Raabe's Else von der Tanne

Despite a considerable scholarly interest in Wilhelm Raabe's work, the author has not enjoyed a wide reading public.1 One explanation for this phenomenon is suggested by Herman Meyer, who observes that the narrational complexities of Raabe's style have been a formidable barrier between this author and a wider reading public.2 Another cause may be attributed in part to scholars and critics themselves. Barker Fairley points out that Raabe's literary reputation has rested largely on three works, Der Hungerpastor, Abu Telfan, and Der Schiidderump, and that these novels are not necessarily either his best or most representative writing.3 Fairley states: is a sobering thought for those who accept the conventional estimate that, whatever the virtues of the 'trilogy,' it has effectively stood between the reading public and the rest of Raabe both during his lifetime and after.4 Fairley remarks further that emerging interest in Stopfkuchen may be indicative of a change in popular and critical attitudes, but that any real change has yet to come.5 Raabe's Novelle Else von der Tanne belongs to the same period as Abu Telfan and Schiidderump. Written during the summer of 1863, Else von der Tanne in its extreme pessimism is characteristic of kaabe's middle or Stuttgart period. At the same time, structurally the Novelle foreshadows later works such as Stopfkuchen. Whereas both Abu Telfan and Schiidderump adhere to a linear development of plot, Else von der Tanne, like Stopfkuchen, is a mixture of present happenings and remembered events.6 In Else von der Tanne the reader's attention is concentrated upon the various episodes as chronologically unordered yet closely integrated parts of a whole, whereas in Raabe's novels and other shorter works written during this same decade, the author presents his plot in traditional fashion by narrating a sequence of chronological events. It is clear, then, that Else von der Tanne is both innovating and representative in comparison with other of Raabe's works written during the Stuttgart period. This study will concern itself with an investigation of Raabe's narrative technique in Else von der Tanne and its implications for the author's Weltanschauung as revealed in other works written during the same period. At the outset of the Novelle the reader is presented with a mass

Art · German Literature and Culture Studies · History · Linguistic research and analysis · Philosophy