Barbara Holzer
Barbara Holzer is a play in three acts from the early work of the German writer and dramaturge Clara Viebig from 1897.
The story that takes place around 1900 in the area of the village Ehrang near Trier is about the fate of the maid Barbara Holzer, who stabs the father of her child when he tries to induce her to give away their child. The figurative language is reproduced in the Moselle-Franconian dialect of the region.
action
first act
In the presentation of the conditions at the Pfalzelhof in Ehrang, the basics for the later conflicts are presented: The single Barbara Holzer, who works as a maid on the farm of the impoverished Pfalzel farmer in Ehrang, has got involved with Lorenz, the farmer's son and is pregnant.
The old farmers suspect the connections, but in order to free the indebted farm from financial difficulties, the father intends to marry Lorenz to the wealthy innkeeper daughter Anna Clässen. In order not to endanger the intended money marriage, the Pfalzelbauer chases the maid from the farm when she can no longer hide her condition.
Before Barbara leaves the farm, she causes Lorenz to take the oath: “Ech heiroaden kan annere” (“I will not marry anyone else.”) In return, Lorenz causes the maid to keep silent about his fatherhood.
Barbara initially finds shelter and help with the birth with her scratchy aunt Katrein, who lives in the poor house .
Second act
The scene changes to the tavern at Ramstein Castle , which is located in the forest of the neighboring community of Ehrang. The wealthy landlord's daughter Anna has a real love for Lorenz. Her father, who has heard of the rumors about the Pfalzelhofmagd, does not want to give his daughter to this dubious marriage candidate anymore.
In addition, other rumors are unsettling the population of the surrounding villages. Not least thanks to Katrein Holzer, Barbara's aunt, the rumor has spread that the Genoveva cave above the Ramstein castle ruins has been haunted for some time. In fact, this cave has been inhabited for some time, because Barbara, as agreed with Lorenz, has withdrawn with her newborn baby to where he will take care of her.
The tavern in her parents' business begins and Anna has the task of serving the guests. In doing so, she got into conversation with the district magistrate Mathieu, to whom she also reported about the alleged ghost in the cave. Mathieu soon begins to sense the connection between the ghost and the missing maid.
The two fathers of the bride also sat down to talk. The Pfalzelbauer succeeds in dispelling all concerns and assuring Father Clässen that his Lorenz has nothing to do with Barbara:
"Dat Framensch, dat Saumensch, de lidderliche Vettel ! [...] Ech saon eich, [...] dän Lorenz es su en braven Jong, on hän es eierm Anna e su gud. "(" The woman, the Saumensch, the dissolute hag! I tell you, Lorenz is such a brave Boy, and he's so good for your Anna! ”).
Just when the two fathers agree, the scene is disturbed by the cry that Lorenz has been found dead in the forest.
Third act
The horrified people have come together in the room of the mayor Kohlhaas. Finally, the broken Anna and her father enter. Mathieu, who is conducting the interrogation, asks to get Barbara. As she walks through the angry crowd, she must be guided and protected by the police.
The absent-minded Barbara repeatedly expresses the desire to see her child who has been taken away from her. She accuses the Pfalzelbauer as the culprit in this matter, because he had urged his Lorenz to contact Anna because of the money. She only confesses her own guilt when she learns that her child died that night.
Now she informs those present about the previous events. Lorenz went to her and asked her to leave the place. But since she was supposed to leave the child with the Trier nuns, she would have refused. When he tried to flee with the child, there was a scuffle; in the end she would have stabbed.
After this admission, the understanding Mathieu can no longer help. Kohlhas and the gendarme Lippi lead the maid away, who expresses her deepest longing with the words “Mein Könd, mein Könd!”.
Material and origin history
The subject matter of the drama is typical of the stories that Clara Viebig learned on the side when she traveled to the Eifel villages with her esteemed "Uncle Mathieu", the Trier district judge, for his criminal investigation. Accordingly, she describes:
“The great loneliness of the Eifel plateau in its peculiar melancholy beauty is difficult to describe. Wide heaths over which the wind sighs - bare crater peaks, around a burnt-out gorge an unfathomably mysterious maar - picturesque castle ruins in hidden valleys - trout-rich brooks and deserted high forests - that is poetry! This is the soil that my "Barbara Holzer" has outgrown. Your story was told to me in childhood by my uncle Mathieu; I have never forgotten her. "
Clara Viebig used this material twice: first in the novella “ Die Schuldige ”, then in the play “Barbara Holzer”. The storyline of the stage version is slightly simplified compared to the epic text.
The novella occupies a key position in Clara Viebig's literary development as a naturalistically oriented writer. Shortly after her inspiring reading of Emile Zola's “ Germinal ”, she enthusiastically started writing the piece, which she treated for the first time in a naturalistic way:
“I was in a frenzy; I sat down and in two days wrote a larger story: "The culprit". It was a material that I had been carrying around in me for a long time - unexpectedly now it suddenly appeared again. "
The use of the - somewhat constructed - Moselle-Franconian dialect, which Clara Viebig uses for “milieu-specific, socially differentiated characterization”, makes a decisive contribution to her literary classification as a naturalistic writer.
This classification is not contradicted by the fact that Clara Viebig integrates legends into her texts. In the present case it concerns parts of the Genovevasage . When people from the common people see Barbara and her child in front of the Genoveva cave, they are reminded of this legend or religious scenes of the devotion to Mary and get scared. In this respect, Clara Viebig also uses the myth to characterize the psychological constitution of her characters, who are still caught in the superstitious ideas of their time.
