A Tale of the Ragged Mountains

Illustration of the narrative

A Tale of the Ragged Mountains ( A Tale of the Ragged Mountains ) is the title of a short story of the American writer Edgar Allan Poe , in April 1844, in Godey's Lady's Book appeared and adventure with science fiction combines elements.

As in his short stories Mesmeric Revelation and The Facts in the Waldemar Case , Poe circles subjects such as mesmerism and transmigration of souls, popular in black romanticism .

content

The nameless first-person narrator introduces a peculiar character, Mr. Augustus Bedloe, whom he met in Charlottesville . With his tall and gaunt figure, pale complexion, cat-like round eyes and staring, melancholy smile, he arouses the narrator's curiosity, who sometimes thinks he is young, sometimes old. Bedloe explains his eccentric nature , which is embarrassing for himself, with a neuralgia that Dr. Templeton, a believer in mesmerism . In return for a large sum of money, the doctor had agreed to exclusively use his art in the service of the well-to-do patient and, over the years, gained his trust, on which the healing successes were based. Thanks to a “magnetic relationship”, after a few attempts, he succeeded in hypnotically putting Bedloe to sleep .

Bedloe's sensitivity and imagination are enhanced by morphine , which he already consumes for breakfast and then hikes through the rolling countryside west and south-west of Charlottesville. On a gloomy November day, he comes back unexpectedly late from a hike in a slightly uplifted mood and tells the already impatiently waiting a strange story:

Around ten o'clock he reached a ravine , unknown to him , whose "wasteland and abandonment" touched him. Through the heavy fog of Indian summer he could only see the winding path over a short distance and soon lost his bearings. The bewitching effect of morphine deepened the sensory stimuli of the outside world and flooded him with thoughts that he abandoned himself to and wandered through the fog for hours. At some point he was afraid of a precipice and a race of people living in caves. Then he heard drumming and rattling noises, a hyena chasing after a "dark-faced and half-naked man", and pausing in the shade of a tree he wondered why it was a palm tree . Standing at the foot of a large mountain , far below he saw an oriental -looking city lying on a river as if from a thousand and one nights . While he surveyed the labyrinth of “balconies, verandas, niches, fantastically carved oriels”, mosques and minarets and noticed the bustle in the streets, he knew that he was not dreaming , Novalis had already recognized that we wake up “when we dream that we dream. "

Warren Hastings

Overcoming his reluctance, he went down to town and soon found himself in the midst of a commotion in which a small group commanded by British soldiers were defending themselves against the "mob". He joined the weaker party, with whom he soon had to retreat and found refuge in a kind of kiosk, from where he saw a "womanishly scary-looking man" who lowered himself out of a window of the surrounded palace and was able to escape . With "brilliant words" he convinced his comrades to dare to break out. Although they were able to surprise the rebels and push them back a little, they were oppressed by the sheer superiority and attacked with poisoned arrows , the snake shape of which reminded him of the kris of the Malays . Then he was hit in the right temple by an arrow - and died. From a clear height he saw his disfigured corpse, floated back and regained the weight of his body where he had seen the hyena.

With solemn seriousness, Dr. Templeton that Bedloe hadn't dreamed and passed a portrait around. Only Bedloe is shocked by the picture, which shows his own features but is said to come from a friend of the doctor, a Mr. Oldeb, who died in 1780. The oriental city was Benares on the Ganges , where Warren Hastings , Governor General and Viceroy of British East India was in distress in a Cheyte Sing uprising, while the small group consisted of British officers and sepoys under Hastings' leadership. Templeton himself belonged to this group and tried to prevent the breakout of the officer Oldeb. Just at the time of Bedloe's adventures, he put the story on paper.

A week later the news of Bedlos' death appeared in the newspaper. The man tormented by neuralgia caught a cold on an excursion into the Rough Mountains and died of an accident while bloodletting carried out by Templeton . It turned out that between the leeches there was a poisonous worm , usually recognizable by its snake-like movements , that had attached itself to an artery in the right temple. The editor explains that the name is actually spelled Bedlo , not Bedloe . So, mumbles the narrator, Bedlo is nothing more than “an inverted Oldeb”.

background

The work falls into a very intense period of Poe's creation. In this way numerous short stories and his poem Dream Land , which was published in June 1844, were written by May 1844 . Poe dealt with various humanities and natural science topics, read philosophical writings and immersed himself in the theosophy of Emanuel Swedenborg . His intense research drive led him to cryptography and animal magnetism , which was then practiced.

mesmerism

Mesmerian Therapy

This was a view named after Franz Anton Mesmer , with which hypnotic states were interpreted. Mesmer had initially created it with magnetic sticks, but was later able to reach it by stroking it with his bare hands .

At that time, numerous relevant papers were published and reported on how doctors were able to successfully treat nervous disorders with the mesmeric art. Charles P. Johnson wrote a memoir about the special relationship between doctor and patient, which Poe emphasizes right at the beginning of his story. “To be effective, he [the doctor] must be attracted to, interested in, and desire and hope to heal or at least bring relief to the person seeking treatment. As soon as he has made up his mind, which must never be done lightly, he should regard the magnetized as a brother - a friend. "

If the mesmerism of Immanuel Kant on a par with ventriloquists provided and black artists and the on Newton following natural theory largely ignored the black romance attacked him. Even philosophers of German idealism dealt with the current. According to Schelling , people in magnetic sleep could advance “to the highest inner clarity and self-awareness”. Fichte spoke of a “physicalization of idealism” which would “make the whole idea of ​​idealism clearer”, while Hegel recognized the possibilities but also the risks of mesmerism. It is true that the “sleepy magnetic state” can unite the torn person with himself; the division of the person could, however, lead too far and become pathologically entrenched.

