The Odfeld

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The Odfeld is both the name and the setting of a novel by Wilhelm Raabe . It first appeared in 1888 ( pre-dated to 1889 ) and tells the story of the teacher Noah Buchius, who retired in the former monastery school in Amelungsborn (today Campe-Gymnasium Holzminden ). In the course of the text he becomes entangled in the turmoil of the Seven Years' War , which broke out over the idyllic monastery in 1761 . This is announced in the 3rd chapter in the gigantic aerial battle of two raven armies .

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"Das Odfeld" by Wilhelm Raabe is a historical novel , the plot of which is limited to twenty-four hours - the period between November 4th and 5th, 1761. The place of the event is the Braunschweiger Land between the heights of Ith and Solling , which at that time is shaped by the events of the Seven Years War . The central figure in the novel is the sixty-year-old Magister Noah Buchius, who, after working for the monastery school in Amelungsborn for thirty years, was left behind when the school moved to neighboring Holzminden.

On the afternoon of November 4th, the Magister and the monastery administrator on the Odfeld witness a mighty bird fight in which swarms of raven from the north and the south fight each other. The Magister interprets this fight as a “prodigium” - a ominous omen for the upcoming war events. To the displeasure of the superstitious monastery bailiff, Buchius takes a raven who was injured in this battle home to the monastery. On the night of November 5th, Thedel von Münchhausen appears in the monastery in Amelungsborn. He is a former student of Buchius and would like to say goodbye to him before signing up as a soldier for the army of Duke Ferdinand von Braunschweig to fight the French in the war. However, Buchius is not the only reason why Thedel visits the monastery. He also wants to say goodbye to the maid Selinde Fegebank, with whom he is in love and who also lives in the monastery as the bailiff's niece.

In the early morning the French manage to break into the monastery at Amelungsborn. Thedel can save Selinde as well as the Magister and the monastery administrator from death. Together with Selinde and two other residents of the monastery, he then managed to escape the French and flee the monastery. After the French have left again, the bailiff throws the magister out of the monastery on the grounds that he brought misfortune to the monastery with the raven he took from the battle.

On the Odfeld the Magister meets the rest of the refugees from the monastery. They all go into hiding in a cave while war battles are fought around them. Guided by the wise and experienced Magister Noah Buchius, the refugees survive in many dangerous situations. Thedel von Münchhausen, who later joined the Duke's army, fell into the chaos of war. At the end of the plot, after the armies have moved on, the master leads his protégés back to the monastery.

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  • The Odfeld . By Wilhelm Raabe. In: National newspaper. Berlin April 1, 1888 ff.
  • The Odfeld . A story by Wilhelm Raabe. Leipzig (Elischer) 1889. Digitized and full text in the German text archive
  • Raabe, Wilhelm: The Odfeld. A story. Stuttgart 1977.
  • Wilhelm Raabe: The Odfeld . In: "Complete Works". Volume 17. Göttingen (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht) 1966 (2nd edition 1981), pp. 5–220, ISBN 3-525-20135-4 .
  • Wilhelm Raabe: The Odfeld . Stuttgart (Reclam) 1998, ISBN 3-15-009845-9 .
  • Wilhelm Raabe: The Odfeld . Hanover (hochufer.com) 2010, ISBN 978-3-941513-08-2 .

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cf. Lamprecht, Helmut: Studies on the epic organization of time in Wilhelm Raabe's novel "das Odfeld". Frankfurt am Main, Johann Wolfgang Goethe University, Phil. Diss. 1958.