Ofterdingen and Kropotkin

Daß die Periodisierung der deutschen Literaturgeschichte zu einem gewissen Abschluß gekommen ist, und daß jedermann ahnt, was etwa er sich unter literarischem Barock vorzustellen hat, bevor er sich auch nur mit ihm befaßt hat, - das sind Anzeichen dafür, daß die wisschenschaftliche Arbeit vergangener Generationen doch nicht ganz vergeblich gewesen ist, wenn auch das Ergebnis nicht immer unseren Wünschen entsprechen mag. | That the periodizing of German literary history has come to a kind of completion, and that everyone intuits what is meant by literary Baroque, even before one has engaged with it - that is an indication for that fact that the scientific work of past generations may not have been in vain altogether, even if the result may not always correspond to one's wishes. (Klaus Weimar, Versuch über Voraussetzung und Entstehung der Romantik, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tübingen, 1968, transl. mine) | I myself have proved it to be of no small use, when in bed in the dark, to recall in fancy the external details of forms previously studied, or other noteworthy things conceived by subtle speculation; and this is certainly an admirable exercise, and useful for impressing things on the memory | o in me provato essere di no pocca vtilita, quado ti truovi allo scuro nel letto 4 andare colla inmaginativa repetedo i linia- meti superfitiali delle forme Sper 1'adrieto studiate, o altre cose notabili da sottili spe- culatione coprese, 6 ed e questo propio uno atto laudabile e vtile a confermarsi le cose nella memoria. (L. da Vinci, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci Vol. 1, ed. Jean Paul Richter, Section 496) | I had come across Carpocrates's assertion that to escape the tyranny of the angels, the masters of the cosmos, every possible ignominy should be perpetrated, that you should discharge all debts to the world and to your own body, for only by committing every act can the soul be freed of its passions and return to its original purity. (U. Eco, Foucault's Pendulum) | Oh wär ich da, o stünd ich schon / Ach süßer Gott vor Deinem Thron / Und trüge meine / almen! / So wollt ich nach der Engel Weis’ / Erhöhen Deines Namens Preis, / Mit tausend / schönen Psalmen