The marble picture
The marble picture is a romantic fairy tale novel by Joseph von Eichendorff from 1818. It was first published in the women's pocketbook for 1819 .
action
A young man named Florio is at odds with his feelings: on one side are Fortunato, a well-known and happy singer, and the pure and innocent Bianka, who loves him. On the other side is the fleshed marble image of Venus and the knight Donati.
The story begins when Florio meets his role model, the singer Fortunato, on the way to the city of Lucca . In the evening there is a party in Lucca at which Florio falls in love with the beautiful Bianka. But suddenly a pale, dark knight (Donati) rushes into the company and hastily empties a glass of wine, in contrast to the happy evening party, which always pays attention to the right proportions. Even if Donati usually adapts to the moderate, elegant manners of his surroundings, a diabolical streak breaks through his character again and again. This is also reinforced by the fact that Eichendorff assigned the symbolic color greenish gold to it.
- When they came to the gate, Donati's horse, who had previously shied away from some passers-by
- suddenly almost straight up and didn't want to go in. A sparkling flash of anger drove almost distorted
- on the rider's face and a wild, only half-spoken curse from the twitching lips, about what
- Florio was not a little astonished, as he saw such a being in the fine and sensible decency of the knight
- didn't seem to fit at all.
When Florio returns to his hostel in the middle of the night, he cannot sleep and is almost magically attracted by the landscape in the moonlight. So he sneaks past his sleeping servant (often interpreted as conscience or consciousness) and discovers, as he walks through the park - as if in a trance - a marble image of the goddess Venus , which in him has a strong sadness that goes back to his youth triggers. The next morning, Fortunato tries to scare away Florio's worries, but he goes back to the mysterious pond, on the bank of which is the marble picture. Now there is a lot of activity in the park, but soon it finds itself in an unreal beech grove , which leads it on to a magnificent palace. In this he discovers a singing noblewoman in the form of the image of Venus, who passes by like a ghost without taking any notice of him. Deeply moved, Florio hurries on and discovers the seemingly dead knight Donati in a brickwork that has now fallen into disrepair, whom he wakes up and storms after the identity of the wonderful noblewoman. However, he hardly made any clear statements and promised Florio a visit to her the following day. The next day, a Sunday, Donati visits Florio to pick him up for the hunt, but flees when the church bells ring:
- Meanwhile the sound of bells had risen from the towers of the city and went like a prayer through the clear air.
- Donati seemed startled, he grabbed his hat and almost anxiously urged Florio to accompany him,
- but he persistently refused. “Away, out!” - the knight finally called out in a low voice and as if from deeply wedged
- Chest up, pressed the hand of the astonished youth, and rushed away from the house.
Florio is relieved when shortly afterwards Fortunato “like a messenger of peace” comes to him to bring him an invitation to a party the following evening. He also suggests that Florio will meet an "old friend" there. He spends the day wandering through the park again, but the palace where he saw Venus the day before is firmly locked and abandoned.
At the masquerade ball in a country house, he again meets a mysterious woman disguised and masked as a Greek. He is also attracted to this strange beauty. The "Greek" confuses Florio very much, because he suddenly sees her standing next to him and at the same time at the other end of the room. When she disappears, he looks for her and can overhear her singing a song in the garden. He recognizes in her the beautiful lady who resembles the statue.
Florio, overwhelmed by longing, is led a few days later into the beautiful lady's castle. During the encounter with her an old Christian song sounds in front of the window: suddenly the statues and the figures on the tapestries come to life, and he rushes out in horror. When he arrives in Lucca it is dawn; he decides to leave.
Fortunato also leaves the city, and Florio joins him and his two companions. The companions turn out to be "the girl with the flower wreath", Bianka, and her uncle. Fortunato tells in a song about the magic of the pagan Venus, who once a year stays among the people and seduces young men in her temple. As they pass a ruin, Florio recognizes the place where the beautiful lady's garden was; He realizes that he was the victim of a spook and turns to Bianka, who, disguised as a boy, accompanies her uncle Pietro, who noticed her deep sadness, because Bianka could not bear Florio's turning away from her.