About the figure of Uncle Mathieu
In the figure of Uncle Mathieu, who tellingly bears the name “Milde” in the novella, Clara Viebig has erected an honorable memorial to her uncle and his obviously very understanding methods of investigation.
Milde and Mathieu not only investigate the murder with psychological sensitivity, but also investigate the reasons why a murder could have occurred. In doing so, he understands the desperate situation of a mother who has fought to live with her child. Ultimately, however, he cannot save Barbara from being convicted for her act.
According to the current state of research, Uncle Mathieu is Trier's First Public Prosecutor Carl Mallmann (1840–1904), who had his residence in Trier's Nordallee, not far from the Viebig's apartment.
Release and performance history
The novella “The Guilty One”, which Clara Viebig wrote shortly after her “Zola experience”, was initially unsuccessful. The writer reported soberly: "No editorial staff accepted 'The Guilty One'."
When after her marriage to Fritz Cohn, the owner of the Berlin publishing house Fontane & Co. , all possibilities of publication were open, the latter published both the novella in the first edition of “ Children of the Eifel ” and the stage play in 1897 . "Barbara Holzer" was published again in 1903 by Egon Fleischel , Berlin.
The world premiere of “Barbara Holzer” took place in December 1896 at the Free Volksbühne Berlin , followed in 1897 by a performance at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Munich. In 1976, students staged the play again on the studio stage of the University of Cologne in the LVR open-air museum in Kommern .
Reception and interpretative approaches
At the time of its performance, the play "Barbara Holzer" was praised as a powerful expression of a young writer. The aforementioned unconditional maternal love of Barbara was often the focus of consideration: "A tragedy of maternal love, succinct and sharp in expression, sure and firm in the characteristics of most of the characters and filled with deep, genuinely born pity from the soul."
The focus was also on the hierarchical differences that form an insurmountable barrier even among the common people between the peasants and the servants : the poor maid cannot marry the apparently wealthy hereditary farmer's son Lorenz. But the catastrophe only occurs when he tries to take the child away from the mother.
Comparisons were also made between Clara Viebig and Ludwig Anzengruber : “The robust characters and the absolutely necessary progression of the plot repeatedly reminded me of Anzengruber. Clara Viebig does not see from the inside of the people's soul like Anzengruber, but what she sees puts her firmly on her feet. "
Individual evidence
- ^ Viebig, Clara: Barbara Holzer , Berlin: Fontane 1897, p. 30.
- ^ Viebig, Clara: Barbara Holzer , Berlin: Fontane 1897, p. 54.
- ^ Viebig, Clara: Barbara Holzer , Berlin: Fontane 1897, p. 82.
- ↑ Viebig, Clara: Self-Confession , in: The Art of the People! A writing for the Berlin Volksbühnen movement, ed. V. Bruno Wille, No. 4 December 1897, pp. 3–4, here p. 4.
- ^ Viebig, Clara: Vom Weg meine Jugend , in: o. Ed .: When our great poets were still little girls , Leipzig: Moeser, pp. 85–118, here: p. 118.
- ^ Gelhaus, Hermann: Barbara Holzer , in: Loster-Schneider, Gudrun and Gaby Payler: Lexicon of German-language epics and drama by women authors (1730–1900), Tübingen: Francke-Verlag 2006, pp. 439–440, here p. 440.
- ↑ According to this legend, the Countess Palatine Genoveva is unjustly accused of infidelity and sentenced to death. The judgment is not carried out out of pity, and Genoveva can retreat with her newborn son into a cave in which she is cared for by the Blessed Mother herself.
- ↑ See also Herwig, Henriette and Anke Susanne Hoffmann: Afterword , in: Clara Viebig: Before Tau and Day and other novels , Mellrichstadt: Turmhut 2008 pp. 245–248. In her later works Clara Viebig will again and again refer to sagas and legends from the folk and customs of the population.
- ^ Viebig, Clara: Vom Weg meine Jugend , in: o. Ed .: When our great poets were still little girls , Leipzig: Moeser, pp. 85–118, here: p. 118.
- ^ Viebig, Clara: Die Schuldige , in: Kinder der Eifel , Berlin: Fontane & Co. 1897, pp. 155–242. The novella saw 33 editions during Clara Viebig's lifetime; it is still being published today with the “Children of the Eifel”. In 1911 there was a translation into Czech : "Provinilá" (Czech. "Criminal"), transl. v. Zd. Hostinská, Prague, Prokrok, 63 pp.
- ^ Heimer, Dieter and Sophie Lange: News about the Eifel poet Clara Viebig . Books, plays and other publications, in: Heimatkalender 2011 , Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm (160–170).
- ^ Jacobowski, Ludwig: Barbara Holzer , in: The art of the people! A writing for the Berlin Volksbühnen movement, ed. V. Bruno Wille, No. 4 December 1897, pp. 1–3, here p. 3.
- ↑ Cf. Gelhaus, Hermann: Barbara Holzer , in: Loster-Schneider, Gudrun and Gaby Payler: Lexicon of German-language epics and drama by women authors (1730–1900), Tübingen: Francke-Verlag 2006, pp. 439–440, here p. 439.
- ↑ Steiner, Rudolf: Barbara Holzer , in: Magazin für Literatur , 66.Jg. No. 50, 1897, p. 245.