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Lohenstein’s Protagonists

1964; Routledge; Volume: 39; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/19306962.1964.11787169

1930-6962

Gerald Gillespie,

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size NotesI give the dates of publication, which do not necessarily indicate the period of composition. For bibliographical information, see Hans von Müller, “Bibliographie der Schriften Lohensteins,” Werden und Wirken, Festgruss für K. W. Hiersemann (Leipzig, 1924) and the editorial commentaries to the Turkish, Roman, and African tragedies by Klaus Günther Just, Bibliothek des Li terarischen Vereins in Stuttgart, Nos. 292–294 (Stuttgart, 1953–1957). Whenever I quote Lohenstein, the reference is by act and line to Just’s edition. For biographical information, consult the above and Conrad Müller, Beiträge zum Leben und Dichten D. C.s von Lohenstein (Breslau, 1882).For treatments of Arminius, see Louise Laporte, Lohensteins Arminius, Germanistische Studien, Vol. XLVIII (Berlin, 1927) and Max Wehrli, Das barocke Geschichtsbild in Lohensteins Arminius, Wege zur Dichtung, Vol. XXXI (1931).This paper does not pretend to treat in full the complexity of Gryphius, or Lohenstein; it is based on my book-Jength manuscript, D. C. von Lohenstein’s Historical Tragedies, which traces the development of critical opinions in regard to both from the beginning of the eighteenth century on and examines Lohenstein’s independent authority. As a useful approach to show the coherence of his work, I examine the “dramatic personality,” but disagree with studies from a similar angle which force Lohenstein under the category of Theodicy, and then criticize him for not fitting: e.g., Walter Benjamin, Ursprung des deutschen Trauerspiels (Berlin, 1928), p. 81 (with direct reference to the originator of this school of criticism, J. J. Breitinger) or Werner Paul Friedrich, “From Ethos to Pathos: the Development from Gryphius to Lohenstein,” Germanic Review, Vol. X (1935). A more perceptive critic, Julius Rütsch, Das dramatische Ich im deutschen Barocktheater, Wege zur Dichtung, XII (1932), 193, defines Baroque drama as non-tragic and under theodicy but, on p. 191, excludes L. from this order; Max Otto Katz, Zur Weltanschauung D. C.s von Lohenstein (diss. Breslau, 1933), p. 27f., indicates L.’s autonomy from theology but evaluates him as creator of a psychology of sin and vice, perversely without hypocrisy; Fritz Schaufelberger, Das Tragische in Lohensteins Trauerspielen, Wege zur Dichtung, Vol. XLV (1945), mistakenly argues that, since there is no metaphysical basis of necessity for conflict in L., as there is in Gryphius, therefore L. cannot achieve genuine tragedy (pp. 80f., 111f., 122); Paul Hankamer, Deutsche Gegenreformation und deutsches Barock (Stuttgart, 1935), p. 108, goes too far in seeing Gryphius as an “exception” because of his faith in the redemptive power of religious attitude, but is correct in emphasizing L.’s tragedy as secular and historically oriented; Oskar Nuglisch, Barocke Stilelemente in der dramatischen Kunst von A. Gryphius und D. C. von Lohenstein (Breslau, 1938), p. 64, is incorrect, as is Schaufelberger, in denying that an ideal level exists behind the historical factuality of L.’s dramas, the level of Fate.This becomes explicit in the second Turkish play, but is also present in Ibrahim Bassa in many passages, such as Isabella’s key challenge: “Libt uns der Keiser denn so mach Er uns doch frei” (III, 124); in Ibrahim Sultan, Sisigambis resists the ruler’s assault upon her sentimental (spiritual) life with the protest: “Kein Fürst/kein Ibrahim herrscht über die Gewissen” (I, 151). It is interesting to compare Lohenstein’s theme to similar moments in Schiller; although L. has no stirring political martyr like the Marquis de Posa, with his famous challenge to King Philip to give his subjects freedom of conscience, he does have the rebel Epicharis as an active freedom fighter. The confrontation in Don Carlos, Act III, scene x, is the grand humanized summation of the conflict between freedom and tyranny, but that preeminence does not detract from L.’s stature as an early author who saw the shape