History of origin
Although the marble statue, a novel of romance , the idea came to the Baroque poet Eberhard Werner Happel . In 1687 he published a ghost story in which a young traveler in Lucca falls under the spell of a "devilish woman", but gets away with the horror again. Individual scenes and figures, e.g. B. the knight Donati, appear in Happel.
Although Eichendorff took over much of this earlier work, he says in one of his letters that the source was
- "[...] some anecdote from an old one
- Book, I think it was Happelii
- Curiositates, the distant cause
- but also gave nothing more .. "
The motif of the statue revival (which, by the way, can also be found at Happel) has a long tradition. Starting with the Roman poet Ovid , who lived around 46 BC. Was born, this substance has undergone changes over the centuries. In the Middle Ages, the contrast between the Christian concept of salvation and pagan antiquity was in the foreground.
On this basis, Eichendorff wrote the novella and sent it to the befriended couple de la Motte-Fouqué. Both were great admirers of Eichendorff and the man, Friedrich, also editor of the women's pocket book , a literary magazine. The marble picture appeared there in the 1819 edition .
characters
Florio
The protagonist of the novella Florio (from Latin florere : to blossom), a “beautiful youth” with “brown curls” [ibid. P. 556] is described in his amorical development, which tears him back and forth between the pure, innocent Bianka, as a representative of Christianity, and the seductive, pagan statue of Venus. At the center of the novel is the moral conflict of the protagonist, who falls into desperation between “pagan” eros and Christian morality.
As a pious person he gets into a misunderstanding when Donati invites him to hunt on Sunday, the day of rest in the Christian religion: "To the hunt?" - replied Florio in astonishment, "today on holy day?"
Eichendorff's novella can therefore also be read as an anti-classical program (contra Goethe, Schiller, Winckelmann etc.) [cf. Andreas Mudrak. Reading key. Joseph von Eichendorff. The marble picture. Reclam]
At no point does he recognize that Venus is a pagan goddess, so he believes he will meet her in church and also when he notices that she is depicted on paintings in his parents' pleasure house and she replies that everyone believes having seen her before, he becomes unaware of her true nature.
In the end he finds his way back to God through Fortunato's songs and a prayer from the bottom of his heart.
Bianka
Bianka (from Italian: white) is the pure and innocent, refers to sinlessness and chastity. The moment she sheds her sexuality and becomes an asexual being, she is also Florio's salvation, because disguised as a boy she appears angelic to him.
Outwardly, she is described as a cute, almost childlike figure, has beautiful, large eyes with long, black eyelashes. She is often referred to as "the girl with the wreath of flowers", which on the one hand can be interpreted to mean that in old depictions spring is often depicted with a wreath of flowers, on the other hand this can also be an allusion to the worship of the to be virgin Mary.
Fortunato
Fortunato (from Latin fortunatus : blessed, blessed, happy) is probably the prototype of the medieval minstrel for romantics . He is a happy singer who tries to put Florio on the right path with his songs. He embodies the honest singer who is deeply rooted in his belief in God.
He is described in a colorful costume with a gold chain, the gold chain indicating that he is a famous singer, selfless, but how Fortunato is, he never points out when he meets Florio.
His eyes are described as large, piously clear, soulful, and witty. He also has a cheerful voice.
His time of day is morning, which again illustrates his relation to the bright, godly side, and even when he scolds, he scolds funny, so he can't be angry himself.
Venus
The Venus embodies a goddess of spring, gardens, fertility and sexuality. The goddess is awakened every spring, but this also means that at the end of spring she has to become a marble statue again, so she embodies both life and death from the beginning.
She is described as a tall, slender figure with long, golden curly hair, she wears a light blue robe, which is held in place by golden clasps. She has white skin, wears a crisp white veil and rides a white tent.
