Veronica's handkerchief
Veronika’s handkerchief is the first volume of a two-volume novel by Gertrud von le Fort , which was published by Kösel & Pustet in Munich in 1928 . After the appearance of the second part, “ The wreath of angels ” , in 1946, the first part was subtitled “The Roman Fountain” .
The half-orphan Veronika comes from Heidelberg . The 15-year-old girl is not baptized , but she has Protestant roots. In Rome, Veronica becomes a Catholic Christian of her own accord .
time and place
The novel is set in Rome shortly before the First World War. Veronika lives with her German relatives in a palace that formerly belonged to the Dominican monastery next to the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva . Veronika's grandmother looks out from her armchair on the top floor at the nearby Pantheon .
title
The author alludes to the legend of St. Veronica when she finally lets Veronica's Catholic teacher, Father Angelo, say: “Carry out into the world the face [of Jesus Christ] that burns in your soul.” Veronica also has a Face . In the dream she sees her pious aunt Edelgart as a jubilee angel with the tambourine. Veronika is called "Spiegelchen" because she already had a visionary gift as a child . The girl was able to reflect certain opaque appearances on her inside.
On Maundy Thursday , Veronica visits St. Peter's Basilica . Therein it crouches for sadness Mette . Veronica next to the statue of the Hl, while the napkin of the Holy is shown. Although Veronika's father, as a naturalist, first and foremost associates the daughter's name with the honorary award , the pagan grandmother insists on the connection between the name and the Christian legend mentioned above. Enzio, Veronica's friend, mockingly says that Veronica is rightly named after the “patron saint of those capable of making impressions”.
On the subtitle: Through the open window of her room, Veronika hears the voice of a small fountain beam from the courtyard of the palace.
shape
The first-person narrator, Veronika, remembers: “I still remember” and tells in retrospect; writes about "then". She understood some of the incidental circumstances only later.
content
The relatives in Rome are Veronika's maternal grandmother and 38-year-old aunt Edelgart. Veronika's mother Gina has passed away. The father, a Heidelberg scholar, went on a research expedition into the tropical rainforest. He had previously entrusted Veronika with the care of his former fiancée Edelgart. The researcher had turned away from any religion. In the end, it was Edelgart's religiosity that led to the betrothal being broken. According to a wish of the dying Gina, Veronika is to be raised by Aunt Edelgart. The father reluctantly gave in. However, he had made one restriction: Veronika was supposed to grow up in Rome “outside the religious world” of her aunt Edelgart. That is complied with. Veronika sticks to her beloved grandmother. The widowed worthy lady has lived in the German colony in Rome for many years. In her youth she had known Gregorovius personally. She leads the granddaughter through "the galleries, gardens and ruins of Rome". The grandmother teaches Veronika a conception of art in which the reverence for the cultural assets in the Eternal City dominates.
A young German poet joins the two art lovers on the pilgrimage from statue to statue. He is called King Enzio because of his blond boy . Enzio, who is around 20 years old, stays in the palace with his mother, "Frau Wolke". Enzio's mother got her nickname because she powdered her "facade" too much. The grandmother loves Enzio motherly, he is the son of her former lover. The latter was Mrs. Wolke's husband during her lifetime. At that time, Roman-German society had puzzled over the question of whether Enzio was the grandmother's son. The love and rumors gradually fill Ms. Cloud with anger. The thunderstorm discharges at the end of the novel. Veronika, in her "late childhood" and her "early maturity" is torn back and forth. Should she now be jealous of the beautiful Enzio or should she let her proud, cheerful grandmother have her way? Enzio calms the "child" down. Grandmother loved him primarily because of his father. Veronika and Enzio become friends. This turns into shy love. Enzio, brusque and obstinate, sometimes “attacked by a severe conquest of Rome”, yet still adoring his “Roman Odes”, is averse to Christianity. Veronika wants to be Enzio's wife, which is what the grandmother hopes. For the self-confident poet, however, his odes are far more important than the love of a woman.
The narrator names the quiet, reserved Aunt Edelgart Edelgart. The grandmother thinks that her Protestant daughter's striving for Catholicism is not far off. The French Jeanette, Veronika's former Bonne and the only Catholic in the small household, contradicts quietly: But that piety has “a longing”. Noble prays for Veronica. When the girl fell ill, her aunt looked after her. Edel rejects Enzio's visit to the sick. In an outburst of anger, Veronica protests against the aunt's prayers. She would rather adhere to the unbelief of grandmother and Enzios than to become a Christian. Noble reacts: If something happens to Veronika's father in the rainforest, she doesn't want to be the girl's guardian. Meanwhile, the aunt - carefully supported by Jeanette - is heading for her conversion . The grandmother wishes the daughter success, but has doubts. On her way to becoming a Catholic, Edel is admired by Veronika. During the above-mentioned funeral mass in St. Peter's Basilica, Veronika sees her own way to become a Catholic for the first time. Enzio stands by her side. For him, Veronica's kneeling before Jesus Christ in the church is unbearable. The poet, who hoped for inspiration in the solitude of the Pontine swamps , fell ill with malaria . Ms. Cloud patiently and resolutely nurses Enzio to health and then travels to Germany with her obedient son.