of the problem. For a discussion of seventeenth century views, see Heinrich Hildebrandt, Die Staatsauffassung der schlesischen Barockdramatiker im Rahmen ihrer Zeit (Diss. Rostock, 1939).Thus Epicharis implies something like a “myth” of man’s “original state”—which reminds one at once of Posa’s notion of a natural principle of freedom (Don Carlos, Act III, scene 10: “Auf Freiheit ist sie [Natur] gegründet” and “Wenn nun der Mensch, sich selbst zurückgegeben,/Zu seines Werts Gefühl erwacht …”) to which man must return, as to a salvation or state of paradise. This complete unification of freedom (political, sentimental, spiritual) into a natural way of existence certainly distinguishes L., at least in this drama, from those who believed in Absolute Monarchy as part of God’s program.See the excellent interpretation of Epicharis by Erik Lunding, Das schlesische Kunstdrama, eine Darstellung und eine Deutung (Copenhagen, 1940), p. 122ff. His definition of a realistic theatre of “disillusionment” corresponds to my idea of a collective desengaño. For a specialized treatment of “magnanimity,” see Laetitia Brede, “Das ‘Große Gemüt’ im Drama L.’s,” Literaturwissenschaftliches Jahrbuch der Görres-Gesellschaft, VIII (1936), which rightly links Epicharis, Cleopatra, and Sophonisbe, but incorrectly attempts to give the latter two a moral color in spite of many misgivings.Von Zesen’s translation (1645) of Mlle de Scudéry’s novel; her works reflect, in subject, language, and sentiments, the high preciosity which swept Europe, and radiated in France from the Rambouillet salon after 1615 (Marino’s influence).It is instructive, before reading later commentaries, to absorb Breitinger’s caustic remarks about the tragedies in Critische Abhandlung von der Natur, den Absichten und dem Gebrauche der Gleichnisse (1740), pp. 221f. This opinion is doubtless the matrix in which the overwhelming majority of later judgments were cast. The dichotomy between two camps, Hofmannswaldau and Lobenstein heading one, a purer Gryphius and his kind the other, a contrast which occurs in virtually all criticism afterward to the present, derives from Gottsched, Versuch einer Critischen Dichtkunst (1751), p. 111; he follows Bodmer and Breitinger in singling out L. as the bombastic German par excellence in the theatre (p. 369).Lunding’s interpretation of Sophonisbe, p. 103ff., is filled with valid insights (such as recognition of her urge to save her fatherland), but unfortunately with numerous wrong evaluations as weil. He sees her as an uncomplicated, monolithic politician-actress, yet very “mixed” because of her acting role, and never genuine in her undertakings or love with Syphax and Masanissa. Klaus Günther Just, Die Trauerspiele Loh enstein’s, Versuch einer Interpretation, Philologische Studien und Quellen, No. 9 (Berlin, 1961), similarly misinterprcts the queen (e.g., p. 137), except that in addition to being an unscrupulous opportunist she is also “existentially” an eroticist (p. 138).In contrast to Just, especially his fourth chapter (“Geschichte”), one should rcad Wolfgang Kayser, “Lohensteins Sophonisbe als geschichtliche Tragödie,” Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, XXIX (1941), 27, 32. Kayser avoids the oversimplification of the drama into a duality (like Just’s “energies”—love and politics), acknowledges that the queen’s ultimate opponent is not Scipio (politics) but Fate, that she struggles against a general doom, and that her great goal makes her a tragic figure; Kayser cautions, p. 25, that we must accept as fact that Sophonisbe has two husbands, and that each scene is valid and not contradictory.Oskar Nuglisch, Barocke Stilelemente in der dramatischen Kunst von A. Gryphius und D. C. von Lohenstein (Breslau, 1938), p. 35, notes quite accurately that this final act is dedicated entirely to her death and brings so little plot progress that we can consider it as a separate play. Nuglisch sees, p. 35, also that the fifth act of Cleopatra is changed the most and that a comparison of the two versions shows how L., as a typical “Baroque” tragedian, expands and elevates the last act into a drama in itself. I emphasize similarly the operatic character of this “finale” for