The color white does not have to be interpreted as innocence or purity, but also refers to death. White swans are also more common as more prominent death symbols.
The gold is also not to be interpreted positively, but has to be put in connection with Donati's green-gold armor and the greenish-gold snake and thus stands for the temptation and the expulsion from paradise.
In the middle of the novella, the figure of Venus is closely intertwined with Bianka.
Donati
Donati's name is often misinterpreted, starting from the Latin donatus , which means something like 'the one [given by God]', but this leads the interpretation in a completely wrong direction. In fact, the name is derived from the Donatists , who were the followers of Bishop Donatus of Carthage and thus the first Christian sect. Just like the Donatists, Donati spreads a doctrine that is false from a Christian perspective by appearing as a kind of priest of the Venusian Empire. He is also the one who tries to seduce Florio into the hunt on holy day and runs away when he hears the sound of the bell.
Outwardly he wears green and gold armor (cf. Venus and Snake), his face is described as beautiful, but pale and desolate, when he first met Florio, “his gaze from deep eye sockets [...] is insanely flaming”, still has he pale lips, so overall it seems rather lifeless, in a later passage "[he] almost looked like a dead person".
Epoch-specific features
Eichendorff's novella shows characteristics of the romantic epoch: In the course of time, the term romanticism has been expanded in the direction of sensitive and imaginative writings, which certainly applies to this story. In romance, people took refuge in their memories of a good time. This is particularly evident in Eichendorff's motifs of longing and homesickness.
Eichendorff also has many such passages: "The forests rustle, the nightingales beat, the fountains splash and the streams flash". And again and again the silence and the calm appear. You never know exactly whether Florio is dreaming something or whether he is really in the situation.
The world of romance is extremely close to nature. Many adjectives are also used to better describe the mood. Many songs appear in the text, which is typical for Eichendorff. The strong Christian belief in God at this time also comes to the fore very often. For example, it is written about death that one will be taken up by God into heaven and find redemption there.
Reality is romanticized, which is what one sees in Florio's dreams. The girls and women are still more beautiful and gorgeous than where he first saw them.
Another feature that plays an important role in many of Eichendorff's poems is the contrast between day and night. The day of Fortunato and the flower girl is embodied in The Marble Picture , it stands for the real and the real implementation of personal development. The night portrayed by the knight Donati and Venus in this novella contains something threatening. At night people dream and, so to speak, gild their time with thoughts and dreams that have nothing to do with reality. The night motif has far-reaching significance in Romanticism. So dark scenes are considered concrete ciphers for the unconscious. The night is regarded as the space of the numinous, the ambiguous, the disordered and the indefinite, but above all as the space of origin of the creative imagination.
Another conflict between these parties goes hand in hand with religion: As mentioned above, the knight Donati and Venus embody the old Roman faith and thus stand in stark contrast to Christianity, which is embodied by the singer Fortunato and the flower girl.
Psychoanalytical approach to interpretation
Based on Sigmund Freud's structural model of the psyche , there is a clear division of people. Florio is the ego that is torn back and forth by the other two instances. Fortunato and Bianka embody the super-ego and thus the moral authority. Venus and Donati embody the id and thus the drives, in this case above all the sexual drives or desires.
Based on this, the connotation with the day or night is also very clear, since the good takes place during the day and everything bad, which is guided by the instincts, takes place at night.
Florio is in adolescence and is looking for a way to satisfy the two authorities, but he does not succeed. In Lucca he fully lives out the wishes of the id by following Venus and allowing himself to be blinded by the seductress. At the point when the super-ego regains control, Florio leaves Lucca and of course meets Fortunato and Bianka, the embodiment of his super-ego. Through the de-sexualization of Bianka (she is disguised as a boy and appears to him like an angel and angels are sexless beings) the super-ego can completely sublimate the id.
