideas and reason, is in his eyes a Philistine.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The essay's definition of a Philistine: someone content with comforts and indifferent to ideas.
In plain English: That's why Heine attacks the liberals so often and so mercilessly. Much as he hates conservatism, he hates Philistinism even more, and anyone who attacks conservatism for low motives, not as a child of light, not in the name of an idea, is a Philistine.
In plain English: So our William Cobbett, in Heine's view, was a Philistine of giant size, even though Heine disliked the English clergy and aristocracy that Cobbett attacked too: a Philistine with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot, twenty-four in all, a Philistine whose spear-shaft was as thick as a weaver's beam.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: Arnold mocks a radical by dressing him in the Bible's description of a Philistine giant.
Reference & context: William Cobbett (1763–1835) was a fiery English radical journalist. The description borrows from the Bible's Philistine giants: one had “six fingers on every hand, and on every foot six toes, four and twenty in number” (2 Samuel 21:20), and Goliath's spear was “like a weaver's beam” (1 Samuel 17:7).
In plain English: Philistia has its good points too, just as Gilead had its healing balm.
Reference & context: Omitted: Heine's long, insulting portrait of Cobbett as “England's dog.” “Is there no balm in Gilead?” (Jeremiah 8:22): Gilead was famous for a healing ointment.
In plain English: A select group of modern thinkers, completely free from prejudice and cliché, focused on ideals in all their efforts for change, passionately scornful of half-measures and of giving in to human foolishness and stubbornness, with a confused, timid, sluggish mass of people behind them, leads a country straight to being governed by Herr von Bismarck.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The sentence builds up a grand picture of idealists and then lands with a thud on Bismarck.
Reference & context: Otto von Bismarck became Prussia's chief minister in 1862 and governed with little regard for parliament. Arnold means that German intellectuals' high ideals did not prevent authoritarian rule.
In plain English: A nation that looks at the practical side when making changes, attacking not what is unreasonable but what is urgently inconvenient, and doing it all together, “moving all together if it moves at all,” while treating its people of ideas like the harshest of stepmothers, ends up with the wealth and freedom of modern England.
Reference & context: The quoted phrase adapts Wordsworth's “Resolution and Independence”: “That heareth not the loud winds when they call, / And moveth all together, if it move at all.”
In plain English: Even so (let me say it again), Philistia is not the true Promised Land, as we English usually think. Our extreme neglect of ideas, and our resulting clumsiness with them, threatens us with serious trouble in the future, just when ideas are starting to have real power in human society; and meanwhile it cuts us off from the sympathy of other nations, which feel the power of ideas more than we do.
Why this phrase is worth keeping: The balanced conclusion: English practicality has real rewards, but its contempt for ideas has a cost.
Fun Fact
Heine asked for a sword on his coffin rather than a poet's laurel wreath, yet he is best remembered as a poet: composers have set his poems to music thousands of times, including songs by Schubert and Schumann. One of his plays contains a line that later became chilling: “Where they burn books, they will in the end burn people too.” Nazi students burned his books in 1933, and those words now stand on a plaque in Berlin's Bebelplatz.