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Peter Schlemihl in Relation to the Popular Novel of the Romantic Period

1946; Routledge; Volume: 21; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Alemão

10.1080/19306962.1946.11786280

1930-6962

Stuart Atkins,

German Literature and Culture Studies

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes“Eline barocke … Idee beim Luzian … daß der Schatten des Menschen ihn in der Unterwelt über seine Vergehen anklagt. Der Keim zu Chamissos Peter Schlemihl liegt wohl in diesem luzianischen Dialog.” Sämtliche Werke (Sauer), Stuttgart, n.d. xviii, 88. “Studien zur deutschen Literatur. 1842.” Among those who cite this passage are O . Walzel, Chamissos Werke (DNL, CXLVIII), and H. Tardel, Chamissos Werke (Bibi. Inst.) ii, 194.Ibid.Josef Nadler, Literaturgeschichte der deutschen Stämme und Landschaften (Regensburg, 1924), iii, 462.Geschichte der deutschen Literatur (Groningen, 1935), ii, 146-147.“Chamisso,” (1911) Rede und Antwort (= Gesammelte Werke, Bd. IX), p. 119-226.Walzel recapitulates the older ones in his introduction; in his reviews in the Jahresberichte he notes new permutations and combinations. Thomas Mann, op. cit., p. 225, formulates his ·interpretation in the sentence: “Der Schatten ist im ‘Peter Schlemihl’ zum Symbol aller bürgerlichen Solidität und menscliehen Zugehörigkeit geworden.” The degree to which this formula reflects its author’s own ideas and experience can be seen by comparing Arthur Burkhard, “Thomas Mann’s Appraisal of the Poet,” PMLA, XLVI, 880-916, and especially page 913.This is clearly shown by his notes on theatrical performances attended in Paris and London. As late as 1853 he could write the oft quoted “Poesie der Wirklichkeit,” which contains the lines: Doch wißt ihr auch, was Romantik heißt?.Mustert die Muster in eurem Geist.Romantik weicht von der Dichtkunst nie,Sie ist ihre Mutter: die Phantasie (op. cit., iii, 185).Joseph Jacobs, Peter Schlemihl, the Shadowless Man (London, 1899), p. xix. The criticism (p. xxi) that Chamisso fails to create secondary characters who react with convincing horror to Schlemihl’s loss seems hardly valid.“Crepúsculo,” Poesias edicion definitiva (Santiago de Chile, n.d.), p. 45-48. (Translation: “Fantastic tales of elfs and fairies, filling the child’s blurred dreams! Time buries you in the soul for ever, and the man evokes you with a love profound.”).The mass reading of comic strips by many adults in all classes of society, including not a few among the younger generation of academicians, is an analogous phenomenon.Loc. cit.,p. 215.Hauff, Werke (Leipzig: Th. Knaur, n.d.), m, 420-421.The text of the novel is printed in the edition cited, iii, 233-400. Ida, the heroine, sheds tears on pp. 258, 264, 266, 268, 282, 295, 313-320 [eight solid pages!], 336, 338, 352, 375, 880,388, 394; the hero, pp. 274, 275, 279, 304, 312, 343, 354, 365,372; her father, p. 390; his faithful servant, Brktzwisl, p. 373; his uncle, incognito, pp. 380, 383.Schriften (Berlin 1828), x, 180.Athenaeum, Berlin 1798. Ersten Bandes Erstes Stück, p. 151-167 (quotation from p. 167).Loc. cit., p. 151.Franz Rummelt, August Heinrich Julius Lafontaine von den Anfängen bis zur Höhe seines Schaffens, 1785-1800, Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte und Technik des Romans (Diss.), Halle, 1914; M. Thalmann, Der Trivialroman des 18. Jahrhunderts und der romantische Roman, “Germanische Studien,” H. 24, Berlin, 1923; Hilde Ishorst, August Heinrich Julius Lafontaine, 1758-1831, “Germanische Studien,” H. 162, Berlin, 1935.Op. cit., i, 23-24.Ibid., i, 69.Ibid., i, 178.Ibid., i, 61.Ibid., ii, 210.Ibid., iii, 159.Werke (Tardel’s edition), ii, 312.Ibid., p. 332.They had pelted him for being shadowless (ibid ., p. 300).Ibid., p. 337.Ibid., p. 313-314. Cf. also the passages beginning “Nach dem übereilten Fehltritt, der den Fluch” (p. 329) and “Bendel, hub ich an, du weißt mein Los” (p. 332).A letter to Hitzig (October, 1810) may be instanced (ibid., p. 397, note to the poem “Blauer Himmel”).Der Doppelroman der Berliner Romantik. Zum ersten Male herausgegeben und mit Erläuterungen dargestellt von Helmuth Rogge (Leipzig, 1926) ii, 19 and 20 . The editor discusses the element of parody, ii, 279f. This supplements H. W. Hewett-Thayer, “The Romanticism of Contessa,” CR xviii, 24-35, and especially p. 32.Op. cit., ii, 83.Die Art, wie ‘Der Roman des Freiherrn von Vieren’ zustandegekommen ist, und manche Einzelheiten des Inhalts berechtigen … zu dem Schluß, daß … er parodistisch angelegt war, und daß die Verfasser durchaus entschlossen