Tag Archives: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

German fever. Beckett in Germany

Samuel Beckett is one of the most discussed and reviewed authors of the 20th century. The pessimistic, often hopeless view of the world that the author shows us in his work appears unbearable at first glance, but the apparent senselessness and absurdity of existence is softened by the black humor typical of Beckett.

For the audience of his pieces in the 1950s, this was an unusual, and for many also shocking, approach. Beckett, the deeply private and shy man, unwillingly turned into an existentialist author par excellence – even if he rightly saw himself as a literary loner – his plays became enormous theatrical successes, their author received the Nobel Prize (one of the few cases in which the committee in Stockholm was right), in many countries his work is read in school and the author has become a modern classic.

So, there is nothing more obvious than making Beckett the subject of a modest blog post. Especially since Beckett was – and is! – a very important author for my own intellectual development. And because, after everything I know about him, he must have been a very likeable person. As is well known, this is something exceptionally rare among writers …

Since so incredibly much has been written about Beckett’s works – comparable only to Kafka in this respect -, it is difficult for me to choose one of his works for a review. The danger of repeating something that some other and possibly more erudite mind has already written in a more interesting way seems too great to me.

Instead, a few lines will follow about a book that deals with a certain, rarely noticed, but nevertheless very important aspect of Beckett’s work: his relationship to Germany and to the German language and culture.

From November 2017 to July 2018, an excellent exhibition entitled German fever, Beckett in Deutschland took place at the Literaturmuseum der Moderne (Modern Literature Museum) in tranquil Marbach am Neckar in Germany. Documents from various archives and collections were made available to the public for the first time in an excellently curated form, including the so-called German Diaries, Beckett’s notes during his extensive trip to Germany from September 1936 to April 1937.

Marbach, Schiller’s birthplace, is the seat of the Deutsche Schillerstiftung (German Schiller Foundation) and the Deutsches Literaturarchiv (German Literature Archive), in which the bequests (and pre-bequests) of many German authors are stored and scientifically edited. In addition to various other series of publications of these institutions, the Marbach catalogs and the Marbach magazine appear on a regular basis. They showcase and document the exhibitions of the museum. A fantastic treasure trove for anyone interested in German literature and I can also highly recommend a visit to the museum itself.

The double volume of the Marbacher Magazin discussed here contains, in addition to the carefully compiled catalog section with images of the exhibits and their transcription and explanation, a longer essay by the authors of the volume, Mark Nixon and Dirk Van Hulle. The result is an attractive volume of almost 250 pages. It is particularly gratifying that the band is bilingual (German / English). 

In the summer of 1928, the young Beckett – at that time a poorly paid lecturer in Paris who was working on his first publications and occasionally assignments as an assistant and researcher for James Joyce – met his cousin Peggy Sinclair during a stay in Dublin and fell in love with her. At the end of August, Beckett traveled to Kassel for the first time, where Peggy lived with her parents, who were tremendously interested in art. Even before meeting Peggy, Beckett had begun to systematically study German literature and to learn German.

In the period up to 1931 there were numerous, sometimes extensive, visits to Kassel. Beckett was a welcome guest with the Sinclairs, who introduced the cultured young man to German-language literature and music. Peggy’s father was an art dealer and found in Beckett an inquisitive listener who, under the influence of the experienced Sinclair, got more and more interested in German art. Beckett was particularly fond of Dürer and his contemporaries, but also in contemporary art. Additionally, he used his stays in Germany to improve his German language skills and to deal more systematically with modern literature.

It may come as a surprise that Beckett’s all-time favorite novel (and not just in German) was Theodor Fontane’s Effi Briest. Even in later years he read the novel again and again with never-ending enthusiasm and recommended it to friends and colleagues. The fact that Effi Briest was also Peggy’s favorite novel may have played a role here, although admittedly it is an excellent novel.

Of course, Beckett also read the classics Goethe and Schiller. While he was not particularly impressed by Schiller, whom he found slightly too emotional and idealistic, he valued Goethe far more – which did not prevent him from breaking off reading Goethe’s Faust at a certain point. On the other hand, he was enthusiastic about Walther von der Vogelweide and especially Hölderlin, who was much closer to him as a person than the classics.  

Beckett’s love affair with Peggy ended as early as 1929, but his regular visits to Kassel lasted until 1931. In 1932 he visited Peggy, then terminally ill with tuberculosis in a sanatorium in Bad Wildungen. Peggy died there a year later, just 22 years old. Beckett processed his experiences in Kassel in his novel Dream of Fair to Middling Women, which was written at the time but was only published posthumously.

In addition to art and literature, philosophy also played a major role for young Beckett. For Joyce, who was working on Finnegans Wake at the time, he tracked down a volume of Fritz Mauthner’s work on the critic of language. It would be an interesting subject to examine Mauthner’s influence on Beckett’s work, which should not be underestimated. For Beckett, Schopenhauer’s pessimistic worldview became an antidote to the idealism of the German classics. In addition to Hölderlin’s Gesammelte Werke (Collected Works), Beckett also acquired the entire Schopenhauer in German and kept both editions throughout his life, reading and annotating them extensively.

Beckett was rather active as a writer in the 1930s, but much of what he wrote remained unpublished until after his death. During this time Beckett was more and more in doubt as to whether it was even possible to adequately express his thoughts in English. In addition to the influence of language-critical philosophy and a French-speaking environment, the fact that Ireland – and the English language associated with it – was traumatic for him also played a role. His recurring painful arguments with his mother, a woman who can easily be imagined in a play by Strindberg, also made it appear necessary for Beckett to radically free himself from this influence by “emigrating” into another language. The natural choice for this was French, although the exhibition makes it clear that Beckett also attempted writing in German.

In this situation critical for his development, Beckett undertook an extended trip to Germany, which he documented meticulously in diaries, the originals of which were also shown in the exhibition. From September 1936 to April 1937 he visited Hamburg, Berlin, Dresden, Halle, Weimar and Munich, among others.

The journals of the trip are on the one hand extremely interesting because the foreign visitor recorded and commented on the situation in Nazi Germany without illusions, but on the other hand they also provide information about the aesthetic development that Beckett went through during this time. In every city he visits he has a plan of which museums and exhibitions he wants to visit, he takes notes, finds intellectuals who quite openly flaunt their disgust for the Nazis. Occasionally, persuasion and a small bribe also helps to see works of the so-called degenerate artists, which, however, are also shown in special exhibitions by the Nazis – before these works are destroyed, sold or hidden in some storage room. Beckett knows it will be the last opportunity in a long time to see it all all over again. Here, too, it would be interesting to demonstrate in detail how Beckett was influenced in the post-WWII stage designs he had in mind for his plays by the art that he experienced during these years, especially during his visits to Germany.

A special surprise for me was the information that Beckett wrote his first play Mittelalterliches Dreieck (Medieval Triangle) in 1936 – in German! The play remained a fragment, but it becomes clear that Beckett toyed with the idea of becoming a German-writing author. He also translated his poem Cascando into German and created long lists of German words that document his seriousness with this undertaking.

Beckett, who had joined the French Resistance during the occupation of the country, soon sought contact with Germany again after the end of the war. With the publishers Peter Suhrkamp and later with his successor Siegfried Unseld he established a relationship that lasted for decades and that went well beyond the usual author-publisher business relationship. This relationship was to become of central importance for the worldwide outreach and success of his work. Beckett’s plays appeared in a trilingual edition (French / English / German), an idea that appealed tremendously to Beckett. It is also significant to note that Beckett played a major role in the German translation, which was a real co-production. Beckett was not very satisfied with Elmar Tophoven’s first attempts at translation and suggested that the young man, who was just in Paris, visit him and work on the translation together. The manuscripts in the exhibition show how painstaking Beckett’s work with the translator couple Elmar and Erika Tophoven was.

