The surf off Setúbal

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The surf in front of Setúbal is a radio play by Günter Eich , which was broadcast on May 2, 1957 by NDR , BR and hr under the direction of Fritz Schröder-Jahn .

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Around 1590 in the Lisbon region : Dona Catarina de Ataide has been living in Setúbal for 27 years . The Portuguese king had exiled the queen's former lady-in-waiting there for life - presumably because of an affair with the tutor and court poet Don Luiz Vaz de Camoes .

Dona Catarina mourns the old love. Don Luiz called the lady Natercia in his poems.

A chance glance in a mirror in her breakfast room teaches Dona Catarina that she has been drinking from the wrong cup for about ten years. She had ordered not the lily pattern but the cup with the rose pattern. This “enlightenment” prompts Dona Catarina to travel to the city of Lisbon, which is expressly forbidden to her. The beloved Don Luiz, who allegedly died of the plague in Lisbon on June 10, 1580, could still be alive. The news of death from over ten years ago could be just as much a mistake as years of drinking chocolate from the wrong cup.

Dona Catarina - except for the red wine at breakfast - does not allow herself to be dissuaded from her plan.

Accompanied by her young maid Rosita and the servant Pedro, the old lady sets off with two carriages. The travelers carry the porcelain and the heavy silver in their luggage. Pedro thinks the mistress is deranged. Because the only one of the three she hears in her home in Setúbal the Atlantic - Surf and wants in Lisbon visit one dead.

On the way you will stop at the "golden bowl". The landlord Don Felipe had the inn whitewashed as black as a coffin. Don Felipe was previously in India with Camoes, can recite his sonnets and confirms his companion's death from the plague on the above date. The landlord advises Dona Catarina against continuing the journey. The plague is rampant in Lisbon. Dona Catarina ignores the well-intentioned advice and even denies the existence of this plague. The stubborn thing about this woman reminds Don Felipe of his donkey Natercia.

Dona Catarina visits Camoes' former Javanese servant Ojao in Lisbon . In response to an embarrassingly strict questioning by Catarina, Ojao gets caught up in a contradiction. Don Luiz died of the plague in his arms, but could still live. Dona Catarina doesn't give up. She questions Camoes' mother. Thirty years later, the old lady blames the visitor for the misfortune of her beloved boy. Camoes had died in dire poverty.

The exiled former court lady asks for an audience with the king . The request fell on deaf ears in the royal palace. After attempts on consecutive days, Catarina is still admitted after she has given her reason for the desired hearing. May the ruler restore lost beauty to the aged. But the king lies dead in his purple. He had died of the plague on the morning of the day of the audience. Catarina is infected when she touches the royal shroud. Doomed to die, she finally believes in the existence of the plague on her return journey to Setúbal. Simultaneously with this belief, Dona Catarina came to know about the death of her beloved.

Your servant Pedro ran away with the two carriages and the valuables in them. Catarina and the "uninfectable" Rosita walk the way to the "Golden Bowl". The benevolent landlord Don Felipe saddles his donkey Natercia for the sick and stows provisions in the saddlebags for the last ride to the Asylum Setúbal.

shape

The comedy about the life and death of the “aging” drinker Dona Catarina - a “venerable comedy figure” - appears to be successful. Here are two small examples. First, Pedro and Rosita make a plan before they travel. They want to rob their mistress. When the honest-hearted Rosita tells the old woman about the criminal plan, the foolish Dona reacts with an outburst of amusement. Second, the dialogues between Catarina, who is asking for an audience, with the court marshal are delicious. In a polite and reserved manner, the high-ranking civil servant attested the stubborn visitor to be stupid, even madness.

Productions

reception

  • Schwitzke quotes and interprets the radio play's motto: “Have to believe in it”. According to this, the experience of death gives certainty and our life is by no means an illusion.
  • Oppermann also addresses such a concern of the author: Using language to establish reality. Over the years, Dona Catarina had come up with an extremely questionable reality in her exile, Setúbal, which collided with the reality outside in the course of her last trip.
  • With her last trip Catarina broadened her horizons.
  • Martin suspects that the title-giving sound of the surf off Setúbal could be the rustling of blood in Catarina's ears and refers to the characterization of the noise by the protagonist at the beginning of the radio play (Catarina says that she was first in front of the surf, the epitome of their exile, covered their ears. But then, over the years, the "rustling of the flames of hell ... into the calming murmur of divine forgiveness " softened).

literature

expenditure

Used edition

  • Günter Eich: The surf off Setúbal (1957) . Pp. 305–342 in: Karl Karst (Ed.): Günter Eich. The radio plays 2. in: Collected works in four volumes. Revised edition. Volume III . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991, without ISBN

Secondary literature

  • Heinz Schwitzke (Ed.): Reclam's radio play guide. With the collaboration of Franz Hiesel , Werner Klippert , Jürgen Tomm. Reclam, Stuttgart 1969, without ISBN, 671 pages
  • Michael Oppermann: Inner and outer reality in Günter Eich's radio play. Diss. University of Hamburg 1989, Reinhard Fischer publishing house, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-88927-070-0
  • Sabine Alber: The place in free fall. Günter Eich's moles in the context of the entire work. Dissertation. Technische Universität Berlin 1992. Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1992 (European university publications. Series I, German language and literature, vol. 1329), ISBN 3-631-45070-2
  • Wilfried Barner (ed.): History of German literature. Volume 12: History of German Literature from 1945 to the Present . CH Beck, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-406-38660-1
  • Sigurd Martin: The auras of the word-image. Günter Eich's mole poetics and the theory of inadvertent reading. Dissertation University of Frankfurt am Main 1994. Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 1995 (Mannheimer Studien zur Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft, Vol. 3), ISBN 3-86110-057-6
  • Hans-Ulrich Wagner: Günter Eich and the radio. Essay and documentation. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam 1999, ISBN 3-932981-46-4 (publications of the German Broadcasting Archive ; Vol. 27)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karst, p. 764, 20. Zvo
  2. ↑ Barner, p. 250, 7. Zvo
  3. ↑ Barner, p. 250, 13. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 316, 15. Zvu
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 335, 8. Zvo to p. 337, 13. Zvu
  6. ^ Wagner, p. 303, left column, above
  7. ↑ Karst, p. 764, middle
  8. ↑ Schwitzke, pp. 189–190
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 305 below
  10. ↑ Schwitzke, p. 190, 7. Zvo
  11. ↑ Oppermann, p. 126 middle to p. 128 top
  12. ^ Oppermann, p. 128, 10. Zvo
  13. ↑ Oppermann, p. 134, 9th Zvu
  14. ↑ Alber, p. 122, 7. Zvo
  15. ↑ Martin, p. 294, 18. Zvo
  16. ↑ Edition used, p. 308, 18. Zvu