Moral novel
A moral novel is a generic variant of the novel in which the focus is on the representation of the social conventions of a certain social class. The classic basic principle of a so-called "moral novel" is the disclosure of the respective social mechanisms based on the personal intellectual and sexual emancipation of an individual . In this case, the or usually the protagonist such. E.g. Émile Zolas Nana , Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary or Theodor Fontane's Effi Briest , fail in every respect or at least be professionally successful in overcoming class barriers - social values have often fallen by the wayside in order to hold up their denouncing mirror to society. But as a rule, the heroes of the respective novels are pariah at the end , outcasts of the self-encrusted and decadent society, which in turn is in the fin de siècle . Already at the first overview, the overlaps with the similarly characterized society novel are noticeable. While some literary stories distinguish themselves between the big city novel and above all the social novel, one will search in vain for the moral novel even in the index. However, this is often countered by the contemporary self-designation in the publishing sector.
Novel of manners or moral novel?
Even if many do not start the moral novel until the Novel of manners in England in the early 18th century, one can find similar basic principles in antiquity with Titus Petronius in the Satyricon or even in China with Jin Ping Mei in the 16th century .
According to some literary historians, the modern moral novel originated in England , where it is referred to as the novel of manners . This novel form began with Fanny Burney , Charlotte Lennox ( The Female Quixote or the Adventures of Arabella , 1752) and above all Jane Austen , but authors such as Henry James and Edith Wharton should also be mentioned in this context: Wharton's The Age of Innocence applies as an almost classic example of a moral novel.
Above all, Samuel Richardson was instrumental in German development . With the book Life of the Swedish Countess von G *** (1750), Christian Fürchtegott Gellert took Richardson's work as a model for the first German family and moral novel.
Influences of the French moral novel
During the 19th century, the French novel seems to have played a decisive role in shaping the style within Europe, whereby Nicolas Edme Restif de la Bretonne with his socially critical approaches may have served as a pioneer parallel to the British examples.
The early deceased author Claude Tillier was with his humorous-satirical moral novel from the province Mon oncle Benjamin (1843) (film adaptation as Mein Unkel Benjamin , 1969 by Édouard Molinaro ), which clearly stood out from the contemporary French literature, for the German and English development more decisive than for French development. Eugène Sue was unusually popular with his oeuvre ( Secrets of Paris ), but his “fleeting bad style betrays lack of care. S [ind] are extremely naive. ideological [ichen]. Excursus on humanitarian and [nd]. socialist. Ideas. "
In 1851, after traveling to Italy, Greece, North Africa and the Middle East , Gustave Flaubert began working on his novel Madame Bovary , which he completed in 1856. In Madame Bovary. Moers de province ( Madame Bovary. A moral image from the province ) he describes the married life of the young protagonist Emma Bovary and her attempts to escape the petty bourgeois life in the country and her increasingly hated husband. After the publication it comes to a scandal because Flaubert does not distance himself from the adultery described . He is accused of immorality , acquitted, but the actual reception in French literature was delayed for a few years.
Émile Zola's masterpiece of naturalism Nana (Nana. Ninth volume of the cycle "Les Rougon-Macquart", 20 vols., Paris 1871–1893. First printing of the novel in: Le Voltaire, October 16, 1879 - February 5, 1880. First book edition of Romans: Paris (Charpentier) 1880) appears 30 years later without the addition, but is also sold almost rampantly in the following as A Parisian moral novel .
Labeling as a moral novel
Throughout the 19th century, based on the style-defining French novels, the trend in the German publishing world seems to have established itself to add the attribute moral novel to all possible works - even if it was never implied in the original title or script. With the label “moral novel”, even a rather boring and endless work like Ernst Willkomm's Die Familie Ammer. Better sell off German moral novels . Even Flemish or Russian novels that fit into the scheme were given the title moral novel .
Authors who would hardly be associated with the label of moral novels today tried their hand at this genre: James Fenimore Cooper with Precaution (1820) ( Mosely Hall ) and Henry James followed suit, following Honoré de Balzac's example : “Social question in The Princess Casamassima , satirical] portrayal of reformers in The Bostonians , artist novel in The Tragic Muse .” Alexandros Papadiamanti's story [!] The murderess was also labeled the moral novel . In Georgia , for example, Prince Ilia Tschawtschawadze ( The Swapped Bride ) is considered to be the founder of the genre, while in Russia Faddei Wenediktowitsch Bulgarin had success outside Russia as early as 1829 with the satirical moral novel Ivan Vyzigin , which, however, had no lasting echo.
German development
In the German-speaking area, Theodor Fontane's novels embody - depending on the interpretation - the type of the social novel or the moral novel in its purest form: class terms, class barriers and the corresponding arrogance destroy relationships and ties, regardless of whether in L'Adultera (1882), Irrungen, Verrungen (1888) , almost caricatured in Frau Jenny Treibel and best known in Effi Briest (1895). If Thomas Mann has brought the bourgeois novel to perfection with the Buddenbrooks , then this, like The Magic Mountain, has in the end also become a moral novel . Hermann Kesten can be seen as the last linguistically elegant representative of the moral novel, who in The Children of Gernika (1939) “ knew how to use the language like a foil ”.
After all , particularly striking titles aimed at the voyeur effect were used since the 1920s: A. Kuprins Jama die Lastergrube achieved 26 editions, which speaks for both the business acumen of the publisher and the willingness to read at the time. This title is representative of many others of that era.