A nice character trait of Beckett was his personal loyalty and integrity. He made for example sure that “his” translators should translate everything from him and he also campaigned for this at Suhrkamp, his publishing house. Although Beckett was an extremely meticulous worker to whom every detail was important, the correspondence, especially between Beckett and Unseld, is warm and friendly, even amicable. Although both men were known to be averse to sentimentality, Unseld, who immediately recorded important writers’ meetings afterwards, was visibly touched when the seriously ill Beckett kissed him on both cheeks when they last met. (I imagine Unseld had to see Thomas Bernhard after that, and anyone familiar with the Unseld-Bernhard correspondence knows that Bernhard was infinitely more difficult to deal with).

The last two chapters of the catalog deal with Beckett’s work as a theater director of seven(!) of his own plays with the Schillertheater Berlin and his collaboration with the Süddeutscher Rundfunk on various television productions. Here, too, Beckett shows himself to be a hard worker, who always goes to great lenghts to prepare himself precisely, who learns his plays by heart in German and also uses German to a large extent at work. For each of his productions, he wrote a separate director’s book beforehand with detailed comments on the planned production. Occasionally he also changes little things in the text, still tweaking every little formulation. And again remarkable: his friendly treatment of a well-coordinated team that he trusts, above all his favorite actors Horst Bollmann and Stefan Wigger. His openness to the new medium of television and the possibilities it offers – and the freedom that Süddeutscher Rundfunk gives him for it – is all very well documented in this beautiful catalog book.

German fever opens up an unfamiliar view of an author you think you know. A book that I can recommend to anyone who is even a little interested in Samuel Beckett and his work. Kudos to the people in Marbach and elsewhere who make such meaningful exhibitions and publications possible.

Mark Nixon/Dirk Van Hulle: German fever. Beckett in Deutschland, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft, Marbach am Neckar 2017, Marbacher Magazin 158/159


© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-22. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.



Memoirs of a German-Jewish Painter

Moritz Daniel Oppenheim was an important German painter of the 19th century. He was probably the first Jewish visual artist to gain world renown. At an advanced age, he wrote an autobiography intended as a memoir for his family; it was not published during his lifetime. In 1924, his grandson Alfred Oppenheim, who was also a painter, published the manuscript as a book; it was reprinted in 1999 and 2013.

According to family memories, Oppenheim was born in late December 1799 in Hanau, a town east of Frankfurt am Main. (Wikipedia and other sources report a date of birth at the beginning of January 1800.) His Jewish family lived in economically relatively secure conditions, even though the Hanau Jews still had to live in the ghetto at that time and had to face a variety of discriminations. Although the legal betterment of the Jews in Germany at this time made progress in the wake of the emancipatory efforts of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing or Moses Mendelssohn, and especially after the French Revolution, it should nevertheless take decades before the legal equality of Jews in Germany was realized. Oppenheim’s autobiography is so interesting because it not only traces an individual artist’s life, but because it is also a practical example of how this process of Jewish emancipation in Germany in the 19th Century progressed: slowly and characterized by numerous setbacks.

A relatively big part of Oppenheim’s autobiography is devoted to his childhood and youth. Loving and caring parents who focused on providing their children with a good education evidently laid the foundation for his well-balanced character and for being knowledgeable about many subjects, not only about those necessary for a later career. Oppenheim attended the local Talmud Torah school, but received also private lessons. Later he went to a regular high school, together with Christian students. In addition, he and one of his brothers received permission from the father to attend the local drawing academy, where his artistic talent showed early; but young Moritz Daniel didn’t initially plan a professional future as an artist – he originally wanted to become a doctor. From his mother, the young Oppenheim inherited his love for literature and theater – the mother read for example Goethe’s Hermann and Dorothea and attended sometimes theater performances together with her son; these visits inspired Moritz Daniel to set up a puppet theater in the attic of their home (this feels a bit reminiscent of Wilhelm Meister).

What follows are the years at the Hanau and later at the Munich Academy, in which Oppenheim trains his talent as a draftsman and in oil painting. In retrospect, Oppenheim remembers his teachers and supporters of that period with warmth and gratitude, but he also peppers his memoirs with a few humorous anecdotes. The self-portrait, which he created as a 16-year-old, is already proof of his considerable talent and self-confidence.

Self-Portrait, 1814-1816, Oil on canvas, 98.3×83.5 cm, Jewish Museum, New York City

To broaden his horizons Oppenheim studied afterwards in Paris and later in Italy, the country for which so many German artists of his time were yearning. In Paris, he seems to have been a frequent visitor of the legendary Café de la Régence; in his biography he mentions the meeting with Aaron Alexandre there, a rabbi born in Germany, who emigrated to France during the French Revolution and who is remembered today mainly as the author of the monumental chess problem book Collection des plus beaux Problèmes d’Echecs. Alexandre was considered to be one of the world’s best chess players of his time.

More productive in artistic terms was for Oppenheim his subsequent longer stay in Italy. He attached himself looseley to the circle of the Nazarenes, an art movement that exercised a certain influence on him, but which he quickly outgrew. Particularly valuable was in addition to his contacts with Friedrich Overbeck in Rome especially the friendship with the then already famous Bertel Thorvaldsen. The senior Danish sculptor and draftsman was in Rome something like Oppenheim’s artistic mentor, and he provided artistic guidance as well as contacts with potential customers who would be interested to buy Oppenheim’s works.

If Oppenheim had expected that he would not experience any anti-Jewish resentment among fellow artists in his Italian environment, he was wrong. Both among his colleagues and among Italian acquaintances, he experienced frequently more or less open exclusion as soon as he was recognized as a Jew. In order to avoid this exclusion, several painters of Jewish origin converted to Christianity at that time (as did also the writers Heinrich Heine and Ludwig Börne). Oppenheim, who was obviously much more deeply rooted in Judaism than many others, did not follow this path. He managed to gain broad recognition and success in his later life as a Jewish painter in Germany.

One can attest Oppenheim an excellent sense of the social position of his clients and other people important for his advancement. He almost effortlessly won major Jewish art collectors, such as those from the Rothschild family, as buyers for portraits. When the still rather young Oppenheim visited Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in Weimar in 1827 – the visit was preceded by an exchange of letters in which Goethe apparently obtained a positive impression of the young man’s talent and character -, he was awarded at Goethe’s request with an order and a paid professorship with no teaching commitments. From that moment on, Oppenheim was a man who became known in important circles also outside the Jewish community.

What followed was a very successful life as an artist; Oppenheim presents himself as a man for whom a fulfilled family life was very important and he also seems to have lived in great harmony as a husband (after the early death of his first wife, he married a second time) and father of six children. I found this second part of the autobiography – apart from the sections on the 1848/49 revolution – a little less interesting, although all in all this brief autobiography is an important and instructive document.

Here are a few more of Oppenheim’s works. He was particularly popular as a portrait painter, as the following three portraits of writers illustrate:

Portrait of Heinrich Heine, 1831, Oil on paper on canvas, 43×34 cm, Kunsthalle Hamburg
Portrait of Ludwig Börne in his study, 1827, Oil on canvas, 120×90 cm, Israel Museum, Jerusalem
Portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe with illustrations from his works, after 1828, Oil on canvas, Goethe-Haus, Frankfurt am Main

Scenes from Jewish life in Germany were another frequent subject of Oppenheim’s artworks. Prints based on Oppenheim’s paintings were a frequent adornment of many Jewish homes in the 19th and 20th centuries. They not only showed the everyday life of Jewish families who succeeded to leave the ghetto behind, but would also provide a clear message – particularly in the next painting -: that it is possible to be a Jew, following the religious norms of the forefathers, and at the same time to be a German patriot, fighting as a volunteer in the War of Liberation:

The Return of the Jewish Volunteer from the Wars of Liberation, 1833-1834, Oil on canvas, 86.2×94 cm, Jewish Museum, New York City
The Bleach Garden, 1842, Oil on canvas, Museum of History, Hanau

While Oppenheim’s autobiography seems to be untranslated, the following bi-lingual catalogue contains not only a detailed biography and essays about his art, but also reproductions of most of his works and is therefore highly recommended for anyone with an interest in this important German-Jewish artist.