which the whole preceding play seems but a preparation, preparation for the expected inevitable (predicted or explained in the choruses).Conrad Müller, Beiträge zum Leben und Dichten, pp. 72ff., spends the larger part of his monograph in an analysis of Cleopatra and comparison of the two versions. The first critic to recognize the play’s merits and to offer an intelligent critique was August Kerkhoffs, D. C. von Lohensteins Trauerspiele (Paderborn, 1877). He tried to appreciate it mainly in spite of the changes, which he noted, in the final version. Both of these early apologists for Cleopatra ignore Sophonisbe as an inferior play, and their tendency in criticism is still powerful in Walther Martin, Der Stil in den Dramen Lohensteins (diss. Leipzig, 1927), who makes numerous comparisons of the two versions of C. (pp. 27ff.), discusses the other plays, but dismisses Sophonisbe with a short negative judgment. This critical “liberation” of C. opened up a new phase of Lohensteinian studies and led eventually to the emergence of S. as the best regarded work (the turning point was Willi Flemming’s edition of S. in 1930 for the Entwicklungsreihen, ser. 13 B, Vol. 1, Das schlesische Kunstdrama). Felix Bobertag was very uncertain of himself in 1885, nevertheless, when he edited C. for the series DNL, Vol. XXXVI, because critics overwhelmingly accepted only Ibrahim Bassa, which Tieck included in bis Deutsches Theater (1817), Vol. II (so W. A. Passow in 1852, O. Muris in 1911, H. Cysarz in 1924, J. Nadler in 1921, W. P. Friedrich in 1935).Just, Die Trauerspiele L.s, reverses the actual positions of both heroines. His contention that C. exemplifies a woman driven by love, who commits suicide not primarily to escape debasement in slavery and not because her intrigue has failed to save Egypt, but to blot out the failure of her love to elicit response (p. 160), is untenable. Out of her magnificent duel with destiny, Just makes a tale of rebuffed and unavailing passion. That Sophonisbe, on the other hand, is supposed to incamate political craft but finally succumbs to the inroads of passion is another exaggeration, since from the start there is evidence of her irrational, non-political urges.The chorus pays homage to the house of Austria and celebrates Leopold and Margarite; the play was probably performed already in 1666 on the occasion of the royal marriage (see Just, BLVS, 294, 237).Titian’s famous painting of the saint as a voluptuous redhead, leaning back in a religious transport which allows her sensual qualities to emerge, and other similar works of art reveal one of the age’s many “contradictory” and irrational tendencies. In addition to the monograph by M. O. Katz, see Richard Sexau, Der Tod im deutschen Drama des 17. und 18. Jahrhunderts (diss. Bern, 1906), for discussion of deep-rooted sickness in the art of the times and of death as the center and purpose of Silesian drama.J. J. Bodmer is too perceptive not to see that Sophonisbe, for example, while ruing her misdeeds, continues to love illicitly, or while fearing for her personal freedom, acts as the devoted mother of her country, but he is incensed over her unheroic heroics and disallows this behavior as “deviationism” from his ideal of so-called unified character, i.e., moral harmony (Critische Betrachtungen über die poetischen Gemählde der Dichter [1741], pp. 425ff., 428). The assumption seems to be that Lohenstein “is not aware” of what he lets his character do so contradictorily; but Bodmer, unlike the majority of later critics, at least recognizes what Sophonisbe does. I offer another example of L.’s notorious coldness, i.e., (freely translated), lack of dogmatic partisanship. In S., he makes Bogudes, the high priest of Baal and Astharte, into a genuine religious martyr who is willing to die at the hands of vengeful Romans. The latter, in outraged defense of their notion of humane religion, want to execute summarily the pious Carthaginians who have taken the lives of Roman hostages. Those critics who do read the scene accurately are usually in their turn angered by L.’s “cynicism” and “sensationalism.” They expect a moral interpretation of history, not an examination of its perplexing realities.