A Hearing on Germinal and Die Weber
1958; Routledge; Volume: 33; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/19306962.1958.11786912
ISSN1930-6962
Autores ResumoClick to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesSee, e.g., Felix Wittmer, ed. Die Weber, by Gerhart Hauptmann (New York, 1930), p. 5; or, Armand Lanoux, Bonjour, Monsieur Zola (Paris, 1954), p. 384: “Gerhart Hauptmann a tiré de Germinal l’idée des Tisserands.”See A. Dikka Reque, Trois auteurs dramatiques scandinaves—Ibsen, Björnson, Strindberg—devant la critique française, 1889–1901 (Paris, 1930), pp. 55–184.Although mention of Hauptmann had appeared in French dailies and periodicals as early as 1889, a report on Die Weber in 1891, and a translation of it in 1892, the Journal des Débats (April 26, 1893) and subsequently seven other newspapers carried this chaotic announcement.Un Parisien, “Les Tisserands et la jeune Allemagne,” Gil Blas, May 28, 1893.Claims of financial support by the Socialist party are unfounded; Antoine’s son, who now has the books of the “Théâtre Libre,” told me emphatically that these claims are false.In early French criticisms, these were Hauptmann’s two most common attributes.Le Moniteur Universel, June 5, 1893.L’Evénement, June 1, 1893.See E. Herriot, “A travers les revues,” Revue littéraire et critique, No. 12 (June 25, 1893), pp. 391–393; C. Mauclair, “La Cloche engloutie,” Revue encyclopédique, VIII (1897), 251.E. Noël and E. Stoullig, Annales du théâtre et de la musique (Paris, 1893), pp. 428–433.Interview reproduced by E. Allard, “Les Tisserands et M. Zola,” Le Jour, June 1, 1893.A similar casuistry was employed at this time in Germany also; see Henry H. Remak, “The German Reception of French Realism,” PMLA, LXIX (1954), 424–425.See Remak, pp. 421–426.Quoted by Hans von Hülsen, “Une Visite à Gerhart Hauptmann,” Pariser Zeitung, Oct. 17, 1943.See Remak, pp. 422–423.Hülsen, loc. cit.Statement by Hauptmann quoted by Jean Thorel, translator of Die Weber, in “Au jour le jour,” Le Figaro, Dec. 13, 1893.Letter published by L’Ere Nouvelle, Aug. 1, 1893, pp. 199–200. The emphasis is Hauptmann’s.Henri Albert reviewed the studies of Schneer, Zimmerman, and Paul Marx in “Au jour le jour,” Le Figaro, May 29, 1893, and in “La Base historique des Tisserands,” Entretiens politiques et littéraires, VI (1893), 564–570; later, the eye-witness account published by Count Pfeil-Burghauss appeared in “Le drame des tisserands. Histoire d’une révolte ouvrière,” Revue des Revues, XX (1897), 420f.Zola, “Les Tisserands,” Le Matin, June 3, 1893.Le Magasin pittoresque, November, 1843, pp. 346–401. Hereafter this story is cited as Souffrance.For details on conditions in the weaving industries in France and Germany during the 1840’s see André Cosserat, Cosserat—Les 155 ans de la Maison Cosserat (Paris, 1949), p. 9; Louis René Villermé, Tableau de l’état physique et moral des ouvriers … de coton, de laine et de soie (Paris, 1840), Vol. I; Henri Sée, Histoire économique de la France (Paris, 1939), II, 160–208; Arthur Louis Dunham, La Révolution industrielle en France, trans. Louis Blanchard (Paris, 1953), pp. 100, 154–185, 229–273; Albert Joseph George, The Development of French Romanticism: The Impact of the Industrial Revolution on Literature (Syracuse, 1955), pp. 17–19; Emile Tersen, Quarante-Huit (Paris, 1957), pp. 8–34; Hermann Aubin, “Die Weber: Ein Spiegel Schlesischer Volksgeschichte,” in Gerhart Hauptmann: Zum 80. Geburtstage am 15. November 1942, ed. M. G. Sarneck (Breslau, 1942), pp. 121–126.See Sée, Histoire économique, p. 165.See George, French Romanticism, pp. 91–107, 111.Although the isolated weaving communities of Silesia experienced industrialization very late, the 1840’s there were dire years, for the handweaver could not compete with the machines of other countries; for different reasons, weavers in both France and Silesia opposed the industrial revolution. See Aubin, Die Weber, p. 126.Villermé, Tableau de l’état … des ouvriers, pp. 26, 74.As late as 1893, when Hauptmann’s weavers filled the stage of the “Théâtre Libre,” striking weavers marched through the streets of Houpline and Armentières, chanted a revolutionary chorus as they stoned, then sacked, the industrialist’s home, and in the end beat back the gendarmerie in a bloody encounter.In his production, Antoine’s substitution of Heine’s tendencious poem “Die Weber” for Hauptmann’s “Weberlied” misled critics even more as to the sense of the 1844 revolt and of Hauptmann’s play.I have not been able to identify the author. Albert J. George has supplied me with some helpful information which would eliminate practically all the great Romantics and the worker-writers. The program of enlightened reform would suggest a Saint-Simonist; the founder of the Magasin pittoresque, Edouard Charton, was moreover an early Saint-Simonist. The author is possibly the “Populist” Emile Souvestre, for whom Charton had much admiration.Page references to Die Weber are from Gerhart Hauptmann, Das gesammelte Werk (Berlin: Fischer, 1942), Vol. II.To facilitate a comparison, I have given only the speaker’s name in Souffrance and omitted verbs and phrases that merely introduce the direct narration.
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