Moritz Daniel Oppenheim, Erinnerungen eines deutsch-jüdischen Maler (Memoirs of a German-Jewish Painter), Manutius, Heidelberg 1999

Georg Heuberger / Anton Merk (eds.), Moritz Daniel Oppenheim. Die Entdeckung des jüdischen Selbstbewußtseins in der Kunst /Jewish Identity in 19th Century Art, Jüdisches Museum Frankfurt am Main 1999 (bi-lingual German/English)

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-20. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Einige Anmerkungen zur neuen bulgarischen Celan-Ausgabe

Nachdem zwei frühere Auswahlbände mit Gedichten von Paul Celan aus den Jahren 1998 und 2002 längst vergriffen sind, ist es ein erfreuliches Ereignis, dass Ende 2019 erneut ein Band mit ausgewählten Gedichten Celans in bulgarischer Übersetzung vorliegt. Grund genug für mich, mir diese Ausgabe anzuschaffen. Ein paar Gedanken zu diesem Buch:

Zunächst einige Äußerlichkeiten, die mir allerdings bei einem Werk gerade eines mir so kostbaren Autors wie Celan wichtig sind. Der vorliegende Band ist handwerklich offenbar gut gemacht und hat eine ansprechende Einbandgestaltung (unter Verwendung eines Gemäldes des Dichters Roman Kissiov). Sehr erfreulich ist die Tatsache, dass es sich um eine zweisprachige Ausgabe handelt; der des Deutschen kundige Leser kann hier jeweils direkt das Original und die Übersetzung, die sich im Druckbild gegenüberstehen, miteinander vergleichen. Für die Entscheidung, die Gedichte auch im deutschen Original zu bringen, ist der Verlag sehr zu loben. Ich würde mir derartige zweisprachige Ausgaben auch in anderen vergleichbaren Fällen wünschen.

Auch die Auswahl der in den Band aufgenommenen Gedichte erscheint mir im allgemeinen gelungen; es versteht sich von selbst, dass jeder Celan-Leser seine Lieblingsgedichte hat, die er gerne in einem solchen Band sehen möchte. Und es versteht sich ebenfalls von selbst, dass jede Auswahl subjektiv ist und daher auch der neue Band ein paar aus meiner Sicht bedauerliche Lücken hat. Vor allem das Fehlen des Gedichts „Todtnauberg“, das auf Celans sehr wichtige Begegnung mit Martin Heidegger anspielt und in seinem Werk eine Schlüsselstellung einnimmt, erscheint mir allerdings als ein wirkliches Manko. Ein grosses Plus wiederum ist die Tatsache, dass Celans einzige längere programmatische Äußerung zu seiner eigenen Lyrik, die „Meridian“-Rede, die er 1960 in Darmstadt anlässlich der Verleihung des Georg-Büchner-Preises hielt, in den Band aufgenommen wurde.

Celan ist für jeden Übersetzer, der sich an seinem Werk versucht, eine Herausforderung. Er ist aus verschiedenen Gründen schwer zu übersetzen bzw. nachzudichten. Das gilt besonders für seine späten Gedichte, in denen die Syntax und die Sprache allgemein immer stärker „aufgebrochen“ wird und die bei Celan ohnehin vorhandene Tendenz zu grosser Ambiguität hinsichtlich der Aussage und des Inhalts der Gedichte oft so weit getrieben wird, dass der Leser vor großen Herausforderungen steht. Dass die Übersetzerin Maria Slavcheva sich trotzdem an das Werk dieses sehr komplexen Dichters gewagt hat, verrät Mut und eine gute Portion Selbstbewusstsein.

Literarisches Übersetzen, zumal von Lyrik, erfordert vom Übersetzer viele zum Teil schwierige Entscheidungen zu treffen. Bei der Besprechung der Übersetzung eines Lyrikbandes sollte es daher auch darum gehen, ob die vom Übersetzer getroffenen Entscheidungen in der Regel plausibel oder nicht plausibel sind. (Es gibt hier oft kein klares „richtig oder falsch“; von groben sinnentstellenden Fehlern einmal abgesehen.) Mein persönliches Urteil ist hier überwiegend positiv: in vielen der übersetzten Gedichte trifft die Übersetzerin den Sinngehalt und auch die Form, die Celans Original vorweist. Einige kritische Anmerkungen sollen allerdings an dieser Stelle nicht verschwiegen werden.

Celans wohl berühmtestes Gedicht „Todesfuge“ ist wahrscheinlich auch sein am häufigsten übersetztes. Auf bulgarisch kenne ich ein halbes Dutzend verschiedene Übersetzungen dieses Gedichts, von denen mir die Version von Emanuil Vidinski als die mit Abstand gelungenste erscheint. Im Original finden sich diese Zeilen:

„… der Tod ist ein Meister aus Deutschland sein Auge ist blau / er trifft dich mit bleierner Kugel er trifft dich genau…“

Die Tatsache, dass Celan hier – aber eben auch nur hier – einen Endreim in diesem Gedicht verwendet, deutet auf die geradezu zentrale Rolle dieser beiden Zeilen im Gedicht hin. Der Endreim ist kein Zufall – wie ja auch sonst nichts in den Gedichten Celans Zufall ist.

In der vorliegenden Ausgabe werden diese Zeilen wie folgt übersetzt:

“…смъртта е майстор от Германия със сини очи / той те улучва с оловен куршум улучва те точно…”

Im Vergleich dazu heißt es bei Vidinski:

„…смъртта е германски маестро окото му е синьо / улучва те с оловен куршум улучва те точно…“

Die zweite Variante ist sowohl sprachlich näher beim Original, als auch hinsichtlich Reim und Rhythmus des Gedichts eindeutig vorzuziehen.

Neben einigen weiteren für mich schwer nachvollziehbaren Entscheidungen gerade bei diesem Gedicht, hat die Übersetzerin unglücklicherweise einen meiner Meinung nach ausgesprochen schweren Lapsus in der bulgarischen Fassung der „Todesfuge“ begangen, der durchaus in den Sinngehalt des Gedichts eingreift und welcher Leser, die mit Celan und seiner Geisteswelt nicht oder wenig vertraut sind, auf eine vollkommen falsche Spur führt.

Wenn Celan in dem Gedicht

„dein goldenes Haar Margarete / dein aschenes Haar Sulamith“

schreibt, evoziert er damit eben nicht nur irgendeine blonde (deutsche) Margarete und irgendeine (jüdische) Sulamith mit aschfarbenem Haar, sondern er spielt natürlich auf Margarete aus Goethes „Faust“ und Sulamith aus dem Hohen Lied Salomos an, zwei emblematische Dichtungen für das deutsche und das jüdische Volk – wie ja überhaupt, das Deutsche und das Jüdische bei diesem Dichter geradezu schicksalhaft miteinander verwoben waren.

Celan, der die Möglichkeiten deutscher Dichtung nach dem Holocaust erneuert und erweitert hat wie kein Zweiter, beherrschte die deutsche Sprache virtuos; zu den Schuldgefühlen, die er wegen des Todes seiner Eltern hatte, gesellten sich gerade deshalb die Schuldgefühle, in der Sprache der Mörder seiner Eltern zu dichten und seine meisten Leser im Land der Täter zu haben. Wenn die Übersetzerin in ihrer Fassung aus Margarete eine Margarita macht (твоята златна коса Маргарита / твоята пепелива коса Суламит), verfälscht sie die Aussage des Gedichts vollkommen; der Leser wird vielleicht an Bulgakov denken, aber mit der offensichtlichen Autorintention von Celan hat das absolut nichts zu tun. Ein wirklich unnötiger und sehr schwerer Fehler in meinen Augen (den auch Tekla Sugareva und Edvin Sugarev in ihrer Version seinerzeit gemacht haben), der die Vermutung nahelegt, dass die Übersetzerin wohl mit den Hintergründen von Celans Dichtung verhältnismäßig wenig vertraut ist.

Gestolpert bin auch über eine Fußnote zu einem der zentralen Gedichte Celans, „Mandorla“. In der Fußnote erfährt der Leser, dass Mandorla die „mandelförmige Aureole, die in der christlichen Ikonographie verwendet wird“ sei. Zwar ist es zutreffend, dass der Heiligenschein christlicher Heiligenbilder als Mandorla bezeichnet wird; trotzdem ist die Fußnote irreführend, da eben nicht nur in der christlichen Ikonographie eine solches mandelförmiges Halo verwendet wird. Es findet sich unter anderem auch im Buddhismus und – für Celan sicher sehr wichtig – in der Kabbala, der jüdischen Mystik.