Influences

Although the actually supernatural elements in Poe's stories are manageable, he is considered one of the most important storytellers of American fantastic literature. Contrary to his well-known saying that the horror does not come from Germany, but from the soul, suggests that his work was under the clear influence of romantic German literature. The popular motif of the doppelganger can be found in Adelbert von Chamisso's Peter Schlemihl's wondrous story and works by ETA Hoffmann , who influenced Poe like no other poet and was an outstanding representative of this genre. In his novel The Elixirs of the Devil and the short story The Adventures of New Year's Eve , the motif plays a role as well as in Poe's William Wilson .

The immense influence of Hoffmann is particularly evident in the story from the rough mountains , as Hoffmann presented in Der Magnetiseur with the character Alban someone who also used animal magnetism to heal.

Poe obtained the information about Warren Hastings and the historical background of the uprising in Benares from Thomas Babington Macaulay's review of the book The life of Warren Hastings by George Robert Gleig as well as from Hastings memoirs themselves, in which the fighting is described, but not - as in Poe - led to the death of the lieutenant. Another source was Sir William Temple's 1690 treatise Of Ancient and Modern Learning , in which he combined the Hindu belief in an immortal soul , which manifests itself in another being after the wearer's death, with Platonic ideas.

Novalis's thoughts can be found in his thought entry no. 121 from the Paralipomena on pollen and were probably quoted by Poe from an essay by Thomas Carlyle . As early as 1842 he had used the poet's words as the motto for his story The Secret of Marie Rogêt .

German translations (selection)

• 1861: unknown translator: A story from the “Ragged Mountains”. Scheible, Stuttgart.
• 1886: unknown translator: A story from the “Ragged Mountains”. In: The Salon for Literature, Art and Society, Leipzig.
• 1901: Hedda Moeller and Hedwig Lachmann : In the mountains. JCC Bruns, Minden.
• 1908: Bodo Wildberg : A Story from the Rough Mountains. The books of the German House, Berlin.
• 1909: unknown translator: A story from the Ragged Mountains. Propylaea Verlag, Munich.
• approx. 1920: Herman Eiler : A story from the "rugged mountains". A. Weichert, Berlin.
• 1922: Gisela Etzel : A story from the Ragged Mountains. Propylaea, Munich.
• 1922: M. Bretschneider : In the rock mountains. Rösl & Cie., Munich.
• 1923: Wilhelm Cremer : A story from the rock mountains. Verlag der Schiller-Buchhandlung, Berlin.
• approx. 1925: Bernhard Bernson : An experience in the Ragged Mountains. Josef Singer Verlag, Strasbourg.
• around 1930: Fanny Fitting : In the mountains. Fikentscher, Leipzig.
• 1945: Marlies Wettstein : Experience in the mountains. Artemis, Zurich.
• 1947: Wolf Durian : Experience in the mountains. Ullstein, Vienna.
• 1964: Hans Küfner: A story from the rough mountains. Arena Verlag, Würzburg.
• 1966: Hans Wollschläger : A Story from the Rough Mountains. Walter Verlag, Freiburg i. Br.
• 1989: Sylvia Böcking : A story of the rocky mountains. Reclams Universal Library, Stuttgart.
• 1989: Heide Steiner : A story from the Ragged Mountains. Insel-Verlag, Leipzig.
• 2017: Andreas Nohl : A story from the Ragged Mountains. dtv, Munich.

Web links

Wikisource: A Tale of the Ragged Mountains (Original English text)  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Edgar Allan Poe: A Story from the Rough Mountains. In: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume III. The black cat. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 228
2. ↑ Edgar Allan Poe: A Story from the Rough Mountains. In: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume III. The black cat. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 229
3. ↑ Quoted from: Edgar Allan Poe: A story from the rough mountains. In: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume III. The black cat. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 233
4. ↑ Edgar Allan Poe: A Story from the Rough Mountains. In: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume III. The black cat. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 235
5. ↑ Edgar Allan Poe: A Story from the Rough Mountains. In: Edgar Allan Poe, Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume III. The black cat. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 240
6. ^ Frank T. Zumbach : EA Poe - A biography. Patmos Verlag, Düsseldorf 2007, pp. 508–509
7. ↑ N. Herold: Mesmerism . In: Joachim Ritter , Karlfried founder (Hrsg.): Historical dictionary of philosophy . Vol. 5, Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt, p. 1156
8. ↑ Quoted from: Kuno Schuhmann: Notes on A Story from the Rough Mountains. In: Edgar Allan Poe: The Black Cat , Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume III. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 621
9. ↑ Quoted from: N. Herold: Mesmerismus . In: Joachim Ritter , Karlfried founder (Hrsg.): Historical dictionary of philosophy . Vol. 5, Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt, p. 1157
10. ^ Rein A. Zondergeld : Lexicon of fantastic literature , Edgar Allen Poe, Suhrkamp, ​​Fantastic Library, Frankfurt 1983, pp. 189–199
11. ↑ Rein A. Zondergeld: Lexicon of fantastic literature , Hoffmann, Ernst Theodor Amadeus, Suhrkamp, ​​Fantastic Library, Frankfurt 1983, pp. 126–127
12. ↑ Kuno Schuhmann: Notes on A Story from the Rough Mountains. In: Edgar Allan Poe: The Black Cat , Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume III. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 620
13. ↑ Kuno Schuhmann: Notes on A Story from the Rough Mountains. In: Edgar Allan Poe: The Black Cat , Collected Works in 5 Volumes, Volume III. From the American by Arno Schmidt and Hans Wollschläger, Haffmans Verlag, Zurich 1999, p. 621