Apparently, however, the peak of attention was not yet reached with descriptive text alone. The work Nackte Menschen - The novel of a friendship by Albert Schneider, which is expressly not described as a moral novel , supposedly showed its intrinsic value on the title page with a bare-breasted, beautiful woman and was consequently placed on the index of harmful and undesirable literature by the Reich Chamber of Culture in 1938 . One of these copies survived in the poison cupboard of the Bavarian National Library, even though the rather harmless classical moral novel was published by a publisher that was actually not popular for moral novels.
The way into the literary lowlands was now also mapped out for the moral novel.
In an investigation of around 200 so-called German-language trivial novels from the 1950s and early 1960s, the ethnologist Walter Nutz came up with the following distinguishing feature: "Love is written out": "" She looked down at him with wide-open eyes, lips open with fear , about her bare body, which threatened to become the plaything of his and her desire. His kisses stung her skin, and the tenderness of his hands seemed to be about to tear her to shreds. "In the woman's novel it never gets that far, a kiss is followed by engagement, and a greedy look is followed by three dots."
More examples of moral novels
- Eduard Breier : Vienna and Rome. Moral novel from the time of Emperor Joseph II. Vienna 1851.
- Eduard Breier: Vienna at night. Moral novel from the present . Vienna 1853.
- Margarete Böhme : Diary of a Lost One . 1905
- Margarete Böhme: Dida Ibsen's story . 1907
- Victorien Du Saussay : Gynecologists: Parisian moral novel . 1908.
- Artur Landsberger : Lu. The cocotte . 1918
- Max Kretzer : Three women. Berlin moral novel . Berlin 1920.
- F. Dirsztay: The Parasite Revolution . 1923
- V. Almond Tribe: Hollywood. Moral novel from the world of film . no year
literature
- Christine Maillard / Michael Titzmann (eds.): Literature and knowledge (sciences) 1890–1935. Stuttgart / Weimar: Metzler 2002.
- Peter Nusser : Trivial literature (= Metzler Collection, 262). Stuttgart: Metzler 1991.
- Walter Nutz: The trivial novel . West German publishing house, Cologne 1962.
- Marianne Wünsch: Ways of the 'person' and their 'self-discovery' in the fantastic literature after 1900. In: Manfred Pfister (Hrsg.): Die Modernisierung des Ich. Studies on subject constitution in the pre- and early modern era (= PINK / Passau Interdisciplinary Colloquia; 1), pp. 168–179.
- Marianne Wünsch: Rules of erotic relationships in early modern narrative texts and their theoretical status. In: SPIEL (= Siegener Periodicum on International Empirical Literature) 9, Issue 1, pp. 131–172
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich G. Hoffmann, Herbert Rösch: Basics, styles, shapes of German literature. A historical account. Hirschgraben-Verlag, Frankfurt / a. M. 12th ed. 1983, ISBN 3-454-33701-1 .
- ↑ Author's Lexicon: Richardson, Samuel, p. 2 ff. Digital Library Volume 13: Wilpert: Lexikon der Weltliteratur, p. 11401 (see Wilpert-LdW, Authors, p. 1269 ff.)
- ↑ Author's Lexicon: Sue, Eugène, p. 2 ff. Digital Library Volume 13: Wilpert: Lexikon der Weltliteratur, p. 13133 (cf. Wilpert-LdW, Authors, p. 1465 ff.)
- ^ First printing of an abridged version in: Revue de Paris, October 1st-15th. December 1856. First edition in two volumes: Paris (Levy) 1857. Transl. Arthur Schurig, Leipzig: Insel-Verlag, 1952.
- ^ Flaubert: Digital Library Volume 89: The library of world literature, p. 25182.
- ^ Zola: Digital Library Volume 89: The Library of World Literature, p. 80010.
- ↑ Cf. Arsène Houssaye : Mademoiselle Cleopatra. Parisian moral novel. Last, Vienna 1865.
- ↑ Ernst Willkomm: The Ammer family. German moral novel. Published by Meidinger, Sohn & Cie, Frankfurt / aM
- ↑ Georges Eekhoud: Kees Doorik: a Flemish novel of manners . Translated by Tony Kellen, Insel-Verlag 1893.
- ↑ Author's Lexicon: Cooper, James Fenimore, p. 1 ff. Digital Library Volume 13: Wilpert: Lexikon der Weltliteratur, p. 2927 (cf. Wilpert-LdW, authors, p. 319 ff.)
- ↑ Author's lexicon: James, Henry, p. 1 ff. Digital Library Volume 13: Wilpert: Lexikon der Weltliteratur, p. 6571 (cf. Wilpert-LdW, authors, p. 728 ff.)
- ↑ Author's lexicon: Bulgarin, Faddej Venediktovic, p. 1. Digital Library Volume 13: Wilpert: Lexikon der Weltliteratur, p. 2171 (cf. Wilpert-LdW, authors, p. 235).
- ↑ Hoffmann, Rösch, p. 236.
- ↑ Hoffmann, Rösch, p. 266.
- ↑ Hoffmann, Rösch, p. 317.
- ↑ A. Kuprin: Jama the pit of vice. Moral novel, Interterritorialer Verlag “Renaissance” 26th edition. Berlin, Vienna, Leipzig 1920.
- ^ Albert Schneider: Naked people - The novel of a friendship . Ostra-Verlag, Leipzig 1922.
- ^ Forbidden Books. What to do with a whole box of Hitler? - www.faz.net
- ↑ Books that were not sold for bookstores, but only produced by lending libraries , some of which were commercial, for what was needed at the time. The annual production in the FRG was around 1,800 titles
- ↑ TRIVIALROMAN. Must be love. Der Spiegel 17/1962.