Das Gedicht „Mandorla“ gehört wohl zu den am schwersten zu deutenden Gedichten Celans und ich will mich hier keineswegs an einer weiteren Deutung versuchen. Eine Anmerkung, die den Eindruck erweckt als habe sich Celan hier eindeutig auf die christliche Ikonographie bezogen, führt den Leser aber in die Irre. Eine solche Eindeutigkeit ist der Dichtung Celans wesensfremd; darauf hat zu Recht Hermann Detering in seinem Aufsatz „Religionsgeschichtliche Anmerkungen zu Paul Celans Gedicht „Mandorla““ hingewiesen – aus dem Gedicht selbst lässt sich die in der Fußnote der Buchausgabe suggerierte Eindeutigkeit keineswegs ableiten. Anmerkungen sollen dem Verständnis des Lesers dienen; die hier angesprochene Fußnote tut dies nicht, sie führt im Gegenteil den Leser zu einer abwegigen und verengenden Lektüre des Gedichts.

Überhaupt, die Fußnoten. Nach meinem Eindruck sind sie manchmal überflüssig, an anderen Stellen, wo sie auf bestimmte Bezüge von Celans Dichtung erklärend hinweisen könnten, die den meisten bulgarischen Lesern nicht geläufig sind, fehlen sie. Dazu ein Beispiel aus dem Nachwort des Bandes, das wie folgt beginnt:

„Jedem Text bleibt sein „20. Jänner“ eingeschrieben. Wenn auch an einem 23. April begonnen trägt auch diese Übersetzung einen „20. Jänner“ in sich, von dem Celan sich herschrieb.“

In einer Fußnote erläutert die Übersetzerin, dass der 23. April der Welttag des Buches sei. Inwieweit dies für das Verständnis von Celan bzw. für den Leser von Interesse ist, ist mir schleierhaft. Viel wichtiger wäre eine Anmerkung gewesen, die den Bezug zu der Behauptung der Übersetzerin erläutert, dass sich Celan von einem „20. Jänner herschrieb“. Ich vermute stark, dass den bulgarischen Lesern in der Regel vollkommen unverständlich ist, was es mit diesem 20. Jänner im Zusammenhang mit Celans Dichtung auf sich hat. Zwar steht als Motto über dem Nachwort ein Zitat aus Celans Meridian-Rede in der er fragt

„Vielleicht darf man sagen, dass jedem Gedicht sein „20. Jänner“ eingeschrieben bleibt?“,

allerdings ist dies nicht dasselbe wie die Behauptung, Celan habe sich „von einem „20. Jänner“ hergeschrieben“.

Was also hat es mit diesem 20. Jänner auf sich (Celan verwendet sowohl in der Meridian-Rede als auch im Gedicht „Tübingen, Jänner“ diese eher ungewöhnliche regionaltypische Form des Monatsnamens Januar, was allein schon ein deutlicher Hinweis ist)? Eine Fußnote hätte hier deutlich mehr Nutzen gestiftet als das später im Nachwort folgende Namedropping – Szondi, Gadamer, Derrida, Hamburger (die Hinweise auf Ingeborg Bachmann und Bertolt Brecht sind dagegen angebracht, da es einen konkreten Bezug von im Band abgedruckten Gedichten gibt).

Dass der „20. Jänner“ sich auf den Anfang von Georg Büchners Erzählung „Lenz“ bezieht – wie viele bulgarische Leser wissen das? Und dass das Gedicht „Tübingen, Jänner“ auch darauf anspielt (Hölderlin war ein interessierter Leser von Lenz und erlebte ähnliche lebensgeschichtlich bedeutsame Enttäuschungen mit den Weimarer Titanen Schiller und Goethe) und dies ebenso wie die programmatische Rede Celans als Auseinandersetzung mit den Klassikern der deutschen Dichtung und als Gegenposition zu deren Dichtungsverständnis gesehen werden muss, gegen das sich die Lenz, Hölderlin, Büchner gewandt haben – auch dies hätte man gerne in einem solchen Nachwort, das leider sehr an der Oberfläche bleibt, gelesen.

Mein Urteil über diese Ausgabe ist – daran möchte trotz der oben angeführten Kritik keinen Zweifel lassen – insgesamt eher positiv. Eine überwiegend respektable Übersetzerleistung, die aber nicht in jedem Gedicht das hohe Niveau hält. Das Beiwerk (Fußnoten und Nachwort) finde ich fast ein wenig ärgerlich. Eine Ausgabe, die ganz darauf verzichtet hätte, wäre aus meiner Sicht vorzuziehen gewesen.

Wie ich gehört habe, soll eine weitere bulgarische Celan-Ausgabe in Vorbereitung sein. Eine gute Nachricht, denn ein solch anspruchsvoller und wichtiger Dichter sollte noch mehr Aufmerksamkeit beim Lesepublikum finden; und der Vergleich der verschiedenen Übersetzungen wird sicherlich zu weiteren interessanten Diskussionen führen. Ich bin jedenfalls gespannt.

Паул Целан: Избрани стихотворения, Gutenberg, Veliko Tarnovo 2019 (Übersetzerin Maria Slavcheva)

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-2020. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Goethe’s late love

In 1821, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe planned to visit his hometown Frankfurt am Main and the Rhine valley. After the death of his wife Christiane five years earlier, he hadn’t undertaken any visits far away from home, and his trip to Karlsbad and Marienbad 1820 was for medical reasons. Since Goethe was not in good health then, his doctors prescribed the mineral water of the Bohemian spas which had done the poet and statesman well on prior occasions. A bout of illness prevented the planned meeting with old friends in the West, and the by then 72 year-old Goethe followed the medical advice to go again to Marienbad.

The small book “Goethes späte Liebe” (Goethe’s late love) by Dagmar von Gersdorff recounts what happened in Marienbad. Goethe arrived in Marienbad in good spirits; he was additionally lucky to meet an old acquaintance, the attractive Amalie von Levetzow, an energetic woman in her early thirties, twice divorced, and owner of a representative villa she rented out to guests from the aristocracy and high society. Amalie had married very early and had three daughters; the oldest one, Ulrike, then a 17-year old teenager, caught immediately Goethe’s eye.

Ulrike von Levetzow, 1821 – Pastel by an unknown painter

Ulrike, who was attending a boarding school in France where she got a French education, had never heard of Goethe, and had therefore in the beginning no idea that the old gentleman she met was Germany’s most important poet and at the same time Head of the Government of the small Grand-Duchy Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach – the Grand-Duke was also an old friend of her mother Amalie. Goethe took no offence and was obviously in the contrary smitten by the natural friendliness and attentiveness of the girl. Soon they went out for walks together, with Goethe introducing many to the girl new topics that covered a wide range of subjects (astronomy, geology, mineralogy, botany, but of course also poetry and literature). In the evening they would sit together on a bench in front of the villa talking vividly, reading or discussing copper plates Goethe had ordered. Also the younger sisters were involved, Goethe attended picnics and dinner invitations with them, danced and had fun.

While Ulrike’s family treated Goethe like a family member, it was for most people in Marienbad a source for permanent gossip to see the transformation of Goethe. While at the arrival he made the impression of an old sick man, he was soon bursting with energy and was visibly rejuvenated; the reason for this transformation was easy to guess. Soon the gossip reached also Weimar, and Goethe’s son August and his wife Ottilie, who lived with their children in Goethe’s house in Weimar were not exactly delighted about the news. But once the summer was over, and Goethe went back to Weimar, things calmed down again, but from letters to his friend Zelter we know that Goethe felt the contrast between the cheerful atmosphere in Marienbad and the cold reception at home by his son and daughter-in-law as rather depressing.