Christian-religious approach to interpretation
Viewed from the Christian-religious approach, there is also a deeper level of interpretation. While we see the struggle between the id and the super-ego superficially in the psychoanalytic interpretation approach , from the Christian point of view we recognize Florio's struggle between the temptation of paganism, embodied by Venus as pagan goddess and Donati, her diabolical and demonic knight, and the right, Christian way, which is embodied by the chaste Bianka and the Christian singer Fortunato.
Bianka is the trigger for Florio's confusion, when he kisses her red lips, the instinctual longing awakens in him and through this he can see Venus and thus the seduction of paganism. Only when she de-sexualises herself and appears as an asexual angel, Florio finds back on the right path and renounces the seductions of Venus.
Interpreted in a Christian-religious way, the end of the novella is a good one, as Florio's development is to be understood as positive, as he finds his way back on the right path.
Poetological approach to interpretation
In keeping with the idea adopted by Friedrich Schlegel that “poetry can only be reviewed through poetry”, Eichendorff takes a critical look at the poetry of his poet friend and mentor in Heidelberg, Otto Heinrich Graf von Loeben. At the same time he distances himself from his own poetry, which he wrote in the wake of Loeben. A first simple indication of these references is the name of the main character: Florio. The poet's name that Loeben had given Eichendorff at that time and under which he published his poems at the time was Florens. Just as the lovers and muses at Eichendorff embody the kind of poetry that the respective poet strives for, so the seductive Venus, under whose spell Florio temporarily falls, stands for the poetry of Loeben. In fact, Eichendorff accused Loeben of a dubious mixture of Maria and Venus. Accordingly, the song sung by the Lady of Venus is kept in sonnet form, a form which Eichendorff saw excessively and too artificially used in Loeben. With Donati, the servant of the Lady of Venus, Eichendorff was able to stick to the name given in his source because he was closely related to Loeben's poet name, Isidorus Orientalis: The Greek name Isidorus means "the one given by (the goddess) Isis", the Latin name Donatus means "the one given (by God)". In relation to the Lady of Venus, Bianka embodies the true folk poetry that Eichendorff turned to after turning away from Loeben. So until the end she shows the connection between Venus-like and Mary-like features that is essential for every true love and typical for the corresponding muse figures, according to Eichendorff. So at the end Florio can once again be amazed at "how beautiful she was".
literature
- Otto Eberhardt: Eichendorff's "marble picture". Distancing of the seal in the manner of Loebens . Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2006, ISBN 3-8260-3421-X .
- Wolfgang Frühwald : The marble picture, a novella . In: Heinz Ludwig Arnold (ed.): Kindlers Literatur Lexikon , 3rd, completely revised edition. Metzler, Stuttgart 2009. ISBN 978-3-476-04000-8 , p. 127.
- Karl Hanss: Joseph von Eichendorff: The marble picture / From the life of a good-for-nothing . 2nd edition, Volume 5, Verlag Oldenbourg, Munich 1996 (= Oldenbourg Interpretations , Volume 10). ISBN 3-486-88618-5 .
- Burkhard Meyer-Sickendiek : “Lost in deep thoughts”: On the aesthetic function of brooding in Eichendorff's “Marble Picture” . In: Same: Depth - on the fascination of brooding . Fink, Paderborn, Munich 2010, pp. 184ff. ISBN 978-3-7705-4952-8 .
- Sebastian Mrożek: The seductive of romantic art. On the criticism of the romantic conception of art in Joseph von Eichendorff's "The Marble Picture" . In: Silesia Nova. Journal for Culture and History 2007, no. 1, pp. 73–88.
- Lothar Pikulik: The mythization of the sex drive in Eichendorff's story "The marble picture" . In: Ders .: Signature of a turning point. Studies of early modern literature from Lessing to Eichendorff . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Göttingen 2001, pp. 166-176 and 218-219.
- Robert Velten: Chaste Madonna - seductive Venus. The women in Eichendorff's marble picture. Münster 2012.