Gold, Guilt and Scholarship Adelbert von Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl
1982; Wiley; Volume: 55; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.2307/405591
ISSN1756-1183
Autores Tópico(s)German Literature and Culture Studies
ResumoAdelbert von Chamisso's Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte (written in 1813, published 1814) is one of the more frequently interpreted German prose texts of the early nineteenth century. Dorte Brockhagen's Forschungsbericht lists twenty-one studies of the work for the period 1945-76 alone.' Since then, at least three new titles have appeared, all of considerable importance.2 Yet critical interest has centered upon a limited number of issues-the genre under which the tale is best classified (Marchen or Novelle?), the applicability to it of the descriptive categories romantic and realistic, and the interpretation of the symbolic significance of the shadow motif-to the relative neglect of other, equally significant questions. One such critical gap, to which the present paper addresses itself, is the examination of the scholarly idyll at the end of the tale in relation to the themes of knowledge and guilt. Several opinions have been advanced concerning Schlemihl's final situation. Benno von Wiese suggests that it reflects Chamisso's approval of self-denial and self-limitation in disinterested scholarly contemplation as the only satisfactory solution for one estranged from the unedifying world of society and money.3 But although von Wiese rightly states that the tale admits of no possible world but that of civil society,, he omits to discuss the nature of the relationship developed in the tale between this social world and the researcher Schlemihl. Martin Swales partly fills this lacuna by interpreting both Schlemihl's final condition and his original misdemeanor in economic terms. The sale for money of his own shadow makes him guilty of alienating and degrading to the status of an exchange commodity something that is at once personal and non-material.5 While this aspect of Swales' argument is persuasive, his account of Schlemihl's botanical activity-the painstaking collection and documentation of the details of nature-as a penance for his previous materialism does not do justice to the complexity and ambiguity of the ending. In a more recent discussion of the work, Colin Butler demonstrates with finesse that such an ambiguity exists, but evaluates it as a weakness. He expresses disapproval of the so-called happy end: as an illusory reconciliation made possible by the narrative convention of the Marchen form, it is evidence of the tale's moral indifference. Responsibility and guilt, elements of the central character's consciousness which should be the link
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