Goethe spent also the summer of 1822, and then again the summer of 1823 in Marienbad. It seems that in 1822, his feelings for Ulrike became so serious that he considered a marriage proposal, despite the age gap of 55 years. When it became obvious to his surrounding, that the old man was serious, tout Weimar was bursting with gossip about this scandal. Schiller’s widow, the Humboldt’s, even Wilhelm Grimm, or Bettine von Arnim from Berlin were sending letters back and forth in which they secretly scolded the foolishness of Goethe. It was not the first time Goethe faced this kind of situation. Similar scandals followed his early relationship with Frau von Stein, and his running away to Italy for two years, leaving behind important state business and a whole town wondering what happened to their most prominent inhabitant (after the Grand Duke, Goethe’s old friend and protector); the small town of Weimar also didn’t accept the fact that Goethe lived for many years with Christiane Vulpius, a woman who was considered as socially inferior, a mesalliance – and on top of it they were not even married! Goethe seem not to have cared very much for gossip, but this time things were different.

August and Ottilie threatened Goethe to desert him and leave, together with their children – if a young woman would enter the house as Goethe’s wife; especially the danger not to see his beloved grandchildren any more was a heavy burden on Goethe’s soul. When the Grand Duke travelled to Marienbad to visit the von Levetzow family and to submit on Goethe’s behalf a marriage proposal, the house at the Frauenplan was almost in a state of war. Cold and harsh were the words August and Ottilie exchanged with Goethe, and he started to feel like a stranger in his own house. Meanwhile, the Grand Duke had not only submitted Goethe’s marriage proposal, he had also explained that in the case Ulrike would live in Weimar, also a house for her family would be built by the Grand Duke; Ulrike would be the First Lady at the court of the Grand Duke; she would receive a generous livelong pension and would be treated like royalty in every respect. Ulrike’s mother made it clear that she would not interfere in her daughter’s decision; while she was very sceptical because of the age gap, it was clear that the proposal was also an honor. Ulrike declined, especially since she sensed that this would affect the peace in the house of Goethe. And of course, we might say, her feelings were very different from that of Goethe.

Ulrike von Levetzow lived until 1899; in that moment she was the last person that knew Goethe personally. She never married, although she received many marriage proposals. A few years before her death, she wrote down a text in which she gave her side of the story. It was no love affair, she claims. Goethe was like a grandfather, a sweet, good-natured man, educating her on many subjects; and he saw in her only a daughter (or grand-daughter). She plays down the seriousness of the matter, but for Goethe, it was definitely much more. What exactly happened between them, we don’t know; they kissed at least on one occasion; and how explicit Goethe made his wish to marry her in his conversations with her, we can only guess. While the decline of the marriage proposal was never formally voiced, Goethe still had hopes, a fact that is also very clear from his correspondence with the girl’s mother. But when in October 1824, Ulrike and her mother were passing by Weimar without stopping to meet Goethe (whom they even saw on the street), we can easily guess that the old man was heartbroken. Still, he kept the correspondence going, and even shortly before his death his thoughts were with Ulrike as we know from letters. 

It was an impossible love, no doubt. And deep inside, we can be sure that Goethe knew it. But still, this love brought him new energy and inspiration and the Marienbad Elegy, probably the most beautiful of his later works is one of the results of this love of an old man to a young girl.

The last stanza goes like this:

Mir ist das All, ich bin mir selbst verloren,
Der ich noch erst den Göttern Liebling war;
Sie prüften mich, verliehen mir Pandoren,
So reich an Gütern, reicher an Gefahr;
Sie drängten mich zum gabeseligen Munde,
Sie trennen mich, und richten mich zugrunde.

(To me is all, I to myself am lost,
Who the immortals’ fav’rite erst was thought;
They, tempting, sent Pandoras to my cost,
So rich in wealth, with danger far more fraught;
They urged me to those lips, with rapture crown’d,
Deserted me, and hurl’d me to the ground.)

(translation by Edgar Alfred Bowring)

Dagmar von Gersdorff: Goethes späte Liebe, Insel Verlag Frankfurt am Main und Leipzig 2005

A classic that covers the same period of time:

Johannes Urzidil: Goethe in Böhmen, Zürich: Artemis, 1962 (1935)

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-8. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 


German Literature Month 2015 – wrap-up

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German Literature Month in November was again an extremely interesting event, just like last year. The two unfatigable hosts Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat) and Lizzy (Lizzy’s Literary Life) once again created an event with plenty of opportunities to join in. In the end 44 bloggers had published 166 posts, mainly about fiction and poetry, but also including some featured articles and several non-fiction reviews.

Over the years, this event has become increasingly popular and the index on the website that links to all articles that were published in all editions of the German Literature Month has become a major resource for anyone who wants to get informed about German literature. Check it out, the variety of authors and opinions is truly amazing! (Thanks, Lizzy!)

Interestingly, the most reviewed author this year was Stefan Zweig (14 reviews of 12 works), followed by Schiller (10 posts related to Schiller’s works and books about Schiller). Goethe on the contrary was ignored by everybody – maybe we should include a Goethe week next year?

After several months of being not very active, this event has brought me back to blogging on a more regular basis. I discovered plenty of new books, got reminded of some others I should re-read again in the future and I also discovered a few book blogs which I hadn’t known before but will follow in the future. It was fun to read the comments and to comment myself sometimes. I read literally all reviews, but time restrictions prevented me so far to comment on all of them.  Just like last year  I thoroughly enjoyed this event, and just like last year, I won a giveaway, Ulrich Plenzdorf’s Werther novel which I will review one day of course. (Thanks, Caroline!)

This year, I published ten posts – compared to eight last year. Beside a featured anecdote about Jean Paul, nine of the posts were reviews:

Veza Canetti: The Tortoises

Thomas Kling: Collected Poems

Schilleriana (9 publications of Deutsche Schillergesellschaft)

Hans Magnus Enzensberger: New Selected Poems

Walther von der Vogelweide: Poems

Detlef Opitz: The Books Murderer

Jean Paul: The strange company at New Year’s Eve

Joseph Roth: Letters from Germany

Gertrud Kolmar: Poems

Several of the books I had intended to read for German Lit Month, I had to postpone for the time being, while others popped up in the last moment. I reviewed/presented more poetry than last years and a bit less prose by contemporary authors. Who knows what I will be up to next year?!

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-5. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

An early “Dying Earth” scenario

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This blog post is part of the German Literature Month, hosted by Lizzie (Lizzies Literary Life) and Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)

The narrator of this story, a man with a rich imagination, and prone to both bouts of migraine and frequent visions is walking up and down his study for hours. It is New Year’s Eve of 1799, the last day of the 18th century. The writer waits for the return of his wife who is out for a visit to a sick friend, promising that she will be back “still in this century.”

The last day of a year, and even more so the last day of a century is reason for contemplation, but our narrator has again a terrible migraine attack – and suddenly it happens:

after closing his eyes for a while and upon reopening them again he realizes that there is a group of five people, among them a little child in his room and he has no idea who they are or how they entered. The group’s appearance is rather odd, not so much frightening and a dialogue between the narrator and the group is developing that covers most of the story. This dialogue deals mainly with the prospectives for the future. The tone, partly serious, partly humorous keeps a kind of balance that makes us readers wonder what the author is up to. One of the narrator’s guests gets more and more excited and develops a truly apocalyptic scenario for the future that is the climax of this story:

“Es gibt einmal einen letzten Menschen – er wird auf einem Berg unter dem Äquator stehen und herabschauen auf die Wasser, welche die weite Erde überziehen – festes Eis glänzet an den Polen herauf der Mond und die Sonne hängen ausgebreitet und tief und nur blutig über der kleinen Erde, wie zwei trübe feindliche Augen oder Kometen – das aufgetürmte Gewölke strömet eilig durch den Himmel und stürzet sich ins Meer und fährt wieder empor, und nur der Blitz schwebt mit glühenden Flügeln zwischen Himmel und Meer und scheidet sie – Schau auf zum Himmel, letzter Mensch! Auf deiner Erde ist schon alles vergangen – deine großen Ströme ruhen aufgelöset im Meere.”

