It was the immediate parent of that truly German growth--the literature of _Sturm und Drang_, whose exponents, says Kant, thought that they could not more effectively show that they were budding geniuses than by flinging all rules to the winds, and that one appears to better advantage on a spavined hack than on a trained steed.

The literature of _Sturm und Drang_ was a passing phenomenon, but the influence of _Goetz_ did not end with its abortive life.

But for _Goetz_ Schiller's early productions would have been differently inspired; and to _Goetz_ also was due much of the inspiration of the subsequent German Romantic School, though many of its developments were abhorrent to Goethe's nature both in youth and maturity.

It emancipated the drama from conventional shackles, but it did more: it extended the range of national thought, sentiment, and emotion, and for good and evil introduced new elements into German literature which have maintained their place there since its first portentous appearance.

And German critics are unanimous in assigning another result to the publication of _Goetz_: in its style as in its form it set convention at naught, and thus marks an epoch in the development of German literary language.