When the day came for Edel to receive the sacrament of Confession and the Eucharist , she fell away from the faith. The "inadequate and self-willed" collapse. Veronika, still fifteen years old, is no longer a child through the experience of love. She takes Edel's place as a catechumen with the Dominican Father Angelo. The grandmother dies. Before that, the non-Christian at Veronica's side said goodbye to almost "every stone of the Eternal City". Noble, daughter, does not pray by the bed of the dead. Veronika's father succumbs to an illness in the jungle after appointing his best friend, also a German scholar, to be the daughter's guardian. Noble, now sick, angry and angry, scoffs at Veronica's prayer, but tolerates the niece's visits to Father Angelo, although she hates the sacraments. Veronika continues to take religious lessons, is baptized and receives first communion . Edel makes her life confession and dies three weeks later.
Self-testimony
- The author Gertrud von le Fort has spoken out against the interpretation of her work as a text with autobiographical features: "The characters in my poetry are not portraits, but types."
reception
- Paul Claudel : "This poetry will stay!"
- In 1948 translations into English, French, Dutch, Italian, Polish, Czech and Hungarian were available.
- Historically, the protagonist is acting in a time of upheaval.
- Leiß and Stadler emphasize the religious component in the author's work. Christians dealt with modern pagans in it.
- In this Bildungsroman Veronika describes her way to God. Basically, the young girl tells of her love for Enzio.
literature
- source
- Gertrud von le Fort: Veronika's handkerchief . With an afterword by Herbert Gorski. St. Benno-Verlag Leipzig 1959. Volume V of the series Catholic poets of our time . 330 pages (Licensor: Franz Ehrenwirth, Munich)
- First edition
- Gertrud von le Fort: Veronika's handkerchief. Novel. Kösel and Pustet, Munich 1928. 355 pages
- Secondary literature
- Gertrud von le Fort: The wreath of angels . 316 pages. Franz Ehrenwirth Verlag Munich. 3rd edition September 1948. Military Government Intelligence Control License No. US-E-105
- Nicholas J. Meyerhofer: Gertrud von le Fort . Morgenbuch Verlag Berlin 1993. Heads of the 20th Century, Volume 119. 107 pages, ISBN 3-371-00376-0
- German literary history. Volume 9. Ingo Leiß and Hermann Stadler: Weimar Republic 1918-1933 . Munich, February 2003. 415 pages, ISBN 3-423-03349-5
- Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature. German Authors A - Z . S. 381, 2nd column, 4th Zvu Stuttgart 2004. 698 pages, ISBN 3-520-83704-8
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Meyerhofer, p. 102, entry from 1928
- ↑ The wreath of angels, p. 6, 5. Zvo
- ↑ Source, p. 179, 8. Zvo
- ↑ Source, p. 12, 14th Zvu
- ↑ Der Kranz der Engel, p. 8, 17. Zvo
- ↑ Source, p. 11, 7th Zvu
- ↑ Source, p. 324, 14th Zvu
- ↑ Source, p. 128, 3rd to 16th Zvo
- ↑ Source, p. 167, 2nd Zvu
- ↑ Der Kranz der Engel, p. 160, 17. Zvo
- ↑ Source, p. 176, 1. Zvo
- ↑ Source, p. 173 below
- ↑ Source, p. 171, 5th Zvu
- ↑ Source, p. 215, 9. Zvo
- ↑ Source, p. 75, 17. Zvo
- ↑ Source, p. 171 middle
- ↑ Source, p. 298, 6. Zvo
- ^ Gertrud von le Fort, quoted in Herbert Gorski in the afterword of the source, p. 328, 4th Zvu
- ^ Paul Claudel, quoted in Herbert Gorski in the afterword of the source, p. 330, 4th Zvu
- ↑ Der Kranz der Engel, p. 315, second entry
- ^ Leiß and Stadler, p. 96, 15. Zvo
- ^ Leiß and Stadler, p. 282, 5. Zvo
- ↑ Herbert Gorski in the afterword of the source, p. 326, 8th Zvu
- ↑ Meyerhofer, p. 44, 15. Zvo
- ↑ Meyerhofer, p. 45, 12th Zvu