“There will one day be a last man – he will stand on a mountain under the Equator, and look down upon the waters which welter over the wide earth – firmly from the poles gleams upward the unchangeable ice – the moon and the sun hang broad and bloody over the little earth, like two eyes full of hate. For the earth’s spiral orbit has brought it nearer and nearer to the sun, and the moon’s spiral has enlarged the face with which it looks ever steadfastly toward our planet, and their strong attraction caused the oceans to roll together round the Equator – and then the whole atmosphere with its vapors rushes up from the poles after the water, and still as the attraction increases, a frightful flood of electric fluid pours and swells over all. The clouds, piled up in mountain-towers stream quickly across the sky, and plunge into the sea, and then rush upward again, while the lightning  on burning wings flashes from Heaven to the Ocean and cleaves them asunder. Look up to the Heaven, thou last man! All on thy earth has disappeared – all its rivers have been swallowed up in its sea.” (translation by J.F.C., The Western Messenger, November 1838) 

Believing that midnight is approaching, the uninvited guests are leaving – but it turns out that when the authors wife comes home from her visit it is one hour before midnight. Remarking her husband’s mood, the wife sings and plays on the piano one of his favourite tunes and the usual order of things is re-established. The vision was most probably something only imagined by her husband. 

This short story by Jean Paul Friedrich Richter – known in Germany as Jean Paul only – Die wunderbare Gesellschaft in der Neujahrsnacht (The strange company at New Year’s Eve) is rather typical for this remarkable and not well-known author who wrote in the traditions of Swift and Laurence Sterne and who had a tremendous influence on authors like Hoffmann, de Quincey (who wrote an essay about him) or Arno Schmidt and among the contemporary German authors I could mention Walter Kappacher and Ludwig Harig (who was by coincidence my teacher when I was a first grader) as examples of novelists that are writing in Jean Paul’s tradition.

The story from which I quoted is witty, well-written and despite the bleak quote very entertaining. And it is according to some SF experts most probably the first literary Dying Earth scenario ever published – and thus a kind of predecessor of a certain category of the Science Fiction genre.

Jean Paul lived most of his life in pre-Wagner Bayreuth, but he paid also longer visits to Weimar (Goethe and Schiller were rather distanced, partly because of literary reasons, partly because of the fact that Jean Paul, then a bachelor had several relationships with women which were considered a scandal; Wieland and Herder on the contrary liked him very much), and to Berlin – here he made friends with the Schlegel brothers, Schleiermacher, Fichte, and other important intellectuals.

Jean Paul is a great master of the German language; and he is also a master of the digression – his novels are usually very long because he is a true follower of Laurence Sterne here.

Who wants to discover this literary giant who was standing between Classicism and Romanticism can start with this rather short work that inspired also many famous illustrators (I have a beautiful edition with sketches by Alfred Kubin.). Unfortunately it seems that there is no collection of stories on the market that contains this story in English translation. Why, dear publishers?

A book I can heartily recommend for those with an interest in Jean Paul is Günter de Bruyn’s biography Das Leben des Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (The Life of Jean Paul Frederick Richter), a beautiful dedication by the novelist de Bruyn to his literary ancestor Jean Paul.  I fell a bit under the spell of Jean Paul after I had read this well-researched and brilliantly written book.

A translation of this book and a recent good edition of Jean Paul’s shorter works in English is missing – but who knows, maybe a publisher is already working on it. That would be a great pleasure!

Kubin

Jean Paul: Die wunderbare Gesellschaft in der Neujahrsnacht, dtv, München 1979, ill. by Alfred Kubin

de Bruyn

Günter de Bruyn: Das Leben des Jean Paul Friedrich Richter, S. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-5. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Magister Tinius – Priest, Book Collector, Killer

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This blog post is part of the German Literature Month, hosted by Lizzie (Lizzies Literary Life) and Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)

The Books Murderer (Der Büchermörder) by Detlef Opitz is a novel that is remarkable for various reasons. It is an extremely well-researched historical novel; it is a novel that tries to resolve the mystery of a series of crimes – including murder – that are all linked to the insane passion of a priest for books; and it is a novel that uses in a most virtuous way probably all existing writing styles in German language from the 18th to the 21th century.

As an additional interesting element there is a “we”-narrator that takes certain liberties in filling in the gaps that the documents that he uses leave in order to tell us the story of his “hero” – and who this “we” is, a single person or indeed a small group of persons the reader will never know for sure. And even if the “hero” really committed those terrible crimes is not absolutely sure…

I am a quite compulsive book buyer and collector myself, and maybe that’s why I am particularly drawn to novels or stories about obsessive book lovers. That was what made The Name of the Rose so appealing to me, that was why I immediately grabbed The House of Paper by Carlos Maria Dominguez when I saw it in a book store some time ago. Peter Kien and Don Quijote belong of course also in this category of book addicts. I even collect news stories from the media about obsessive book lovers, such as the story of the civil servant from Darmstadt (a city where I worked for a few years) who stole about 25,000 books from libraries – not for pecuniary reasons but because of his wish to own a big library himself.

No wonder I stumbled sooner or later over a quote by Arno Schmidt from his The Stony Heart (Das steinerne Herz):

“Ich dachte lange an den Magister Tinius, den Bücherverfallenen, der mit seinem Hammer durch die öden Heiden des Fläming schlich: wenn andere das Geld haben, und er braucht doch die Bücher?!”

“I thought for a long time about Magister Tinius, the book addict, who creeps with his hammer through the barren heaths of the Fläming: if others have the money, but he needs the books?!”

Arno Schmidt, a great expert when it comes to obscure German writers of the 18th and 19th century must have been referring to a real, not an invented person, so I thought. And indeed, the “Neue Pitaval” (“New Pitaval”), a very popular collection of real crime stories that was used as source material by many German authors contains a chilling story about a man who had turned from a small protestant Parish priest to a biblio-maniac, and finally to a criminal and murderer as a result of his insane book love.

Johann Georg Tinius (1764-1846) was a priest in a small town in Saxony who had aspirations to be a writer and scholar and who loved books. So far, so good. But somehow things got out of hand and over the years he bought more and more books and had even to rent a barn for his library. People were getting suspicious: how was it possible that a priest with an income that was a mere pittance could acquire such a vast and expensive book collection? The good priest may have been the beneficiary of a small inheritance and his wife who died comparatively early (some suspected foul play) came from a family with a small wealth; too bad that at that time financial irregularities regarding the budget of the parish church were also becoming obvious and an investigation started. But somehow the priest was able to pledge for “not guilty” and because the final evidence that he was the reason for the sudden disappearance of a certain sum of money from the coffers of the church was missing, he got away – this time.

After his wife had passed away, Tinius hurried to remarry a wealthy wife. And, you guessed correctly, he started immediately to put his wife’s money (much to her dismay) to a good use, i.e. by buying much more books. After his book collection had reached a number of 50,000 to 60,000, he ran again out of money. And almost at the same time, robberies, and even a murder and an attempted murder happened in which everything hinted at the man in black with the book hobby.

Tinius got arrested and the court proceedings lasted almost ten years. His defence strategy was very simple: “I am innocent”. Nevertheless, the evidence was overwhelming and he got a long prison sentence. He lost everything: his wife divorced him, and – much worse for him – his book collection was auctioned off. Even Goethe bought books from the auction!

Tinius used the time in jail to try to prove his innocence; he wrote a short autobiography which is for sure one of the strangest texts of the 19th century, so utterly inadequate is what Tinius has to say about his book addiction and the crimes he had obviously committed.

After twelve years in prison, Tinius was released because of his old age and poor health. He lived another eleven years in obscurity, some distant relatives had taken care of the man in his last years.

As I said already, Opitz’ novel is not only well researched, it is also extremely well written – but the virtuosity of the language may be a reason why it is untranslated so far. Still, I hope this masterpiece will be available one day also to readers who don’t read German.

The author, and that’s a nice irony, had collected a huge library himself in his younger years – but he lost it all in a game of poker. (And if it’s not true, it’s at least well invented.)