waren, den Leser darüber in Zweifel zu lassen, was ernst, was scherzhaft gemeint war.” Rogge, op. cit., ii, 338. ChamissO’s co­authors were Contessa, Hoffmann, and Fouqué.Werke, ii. 459 From the same letter we learn that Peter had been A. W. Schlemihl!.Ein ander Mal ward in einem Buche von Lafontaine (den Titel hab’ ich nicht erfahren) geblättert, wo ein sehr gefälliger Mann in einer Gesellschaft allerlei aus der Tasche zog, was eben gefordert wurde-ich meinte, wenn man dem Kerl ein gut Wort gebe, zöge er noch Pferd’ und Wagen aus der Tasche.” Letter to Trinius, 1829 (Werke ii, 463). A case for the “influence” of Lafontaine might be fully as plausible as some of the arguments for autobiographical interpretation (cf. note 47, infra). For instance, Schlemihl’s globetrotting could be considered a parody of the somewhat vague travels and longing for travel of various figures in Der Hausvater: one enthusiast exclaims, “Ich sehne mich hin in den Schatten der Pyramiden, an die Quellen des Jupiter Ammon s. Aus welchem Felsen strömt der Ganges, der Nil hervor? Der Chimborasso wird mir ein Maulwurfshügel sein, wenn ich auf seinem Gipfel seine reine Luft getrunken habe” (op. cit., i, 7); this enthusiasm is apparently inherited by a son, who would rather travel than write (i, 110); although the sea-captain can say, “Eine Reise hier im Zimmer ist so gut wie eine um die Erde. Hier hast du … die Repräsentanten des Menschengeschlechts” (i, 140). When things are going badly he cries, “Ich wollte, ich säße in Otaheite, oder in Neu-Holland” (ii, 204). ChamissO’s parody of the philosophical commonplaces of sentimentality would then be retaliation for Lafontaine’s burlesque of romantic Naturphilosophie evident in the speech of a physician trying to explain an iliness due to extreme unhappiness: “Das Leben ist das Absolute, gleichsam die Intuitivität des höchsten Wesens. Die Krankheit ist eine Abnormität des Ahsoluten in dem Weltall. Da nun durch uns alles in der Dualität gedacht werden muß-” (ii, 231).Op. cit., iii, 91.Werke, ii, 301.Ibid., p. 314.Ibid., p. 318.The failure to recognize a person who has been described to one is used for a serious effect in the next to last paragraph of Kleist’s Michael Kohlhaas (1810), where the Saxon chamberlain ironically chooses as agent an old woman who not only looks Iike, but is, the original fortune-teller. Werke (Bang edition) IV, 101-102; for the significance of the passage, it is worth comparing H. J. Weigand, “Das Vertrauen in Kleists Erzählungen,” MFDU XXXIV (February and March, 1942), especially pp. 142-144.Werke, ii, 298.Ibid., p. 310.Deutsches Wörterbuch, VIII, 2237.Peter Schlemihl (Oxford, 1889), p. 101.G. A. Alfero, Adelbert von Chamisso (Torino, 1924), p. 107: “Ancora una volta … [Chamisso] ci repete … il suo imperativo di non rivoltarci contro la sorte….”.Loc. cit., p. xu xff. The faint, p. li-lii. The thirty German miles have been mentioned; it is to be doubted whether Schlemihl could sleep from noon until a following morning in the open (beginning of chapter nine) without having his clothes ruined by dew, but he starts right off without retuming to his inn.Loc. cit., p. 217.Walzel, loc.cit., notes the prophetically autobiographical: “Schlemihl freut sich gelegentlich, für den Fürsten des Landes gehalten zu werden; auch Chamisso fühlte sich später einmal geschmeichelt, für den berühmten Reisenden Mungo Park zu gelten” (p. u v); “Mir scheint Chamisso in Mina das Ideal weiblicher Liebe gezeichnet zu haben, das er erst nach Jahren in seiner Gattin Antonie kennen gelernt hat” (p. LVI)•.J. Schapler, Chamissos Peter Schlemihl, Leipzig (Dissertation) 1892, reviewed by Walze!, Jahresberichte, 1892 (1v, 10:63), who is quoted here. Rene Riegel, Adelbert de Chamisso, sa vie et son reuvre, Paris (these) 1934, sees a moral example of inner dignity: “La morale de Schlemihl se degage vigoureuse, passionnee, presque brutale” (p. 437-438).Alfero, op. cit., p. 105, observes sensibly: “La vendita dell'ombra non e ehe uno dei casi infelici di Schlemihl, anzi, il piu infelice, la sua disdetta maggiore … ” The other extreme is represented by, say, Riegel, who sees in the shadow’s loss and its consequences a mirroring of ChamissO’s own “calvaire” of undeserved misfortune (p. 458). Riegel was probably closer to the key to Peter Schlemihl when he noted that Schlemihl’s Jot is the exact opposite of Tieck’s over-lucky Abraham Tonelli, for if Chamisso wanted to reverse the Hans-imGlück theme, he would hardly have done so with too serious a purpose (cf. Riegel, op. cit., p. 436-437).Werke, n, 459 (cf. note 33, supra) ..