4. Conclusion
FPG a brilliant translator & imitator
His creativity being derivative, just as translations are
Freytag-Loringhoven's pertinent judgement of Greve's creative writings

Greve and Grove's creativity can be judged mediocre in comparison with his brilliantly receptive and critical abilities. Greve's numerous translations were a formal recasting of existing texts whose content appealed to his personal sense of enjoyment, providing a welcome opportunity to identify himself with them or their authors. The range of his literary interests from 1898 to 1909 is remarkable, and allows some observations about his aesthetic development.

Even before he started courting the circles dominated by Stefan George in Munich, he was influenced by neo-romantic preferences which included the medieval and renaissance periods, whether absorbed through German, English or other literary preoccupations. It is true that even during his student days in Bonn, George was actively received, his native Bingen being just a short distance away. Therefore, the budding George-cult may have been a factor, and coincided with or even activated Greve's particular preoccupation with Dante and Petrarca. Then came the period of intense identification with Oscar Wilde, but also his precursors; namely the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was obsessed with the Italian Trecento and the Italian Renaissance,[40] and Dante G. Rossetti is considered to have provided an ideal translation of the Vita Nuova. 

A noticeable change takes place during and after Greve's prison term. It is reflected in polarized attitudes towards Wilde in Greve's two essays which were written before and during his confinement. When Greve visits Gide immediately after his release from prison in June, 1904, he states explicitly that the art and life poles of the decadent l'art-pour-l'art principle have been reversed in his value-scale:

"Je ne suis pas un artiste. C'est le besoin d'argent qui maintenant me fait écrire. L'oeuvre d'art n'est pour moi qu'un pis-aller. Je préfère la vie."[41]

That consequently his translations become more and more classic from then on may have been dictated in part by Kippenberg's conservative program of "Weltliteratur" for the Insel,[42] but it also corresponds directly to Greve's new position. Flaubert is his adopted model now, and it remains in place for the rest of his life: although an exceptionally rich intertextuality is always operational, Grove's fiction and poetry essentially adhere with remarkable rigidity to Flaubert's and George's aesthetics.[43]

Not only did Greve translate most of Flaubert's correspondence, his own two novels about Else imitate Madame Bovary and L'Education sentimentale in particular. As Else aptly recalls twenty years later, "he esteemed Flaubert highly as stylist...so he tried to be Flaubert...".[44] His last original contribution in Germany was the article "Reise in Schweden" which matches the travel essays in Grove's first Canadian publications Over Prairie Trails and The Turn of the Year. And his novels reflect the narrative techniques of Flaubert's symbolism and realism about which both Greve and Grove also wrote critical essays.

At the time of his departure, Greve was working on Dicken's David Copperfield and Swift. Among previous texts like Balzac, Lesage, Cervantes, the Arabian Nights, Meredith, etc., H.G. Wells Ausblicke and The Letters of Junius deserve special mention since their political character corresponds with Grove's only known translation of Amann.

Translating means by definition re-creating rather than creating. In that sense, Greve's immense translation experience is the very foundation of Grove's equally impressive artistic output which is largely imitative, and therefore follows not dissimilar mechanisms. If Grove's creative endeavours are not fueled by first- or second-hand realities as are his two brilliant autobiographical accounts, or by the fires of admiration for a large variety of literary models, they are sadly devoid of inspiration and originality. His voluminous Canadian pioneer novels are tiresome in their two-dimensional character representation and in their tedious, forced symbolism. A near-complete lack of humour certainly does not help alleviate the task of reading them. The fragment Consider Her Ways, published in 1947, but conceived almost four decades earlier and referred to as his "ant book" during its intermittent genesis, is a refreshing exception. But then, it is clearly an imitation of Swiftian satire.

Thus, Else's pertinent judgement in relation to Greve's two novels, namely, that he was a highly skilled craftsman and imitator, endowed with a keen mind and considerable marketing skills, but without creative talent of his own can be applied to Grove's literary writings as well, and may serve here as conclusion:

"He made, in spite of his intelligence, the mistake of thinking himself an artist. How that is possible I don't know! He was just the opposite of it....[It] shows an amazing lack of observation, self-analysis and intellect." [underlined in typescript, p.34]. And: "He even thought of himself as a genius, art genius ... until the end when he broke off, or down, his career deciding to become a business genius, or potato king in America. Felix had written two novels. They were dedicated to me in so far as material was concerned; it was my life and persons out of my life. He did the executive part of the business, giving the thing the conventional shape and dress...He took it all outwardly as mere industry, except for the material in it. They must be fearful books as far as art is concerned." (Autobiography, pp. 34-35).

[44] Her autobiography, pp. 34-35; emphasis hers.