Opitz

Detlef Opitz: Der Büchermörder, Eichborn Verlag 2005

 

Johann Georg Tinius: Merkwürdiges und lehrreiches Leben des M. Johann Georg Tinius, Pfarrers zu Poserna in der Inspektion Weißenfels. Von ihm selbst entworfen. Mit einem Essay von Herbert Heckmann, Friedenauer Presse, Berlin 1986 (written 1813)

Julius Eduard Hitzig / Georg Wilhelm Heinrich Häring (eds.): Der Neue Pitaval, Brockhaus, Leipzig 1843

Arno Schmidt: Two Novels: The Stony Heart and B/Moondocks, translated by John E. Woods, Dalkey Archive 1999

Translation of the Arno Schmidt quote by Thomas Hübner

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-5. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Schilleriana or The Pleasures of a Literary Archive

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This blog post is part of the German Literature Month, hosted by Lizzie (Lizzies Literary Life) and Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat)

Friedrich Schiller Week opens the German Literary Month this year officially and I am looking forward to reading what my blogger colleagues will post in this context. Lizzie, one of the co-hosts of German Literary Month has just published a very interesting introduction to Schiller’s life and works, obviously inspired by a recent visit in Weimar.

Weimar is definitely worth a visit and not only because of Schiller as you know. But there is a second place which can be similarly inspiring if you are interested in the work of this literary genius: Marbach am Neckar, his birthplace. It is not only the house in which he was born but of course also the Deutsches Literatur Archiv (German Literary Archive; address: Schillerhöhe 8-10) that preserves an incredible amount of manuscripts and belongings of German writers, and that showcases frequently extremely interesting exhibitions. The catalogues and other publications of the Archive are a treasure for those that are interested in German literature (and with a knowledge of German).

Great plans and projects: Schiller was usually thinking big. But the fact that he was not wealthy and his life a permanent struggle to secure an income and regular employment influenced his writing. For some time he took a break from drama writing in order to focus on the more lucrative publication of historical works. These tensions between his idealistic plans and his precarious existence as a writer who was not independent from market requirements were in 2005 the subject of an important exhibition at the Deutsches Literatur Archiv (DLA), and the beautiful catalogue is a treat for Schiller fans.

Götterpläne & Mäusegeschäfte

Frank Druffner und Martin Schalhorn: Götterpläne & Mäusegeschäfte. Schiller 1759–1805, 2nd edition, Marbacher Katalog 58, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach 2005

It was for sure a very tough experience for Johann Caspar Schiller, Friedrich’s father, when his son – then a regiment doctor – deserted from the army and fled Württemberg. Not only was Johann Caspar a loyal officer in the same army from which his son ran away, he was also for 21 years the responsible supervisor of the Duke’s garden at Schloss Solitude and therefore in a quite close working and personal relationship with the Duke and thus in a particularly delicate position. The letters written by the father to his famous son are interesting documents; while after young Schiller’s desertion shame and disappointment are the dominating feelings from Johann Caspar‘s side, he had later to acknowledge that his son achieved more than his father could hope for.

Johann Caspar Schiller

Jean-Baptiste Joly: Johann Caspar Schiller auf der Solitude, Spuren 27, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach 1994

Schiller’s older sister Christophine wrote memoirs of Schiller’s youth which are a valuable source for Schiller scholars. Although she was like most women of her time forced to lead a life according to social conventions that limited women mainly to homework, education of children and representative tasks, she had an artistic talent of her own, as her drawings and watercolors that are in the possession of the DLA show. The reproductions of her works are one of the highlights of a small catalogue dedicated to her.

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Edda Ziegler in cooperation with Michael Davidis: »Theuerste Schwester«. Christophine Reinwald, geb. Schiller, Marbacher Magazin 118, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach 2007

The catalogue „Aus dem Leben eines Hofrats“ is the indispensable guide book if you visit the Schiller House in Marbach in which Friedrich Schiller was born.

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Michael Davidis and Sabine Fischer: Aus dem Hausrat eines Hofrats, Marbacher Magazin 77, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach 1997

An original way to approach the person Schiller and his work is via some of his belongings which are now a part of the DLA collection: a hat, headband, three vests, two pairs of pants, two pairs of socks, seven shoe buckles, finger rings, hand warmers, toothpicks, dressing gown button and pocket, a walking stick and numerous curls attributed to him – all of these items have their own history, a history that says a lot about the person Schiller and about his work.

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Heike Gfrereis, with an essay by Wilhelm Genazino: Autopsie Schiller. Eine literarische Untersuchung, Marbacher Magazin 125/126, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach 2009

While still in Württemberg, Schiller visited the poet, journalist and musician Christian Friedrich Daniel Schubart in his prison at Hohenasperg in November 1781. Schubart was incarcerated for ten years without trial and verdict, the most famous victim of the „justice“ of Duke Carl Eugen. A slender booklet informs the reader about this fascinating episode in Schiller’s life that triggered his escape from the Duke’s service and that left literary traces especially in Schiller’s play „Kabale und Liebe“.

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Wolfgang Ranke: Schiller, Schubart und der Hohenasperg, Spuren 86, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach 2009

From September 1793 to May 1794, Schiller could visit for the first time after his desertion his home region again. On May, 4, briefly before Schiller’s return to Jena, the then almost unknown publisher Johann Friedrich Cotta invites Schiller on a coach ride from Stuttgart to Untertürkheim and to the Kahlenstein hill near Cannstatt. During this day trip, the two men discussed Schiller’s plan for his new journal project „Die Horen“. It turned out that this ride was the beginning of a long friendship and a for both sides very fruitful author-publisher relationship. A small booklet documents this crucial moment in Schiller’s life.

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Martin Schalhorn: Ein Sonntagsausflug von Schiller und Cotta nach Untertürkheim am 4. Mai 1794, Spuren 69, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach 2006

In May 1804, Schiller visited Berlin for about two weeks. This time is extremely well documented – whom he met, what theatre and opera performances he visited, where he had dinner and what was going on regarding his planned academic posting to Berlin. All this from Schiller’s own notebooks and other sources, but also a comparison of the intellectual climate of Berlin and Weimar and beautiful illustrations you can find in another nice exhibition catalogue.

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Michael Bienert: Schiller in Berlin oder Das rege Leben einer großen Stadt, 2nd edition, Marbacher Magazin 106, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach 2005

Until the first half of the 19th century, monuments were only erected in honor of Kings or other aristocratic persons. The Schiller Monument in Stuttgart, created by Bertel Thorvaldsen and inaugurated in May 1839 was the first public monument in Germany in honor of a poet and had therefore a great impact for the democratization of Erinnerungskultur (memorial culture). A small booklet describes the public contemporary debate that preceded and followed the inauguration of the Schiller monument in Stuttgart.

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Michael Davidis: 150 Jahre Schiller-Denkmal in Stuttgart, Spuren 4, Deutsche Schillergesellschaft Marbach 1989

All publications are available directly from the DLA online shop or at the DLA premises in Marbach.

A lot of Schiller, I know. If you are now feeling inspired to write like him, buy yourself an antique standing secretary desk as was used by Schiller (and Goethe), and get in Marbach one of those neat nibs he used for writing (9 Euro; it comes with a small gift case and description).

But don’t forget the famous rotten apples for a really authentic Schiller feeling!

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-5. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 


From Bulgaria with Love

German Literary Spaces (Nемски литературни простори) is a new collection of essays by the Bulgarian poet, essayist, aphorist, and translator Venzeslav Konstantinov.

Konstantinov is one of those very important mediators between different countries, languages, cultures that make literature or other works from the cultural sphere accessible to us and whose work is so important and frequently underestimated. As for Bulgaria, a considerable part of the classical and modern literature in German language was translated and edited by Konstantinov and his translations are accompanied by essays that help the reader to understand the context of the work and the writer. Konstantinov is a particularly gifted translator of poetry. The “Bulgarian” poetry of Erich Kästner for example is so close to the original that it sounds as if Kästner has written the poems himself in Bulgarian.

A collection of twenty of Konstantinov’s essays on German literature is now published in the new book announced here. Each chapter is devoted to the work of one author, and the range of writers covers the period from the 18th century (the first essay in the book is devoted to Goethe) until today (an essay on Martin Walser concludes the book). All essays are comparatively short (five to ten pages), only the one on Elias Canetti (“From Rustschuk with Love”) is longer. And all of them make the reader curious to discover the work of the writer that Konstantinov is describing in the respective essay.

