Textual Variations among Folio Editions of Goethe's Reineke Fuchs Illustrated by Wilhelm von Kaulbach
1999; Volume: 9; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/gyr.2011.0126
ISSN1940-9087
Autores ResumoRICHARD E. DICKERSON Textual Variations among Folio Editions of Goethe's Reineke Fuchs Illustrated by Wilhelm von Kaulbach THE MEDIEVAL EPIC OF REYNARD the Fox, in all of its manifestations , has been a morality play and a vehicle for political and religious satire for centuries. One could say critical things about a lion, a bear, a wolf and a ram that would cost you your head if said about a King, powerful barons and an Archbishop. One of the most illustrious retellings of the story is J.W. von Goethe's Reineke Fuchs, which he wrote in a burst of activity in early 1793 following the execution of the French monarch, Louis XVI. And one of the finest of illustrated editions appeared in 1846 from the J.G. Cotta Verlag, which published Goethe's 4312-line verse narrative illustrated with 36 superbly ironic steel engravings and 24 woodcuts by the noted Munich artist Wilhelm von Kaulbach. Kaulbach, a court favorite in Bavaria and long-time Director of the Akademie der Kunst in Munich, was noted chiefly at the time for immense murals on historic themes in Munich and Berlin, such as The Tower of Babel,Homer and the Greeks, The Destruction of Jerusalem, The Crusaders and The Age of the Reformation. Concerning one of Kaulbach's last large-scale paintings, The Battle of Salamis, Fritz von Ostini wrote scornfully in 1906 that "die Darstellung einer Seeschlacht in Lebensgröße ist ein Unding an sich." But time, and two World Wars, have led to the destruction of nearly all of Kaulbach's gigantic murals. Today, the drawings that he did of evenings for the Cotta Verlag have become his chief monument.1 Plates I-XV give some of the flavor of Kaulbach's drawings. He was commissioned by the publishing house of J.G. Cotta in Stuttgart to prepare an engraved title page and 36 large drawings to be reproduced as steel engravings, plus humorous headpieces and tailpieces for each of the 12 Gesänge. He took full advantage of his experience as a master of allegorical,"official" art, at times parodying the style that he used on his monumental murals. Goethe was the point of departure, but Kaulbach added his own touches: sly allusions and references that would be 2 Richard E. Dickerson appreciated by the contemporary reader even though not strictly speaking to be found in Goethe's Reineke Fuchs. As one reviewer wrote in 1846, Kaulbach "gives us a Reineke that indeed is fit to be set alongside Goethe's, although he certainly does not, in the strict sense of the word, illustrate Goethe." Baron Cotta, the head of the publishing house, was so pleased with Kaulbach's original pencil drawings that he gathered them together in a magnificent leather-bound elephant folio album, with brass fittings and a fox-head clasp (illustrated in Lehmann & Riemer, p. 104). The album today resides in the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich: not on open exhibit, but available for private study by special arrangement. The publication history of the Goethe/Kaulbach Reineke Fuchs is a tangled web. Folio editions with steel engravings and a title page date of 1846 appeared under the imprint of both the Verlag der Literarischartistischen Anstalt in Munich and the J.G. Cotta'scher Verlag in Stuttgart and Tübingen. The Munich folio initially was issued in 12 unbound Lieferungen or installments between September 1846 and September 1847. These Lieferungen were textually sequential, but were divided for the publisher's convenience, and did not correspond precisely to the 12 Gesänge into which Goethe's poem is organized. Lieferungen 3 & 4 appeared together, as did 5 & 6. Although each Lieferung contained 3 of Kaulbach's 36 steel engravings, these were not in the final desired order, and did not pertain necessarily to the textual matter that they accompanied. Bound examples of the complete Munich edition are known today with simple, plain binding, and also with a deeply embossed and goldfilled cover design showing Reineke as a Roman warrior, driving a chariot or Streitwagen pulled by a griffin (symbol of the Cotta Verlag), and dragging a critic in the dust behind (Plate FV). The cartoon behind this design (Plate...
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