Annette von Droste-Hülshoffs Johannes Niemand

NotesSee for example Benno von Wiese, Die deutsche Novelle von Goethe bis Kafka (Düsseldorf: August Bagel, 1962), p. 163.“The Significance of the Name ‘Johannes’ in Die Judenbuche,” Seminar, 6, No. 3 (1970), 207–215.Cottrell, pp. 211f.Cottrell, p. 214.The Odyssey, Book Nine.Gerta Calmann, “The Pictur e of Nobody, an Iconographic Study,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 23 (1960), 61ff: plate 9a. Calman’s extensive study of the Nobody theme includes many examples from both art and literature.Calmann, pp. 71f: plate 9d.These and other examples cited in translation by Calmann, p. 80. Accompanying title-pages for von Hutten’s Nemo editions in Calmann, plates 11a-11e. For the complete text of Nemo II sec von Hutten, Opera, III, ed. Eduard Böcking (1859; rpt. Aalen: Otto Zeller, 1963), 110–118.Thomas Percy, Reliques of Ancient English Poetry (rpt. from author ‘s last edition; Edinburgh : James Nichol, 1858), II, 99–103.Even Heinz Rölleke, in his extensive commcntary on the story’s genesis, variants, themes, and pertinent scholarship, shares this belief: Annette von Droste-Hülshofj: Die Judenbuche, Commentatio : Analysen und Kommentare zur deutschen Literatur, No. 1, ed. Wolfgang Frühwald (Bad Homburg: Gehlen, 1970), p. 167.L. H. C. T homas, “‘Die Judenbuche’ and English Literature,” Modern Language Review, 64 (1969), 351–354; Bertha Badt, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff. Ihre dichterische Entwicklung und ihr Verhältnis zur englischen Literatur, Breslauer Beiträge zur Litteraturgeschichte, No. 17 (Leipzig: Hesse, 1909).Calmann, pp. 93ff.Johannes Bolte, “Niemand und Jemand: Ein englisches Drama aur Shakespeare’s Zeit, iibersetzt von Ludwig Tieck,” Jahrbuch der deutschen Shakespeare-Gesellschaft, 29–30 (1894), 4–91.Calmann, pp. 98f.Both engravings in Calmann, pp. 91f; plate 12.Irving L. Zupnick, “The Meaning of Bruegel’s ‘Nobody’ and ‘Everyman’,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 67 (May, 1969), 257ff. There is considerable disagreement on the interpretation of Bruegel’s “Elck.” See also Calmann, p. 87ff.The emphasis is mine. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Clemens Heselhaus (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1966), p. 882.Walter Silz, Realism and Reality: Studies in the German Novelle of Poetic Realism, University of North Carolina Studies in Germanic Languages and Literatures, No. 11 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1954), p. 43.Günter Häntzschel discusses some allegorical features in “Die Judenbuche”; Tradition und Originalität : Allegorische Darstellung im Werk Annette von Droste-Hülshoffs, Studien zur Poetik und Geschichte der Literatur, No. 9 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1968), pp. 140–147. Häntzschl’s concept of allegory is based upon the oft-formulated distinction with respect to symbol. Whereas symbol is and means, the allegory only represents, so that there exists in allegory a separation of form and content: allegory stands for something else. For Häntzschel this something else is transcendent and manifested in the story through allegoric motifs and forms from the Baroque legacy. Thus he restricts his treatrnent of allegory in the story to the depiction of the dominant oppositional forces of good and evil, heaven and hell, whereby, as might be expected, images of the devil and the demon merit considerable ink. Possible “allegorische Bezüge” (p. 145) in the Johannes figure are alluded to but not developed. My use of the term allegory here is not predicated by a specific definition, but by the belief that Droste borrowed and consciously worked with the allegorical theme of recognition attendant to the Nobody motif.We are discussing only the first and third Johannes scenes, since on the second occasion, when Johannes comes to fetch Friedrich back to Uncle Simon’s after Brandis’ death, his appearance serves primarily as a reminder that he still exists.In Emil Staiger’s view Johannes becomes for Friedrich “ein neuer Stachel zum Bösen,” since in him he sees his own miserable existence and now tries to prove through proud behavior that he has nothing in common with him. Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, 2nd ed. (Frauen feld: Huber, 1962), p. 60. Nowhere, however, does the text indicate that Friedrich is unwilling to be seen in Johannes’ company. His humiliation at the wedding dcrives from the fact that he accepts Johannes as belonging to his circle of acquaintances.F. Peter Strozyk, “The Figure of the Child in Selected German Novellen of the Nineteenth Century,” Diss. SUNY-Binghamton, 1974, pp. 79–89, construes the story as one of fragmentation of intemal and external and resultant loss of ontological entity in the child. As the external appearance increases in importance for Friedrich, the internal diminishes. Eventually, Friedrich disappears as an ontologically existent person. Only by opting for inner justice at the end does he regain status as a human entity.The question of narrative is crucial to disagreements in present Droste scholarship, and we will return to it later.For a discussion of the wedding feast as an integral part of the story see Edson Chick, “Voices in Discord: Some Observations on Die Judenbuche,” German Quarterly, 42 (March, 1969), 147–157.Ernst Feise cites the “Nebeneinander” effect of this scene and others will respect to plot development: “‘Die Jubenbuche’ von Annette von Droste-Hülshoff,” Monatshefte, 35, No. 8 (1943), 409.The Umwelt factor is stressed by Silz, pp. 46ff. Staiger plays down the environmental influence in favor of some intangible evil force in human nature, p. 58.For divergent views on Friedrich’s motivation here see Benno von Wiese, p. 164, and Heinz Rölleke, “Erzähltes Mysterium : Studie zur ‘Judenbuche’ der Annette von Droste-Hülshoff, Deutsche Vierteljahrsschrift, 42 (1968), 412, and note 40.“Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: Erzählstil und Wirklichkeit,” in Festschrift für Bernhard Blume, ed. Egon Schwarz, Hunter G. Hannum, and Edgar Lohner (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht, 1967), p. 146.See, for example, Winfried Freund, “Der Mörder des Juden Aaron: Zur Problematik von Annette von Droste-Hülshoffs Erzählung ‘Die Judenbuche’,” Wirkendes Wort, 19 (1969), 244–253, and James M. McGlathery, “Fear of Perdition in Droste-Hülshoff’s ‘Judenbuche’,” in Lebendige Form: Interpretationen zur deutschen Literatur; Festschrift für Heinrich E. K. Henel, ed. Jeffrey Sammons and Ernst Schürer (Munich: Fink, 1970), pp. 229–244. Many of McGlathery’s speculations (that Margreth is Johannes’ mother; Brandis a member of the Blaukittel!) are not supported by textual evidence.Letter to her sister of June 30, 1841. Quoted from Clemens Heselhaus, Annette von Droste-Hülshoff: Werk und Leben (Düsseldorf: August Bagel, 1971), p. 153. See also Rölleke’s objections, pp. 205f., and Rolf Allerdissen, “‘Judenbuche’ und ‘Patriarch’: Der Baum des Gerichts bei Annette von Droste-Hülshoff und Charles Sealsfield,” in Herkommen und Erneuerung: Essays für Oskar Seid /in, ed. Gerald Gillespie and Edgar Lohner (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1976), pp. 204f.Heselhaus, p. 157.Kent Tiffany mentions the Ulysses parallel in his masterful introductory essay: Droste-Hülshofj: Die Judenbuche (Waltham: Blaisdell, 1970). pp. xxii.Tiffany, pp. xxii.Under the Carolina, the legal code in effect at the time, evidence was insufficient to convict Friedrich. Janet K. King, “Conscience and Conviction in ‘Die Judenbuche’,” Monatshefte, 64, No. 4 (1972), 349–355. King correctly surmises that failure to adhere to one’s convictions is the capital moral fault, but she does not see that in the end Friedrich does obey the dictates of conscience.Rölleke, for example, writes: “Friedrich hat ke inen Anteil an der christlichen Gnade ... Es verbleibt allein der nur durch den Tod auslöschbare Racheanspruch Jehovas in seiner ganzen im zwiefachen Sinn un-menschlichen Strenge, unerbittlich Blut für Blut fordernd.” “Erzähltes Mysterium,” pp. 420f. See also von Wiese, pp. 170f; Staiger, p. 64; Feise, p. 415, Silz, p. 50. At the opposite interpretive pole stands Tiffany, who equates the homecoming and outcome with possible spiritual rebirth and atonement, pp. xxi–xxii.Our interpretation here bears out Wolfgang Iser’s contention that the efficacy of a literary text lies in “the apparent evocation and subsequent negation of the familiar”: The Implied Reader: Patterns of Communication in Prose Fiction from Bunyan to Beckett (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), p. 290. Originally published as Der implizierte Leser: Kommunikationsformen des Romans von Bunyan bis Beckett (Munich, Wilhelm Fink, 1972). This idea from Iser’s essay “The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach,” merits citing more fully: “The efficacy of a literary text is brought about by the apparent evocation and subsequent negation of the familiar. What at first seemed to be an affirmation of our assumptions leads to our own rejection of them, thus tending to prepare us for a re-orientation. And it is only when we have out-stripped our preconceptions and left the shelter of the familiar that we are in a position to gather new experiences. As the literary text involves the reader in the formation of illusion and the simultaneous formation of the means whereby, the illusion is punctured, reading reflects the process by which we gain experience.” With its many “indeterminacies” (“Unbestimmtheitsstellen”) and “gaps” (Leerstellen’) Droste’s text invites analysis within the context of the ideas of recent theoreticians of “Rezeptionsästhetik.” In this context, see in particular Roman Ingarden on the possible “con cretizations” of a text: Vom Erkennen des literarischen Kunstwerks (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1968), pp. 49ff.For the importance of a text’s divergence from the reader’s “Erwartungshorizont” see Iser, pp. 278(., and Hans Robert Jauß, Literaturgeschichte als Provokation (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp, 1970), pp. 173ff.This symbolic resolution of the story’s chiarascuro escapes Clifford A. Bernd, “Clarity and Obscurity in Annette von _,Droste-Hülshoff’s Judenbuche,” in Studies in German Literature of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: Festschrift for Frederic E. Coenan, ed. Siegfried Mews (Chapel Hili: University of North Carolina Press, 1970), pp. 64–77.This discovering of oneself Iser considers the end result of the dilectical structure of reading: “The production of the meaning of literary texts ... does not merely entail the discovery of the unformulated, which can then be taken over by the active imagination of the reader; it entails the possibility that we may formulate ourselves and so discover what had previously seemed to elude our consciousness.” p. 294

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