Konstantinov proves not only to be a congenial translator, but also a successful ‘literature seducer’, someone who knows how to wake up the wish in the reader to discover new literary horizons.

With two small critical remarks I want to conclude this review. First, it would have been great to make it clear that the essays are not dealing with the 20 most important German authors (there is for example no essay on Kafka, and an essay on Katja Mann instead of Thomas or Heinrich Mann). The essays reflect Konstantinov’s interests, and that’s absolutely fine. But they are not (and not meant to be) a systematic introduction to German literature. That’s in no way meant as a criticism of the author, but a short remark in this sense would be useful to readers that are not so familiar with German literature.

Additionally it would have been nice to mention if the essays were written for this book or if it is a collection of previously published articles. Nothing wrong with collecting previously published essays, it is even a commendable deed from the publishing house Iztok-Zapad (East-West) in Sofia. But as a reader I just want to know what exactly I am reading.

These remarks diminish in no way the excellent work by Venzeslav Konstantinov and his publisher. This collection of essays is worth reading and deserves a translation, and of course many Bulgarian readers.

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Venzeslav Konstantinov: Nemski literaturni prostori (German literary spaces), Iztok-Zapad, Sofia 2014

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“And so they are ever returning to us, the dead”

Is it fiction? Is it documentary literature? It’s a little bit of both and the impression of something hybrid is even strengthened by the many black-and-white photos that are inserted into the text without explanation or description. W.G. Sebald’s book “The Emigrants” (“Die Ausgewanderten”) is maybe the masterpiece of this author who came to England in 1966 and who spent the rest of his life as a lecturer and professor teaching at universities in England. His career as a prose writer (in his native German language) started when he was already in his mid-forties.

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The Emigrants” is a collection of four long stories. Dr. Henry Selwyn, born as Hersch Seweryn in a shtetl near Grodno in Lithuania has come to England as a child and has against all odds made a career as a surgeon. The narrator, whose living conditions, opinions and favorite books coincide with W.G. Sebald’s gets to know Dr. Selwyn as a retired doctor leading a secluded life mainly in his garden when he is renting a flat in Dr. Selwyn’s house. A distanced friendship between the author and Dr. S. is developing and finally the doctor is telling the author the story of his life. The marriage of S. with a girl from Switzerland where he studied is not happy, maybe because S. kept his Jewish origin too long hidden from her, maybe because they just lost the love that was between them in the beginning. The happiest period of his life was according to S. his study times in Switzerland, when he used to go hiking with an old Swiss alpinist (who disappeared in the mountains one day). S. seems to be strangely detached from life, melancholic and living for his memories.

After a return from a visit in France, the narrator receives the message of the suicide of S. Years later, during a sojourn in Switzerland, a local newspaper reports that the body of an alpinist was found that was missing since more than 70 years. It turns out to be the missing hiking partner of Dr. S.  

“And so they are ever returning to us, the dead. At times they come back from the ice more than seven decades later and are found at the edge of the moraine, a few polished bones and a pair of hobnailed boots.”

The story “Unexpected Reunion” (Unverhofftes Wiedersehen) by Johann Peter Hebel comes to mind, an author with whom Sebald was familiar since early childhood because his maternal grandfather introduced him to this Alemannic writer.

Hebel plays also a role in the second story that was inspired by one of Sebald’s school teachers. In the story his name is Paul Bereyter, a “born” teacher who was able to turn every school lesson into something interesting and who was known for his unconventional but very inspiring way to teach. The narrator mentions for example that he introduced Hebel’s “Calendar Stories” to the pupils instead of the textbook lessons that he seemed not to consider as worthwhile for the children.

Bereyter knew already in his youth that he wanted to become a teacher and nothing else and he succeeded to achieve his aim in the 1930s. But as a “quarter-Jew” (one grandfather was Jewish) he lost his position during the Nazi era. After the war (which he survived as a soldier) he was re–installed as a schoolteacher, but something had changed within Paul, as everyone called him.

“The seasons and the years came and went…and always…one was, as the crow flies, about 2,000 km away – but from where? – and day by day, hour by hour, with every beat of the pulse, one lost more and more of one’s qualities, became less comprehensible to oneself, increasingly abstract.”

In his later years, Paul is haunted by memories. After his early retirement he is spending more and more time in France (where he lived for a few years as private teacher in the 1930s). There he makes friends with a Mme Landau who shares his interest in literature (Paul is approaching her after he sees her reading a Nabokov biography). From Mme Landau the narrator receives more information about the later years of Paul – also he was an emigrant, haunted by the ghosts of his past and by the fact that nobody in his small home town pretended that something had happened to the “disappeared” Jews even decades after the war was over.

Also the last two stories seem to be based on the lives of real persons. One is the story of a granduncle of Sebald who emigrated to America and who became a butler in a rich Jewish family. With the son of the family he traveled around the world shortly before WWI and they have obviously had a homosexual relationship. After the outbreak of a mental illness and the early death of his friend, the author’s granduncle devotes his life to the family of his friend until in his last years he is retiring to a mental hospital (without actually being ill in the classical sense – Robert Walser comes to mind), even wishing to be completely annihilated by an extreme form of electroshock therapy that was en vogue in the 1950s.

The last story, about the German-British painter Max Ferber (inspired by Frank Auerbach, whom Sebald met when he was a young student in Manchester – in the first German edition the name of the character was Max Aurach), doesn’t end with the death of the protagonist but since Ferber who came to England without his parents (who were killed in the Concentration Camps in the east) gives the narrator a diary of Ferber’s mother which she kept until her marriage, the narrator decides to undertake a study tour to Bad Kissingen, the home town of Ferber’s mother, which is not really a homecoming but a very disturbing experience.

In the meantime, Max Ferber has made a name of himself in the art world, but he almost never leaves his studio in a dilapidated area of Manchester. Only once he goes on a visit to Colmar to see the Isenheim Altarpiece by Matthias Grünewald. The work of this strange man proves to be the intuition of the extreme power of pain in Ferber’s oeuvre.

Beside the already mentioned literary influences, the reader has also to think of Thomas Bernhard (especially when Sebald is describing his visit in Bad Kissingen in the last story), but also of Georges Perec and of Vladimir Nabokov.

The passionate butterfly collector Nabokov is making an appearance in all four stories (in the last one even twice), and here Sebald is in my opinion doing a little bit too much. This “running gag” is not necessary for the dramaturgy of the stories and a bit of a cheap effect. But this is a minor flaw in this extraordinary collection of stories that has great qualities. Sebald is an excellent prose writer that is clearly inspired by Stifter or Gottfried Keller. The hybrid mixture of documentation, diary, photo novel and story seems to be the appropriate form to speak about the fate of these “emigrants” (Goethe’s “Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten” echoes also in the title of the book). And indirectly the book is also a book about the friendship of Sebald with his maternal grandfather because in all four stories a friendship between a young and a much older man plays an important role (Sebald’s relation to his father seems to have been strained in the contrary).

The book received very high praise by literary critics and was also a big success on the German and international (especially English-speaking) bookmarket. Susan Sontag, Antonia Byatt, Michael Ondaatje or Salman Rushdie considered Sebald as one of the most important authors of our times.

Very few critics, like the German novelist Georg Klein have voiced their reservations about Sebald’s books. Klein was speaking about Sebald’s “sweet melancholic masochism towards the past”, which claims a “false intimacy with the dead”. Sebald also seems not to have noticed the changes in Germany following 1968 (he visited the country very rarely after 1966) which made some of his statements regarding his home country a bit out of time and place and for my taste sometimes a bit too self-righteous.

But be this as it may, Sebald was a very important and excellent writer and “The Emigrants” is definitely one of the great books about the historical and personal disasters of the 20th century and therefore I recommend it very strongly.

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W.G. Sebald: The Emigrants, Harvill 1996 (transl. by Michael Hulse); Die Ausgewanderten, Eichborn 1993

A very interesting essay about Sebald’s biographical sources of his work by the American germanist Mark M. Anderson sheds additional light on “The Emigrants” and other works of Sebald: http://www.wgsebald.de/vaeter.html 

Other Reviews: 
Tony’s Reading List 

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expresseded and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.