Charlotte Löwensköld
Charlotte Löwensköld is the title of a novel by the Swedish writer Selma Lagerlöf . The novel was published in 1925 and forms the second part of the Löwensköld trilogy . The novel is set in Värmland in the first third of the 19th century and is about the love of the young Charlotte Löwensköld for the pastor Karl-Artur Ekenstedt. Due to a series of misunderstandings, the engagement of the two is dissolved, and Charlotte struggles desperately and ultimately in vain to reconcile with Karl-Artur.
action
(For the history, see The General's Ring .)
The young Karl-Artur Ekenstedt grew up in a wealthy upper class family in Karlstad . His mother, née Löwensköld and the sister of Adrian Löwensköld, who would once have been terrified to death by the ghost of the dead general, loves him idolatrously. Under the influence of a pietistic friend, Karl-Artur decided to study theology . He becomes an assistant pastor in Korskyrka. In the parsonage there he met the young Charlotte Löwensköld, a member of a branch line of the Löwenskölds, and became engaged to her. Karl-Artur wants to lead a simple life as a follower of Christ and refuses to strive for a good position and to make a career in the church hierarchy.
The still young, but already widowed, rich mine owner Schagerström asked for Charlotte's hand. Charlotte refuses indignantly, but Karl-Artur assumes that she only rejected Schagerström because she hoped that Karl-Artur would make a career and then be an even better game. Full of anger, he dissolves the engagement and declares that God himself should determine the right bride for him: The first single woman he meets on the street should be his wife. Karl-Artur runs out onto the country road, where he meets the beautiful but uneducated and simple Anna Svärd, a peddler from Dalarna , and becomes engaged to her.
Charlotte tries desperately to reconcile with Karl-Artur. She humbles herself and takes all the guilt, but no reconciliation comes about. Charlotte even gets engaged to Schagerström - not because she loves him, but because she loves Karl-Artur and thinks that if she demonstrates in this way that she is to blame for the breach of the engagement, Karl-Artur keeps the love of his parents and them Respect for the community. But everything is in vain: Karl-Artur falls under the influence of the scheming and devious Thea Sundler, the organist's wife and daughter of Malvina Spaak, who once saved Adrian Löwensköld's life. Thea Sundler, secretly in love with Karl-Artur, repeatedly incites Karl-Artur against Charlotte with small meanings and well-placed poisonous remarks.
Karl-Artur has in the meantime acquired the love of the whole community through rousing sermons and charitable acts. But when he visits Karlstad, his engagement to Anna Svärd leads to an argument with his parents. Karl-Artur insults his parents, accuses them of having no understanding for him and his Christian ideals, and breaks with them.
Charlotte is unhappy about this because she knows how important his mother's love is to Karl-Artur. Thea Sundler makes Charlotte a proposal: If Charlotte immediately marries Schagerström, she will, in return, induce Karl-Artur to reconcile with his mother. Charlotte is desperate, but out of love for Karl-Artur she agrees. When Charlotte learns that Karl-Artur made a fool of her at a prayer meeting with an apparently compassionate but in truth disparaging intercession, she realizes that Karl-Artur killed her love. She understands that Schagerström has something that Karl-Artur lacks: he can love. She enters the marriage with Schagerström with new feelings.
meaning
Although Charlotte Löwensköld appeared in the same year as Der Ring des Generals , Charlotte Löwensköld is written in a completely different style. In the place of the gloomy severity of the first part of the trilogy, Charlotte Löwensköld uses a broad, detailed and even humorous narrative style. In fact, some scenes are almost comedy in nature, for example when Charlotte cuts off Thea Sundler's locks, or when Charlotte pretends to be Thea Sundler in the dark stagecoach opposite Schagerström. The ring and the curse on it are only mentioned in short, casual sentences, but remain present in the background.
In truth, Charlotte Löwensköld is a tragedy: Karl-Artur Ekenstedt, although he is an extremely talented man and has nothing but good intentions, runs blindly into perdition because he is incapable of communicating with other people and compassion, and because the most important things to him lacking: the ability to love. In one scene, it is stated directly that Kartur-Arthur's inability to love stems from the fact that his mother loved him too much. This fundamentally distinguishes him from Schagerström, who was rejected by his mother. The tragically ending parent-child relationship refers back to The Emperor of Portugal , but is deepened even more psychologically here.
Karl-Arthur's inability to love is also related to his fanaticism . Although Karl-Artur does a lot of good, he practices his Christianity in an increasingly hard-hearted and intolerant way. "That's a merciless God you believe in," his father tells him.
The plot is roughly based on an incident that really happened in the 19th century: Selma Lagerlöf was studying documents about a pastor who had fallen out with his fiancée, who wanted to marry the next single woman he met, and then one Dalarna peddler married. The model for the place Korskyrka was Karlskoga , where Selma Lagerlöf was once confirmed.
In the third part of the trilogy, the novel Anna, the girl from Dalarne , published in 1928, the further fate of Karl-Artur Ekenstedt, Anna Svärd and Charlotte Löwensköld is described.
literature
- Vivi Edström, Selma Lagerlöf , Stockholm 1991
expenditure
Swedish
German
- ISBN 3-404-10298-3 (out of print)
- ISBN 3-453-44025-0 (out of print)
filming
- 1979 - Die Liebe der Charlotte Löwensköld ( Charlotte Löwensköld ) - Director: Jackie Söderman