The Argonaut ship

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The Argonaut Ship is a story by Anna Seghers from 1948, which was preprinted a year later in the first volume, issue 6, by Sinn und Form and was published in book form in volume 1 of the two-volume collection The Beehive in 1953 .

After returning to Germany from exile in Mexico in 1947, Anna Seghers writes in the Eastern Zone about “Fate, Home and Attachment” and the search for a way out of the existential crisis. The story of the returning Jason , former leader of the Argonauts , was ignored at the time or was apparently met with incomprehension.

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Old Jason, with the Golden Fleece around his shoulder and thus remained young, will not be recognized by any of his people after his return to his Greek hometown , although everyone feels as if he has seen him - at least in his childhood - before. The bold Jason meets three people who hope that the newcomer will bring relief from their loneliness. In the harbor bar, the 16-year-old landlady's daughter cannot take her eyes off Jason's shining head. When the girl lays her head on Jason's chest, feeling safe under the golden fur, that becomes too much for her groom and he stabs his own bride. Jason, looking for his Argo , calmly leaves the pub. The fleece protects its wearer "from time and injustice"; makes him inviolable for any erroneous criminal prosecution anyway. On the way, Jason meets a boy. The father died to him. His guardian, the "uncle, is tough and bad". Jason persuades the boy to flee. He wants to accommodate him on his ship. Jason's search for the Argo continues. When he was thirsty, he stopped by a married couple. The woman is treated so badly that Jason persuades her to leave the man. Remaining lonely like the boy and the woman Jason keeps looking. At last he enters the grove, on whose trees the rotten Argo is hung as a sanctuary. The ship sways softly in the wind. Jason throws off his fur and lies down on the grass under his Argo. Storm is coming. Jason wraps himself in the fleece and stays there. The storm is rising. The ropes are breaking. The decrepit Argo - once perfected with the help of the divine Pallas Athene - breaks. The captain is killed by his ship.

Quote

Anna Seghers' credo: "Stronger than men and gods, higher than both, high above all was fate."

reception

The fleece should actually give the wearer eternal youth. But he dies. A contradiction? Neugebauer writes: “Under the spell of his [Jason's] Argo , the fleece loses its magical power. The hero becomes himself again. ”He can now freely decide about his life.

The bearer of the Golden Fleece, endowed with eternal youth, stood outside of everyday life during his lifetime and thus carelessly intervened in the fate of three mortals.

Neugebauer points out the poetic passages. Anna Segher describes two properties of the Golden Fleece: “His [Jason's] fleece protected him like a tank from everything that threatens a person. At the same time, like a skin, it let in every glimmer of joy inside. "And when Jason saw the above-mentioned sacred grove, in which Jason the Argo, hanging from the branches, the author wrote:" ... the forest spoke the language of Silence. He gently moved the branches and he sifted the light into sun dust. "Anna Seghers touches the reader not only with her barren language, but also with her philosophy of the" dialectic of recurrence of the same thing and constant change, of fate and chance, of determination and free will ”through two déjà vu experiences. When Jason first recounts his story - up to the robbery of the fleece in the temple of Colchis together with Medea - he initially addresses his youth, his home. The conditions in the house of the boy who is badly treated by his uncle return. Second, Brandes points out a warning from the author. People should determine their own way of life. First, Jason calls the boy and the unhappy wife to leave. And then Jason deliberately lets himself be slain by his ship. The hero could have got up from the grass when the storm came up. Schrade wants Jason's decision to be understood as follows: The captain of the Argo has lost both faith in humans and in the gods. Schrade does not want to follow an interpretation of Jason’s suicide, after which the communist Anna Seghers, who returned in 1947, was almost desperate with a view to the shattered German cities. Hilzinger sees a disappointed, tired hero who is putting an end to his life.

The editor in Barner's literary history notes one of the causes of the hero's disappointment. The homecomer Jason remains alone at home.

literature

First edition

  • The Argonaut ship. Say by Jason. P. 339–361 in Anna Seghers: The beehive. Selected short stories in two volumes. Vol. 1, 509 pages, Aufbau Verlag, Berlin 1953

expenditure

Secondary literature

  • Heinz Neugebauer: Anna Seghers. Life and work. With illustrations (research assistant: Irmgard Neugebauer, editorial deadline September 20, 1977). 238 pages. Series “Writers of the Present” (Ed. Kurt Böttcher). People and Knowledge, Berlin 1980, without ISBN
  • Kurt Batt : Anna Seghers. Trial over development and works. With illustrations. 283 pages. Reclam, Leipzig 1973 (2nd edition 1980). Licensor: Röderberg, Frankfurt am Main ( Röderberg-Taschenbuch Vol. 15), ISBN 3-87682-470-2
  • Ute Brandes: Anna Seghers . Colloquium Verlag, Berlin 1992. Volume 117 of the series “Heads of the 20th Century”, ISBN 3-7678-0803-X
  • Andreas Schrade: Anna Seghers . Metzler, Stuttgart 1993 (Metzler Collection, Vol. 275 (Authors)), ISBN 3-476-10275-0
  • 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
  • Sonja Hilzinger: Anna Seghers. With 12 illustrations. Series of Literature Studies. Reclam, Stuttgart 2000, RUB 17623, ISBN 3-15-017623-9

Web links

See also

The yearbook of the Anna Seghers Society Berlin and Mainz eV is called the Argonaut ship .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Decker in the afterword of the 2008 edition, p. 295, 5th Zvu
  2. ^ Schrade, p. 87, 16. Zvu
  3. ↑ Brandes, p. 56, 14. Zvo
  4. ^ Schrade, p. 87, 13. Zvu
  5. ↑ Hilzinger, p. 130, 11. Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 185, 3rd Zvu
  7. ↑ Neugebauer, p. 75, 5. Zvo and 16. zvu
  8. ↑ Neugebauer, p. 74 below
  9. ↑ Edition used, p. 179, 7th Zvu
  10. ↑ Edition used, p. 187, 1. Zvo
  11. ↑ Inge Diersen, quoted in Hilzinger, p. 132, 14. Zvu and p. 216, 2nd line from
  12. ↑ Brandes, p. 56, 12. Zvu
  13. ^ Batt, p. 161
  14. ^ Schrade, p. 88 below
  15. ↑ Hilzinger, p. 132, 3rd Zvu
  16. ↑ Barner, p. 138 above
  17. ↑ Hilzinger, p. 132, 2. Zvo
  18. ^ Yearbook of the Argonaut ship