The fencer of Ravenna
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| Title: | The fencer of Ravenna |
| Genus: | Tragedy |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Friedrich Halm |
| Premiere: | October 18, 1854 |
| Place of premiere: | Burgtheater , Vienna (anonymous) |
| Place and time of the action: | Rome , c. 40 AD |
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The Fencer of Ravenna is a five-act tragedy written mainly in blank verse by the Austrian poet Friedrich Halm . According to the will of his people, a Germanic ruler's son, who was trained as a gladiator by the Romans, is supposed to bring about the national unification of Germany and the liberation from Roman rule - a task he is not up to, because his highest goal is in the arena as a fighter. In order to spare himself and his people this disgrace, he is finally murdered in his sleep by his own mother.
Source and historical reference
Halm received the immediate inspiration for the piece in December 1851 from an essay entitled Thusnelda, Arminius' Wife and Her Son Thumelicus by the Jena philologist Karl Wilhelm Göttling , who in turn took up a remark by Tacitus in the first book of the annals: “Des Arminius consort gave birth to a male offspring: the scorn the boy raised in Ravenna was soon haunted by, I will report in due course. ” Göttling now concludes that this“ scorn ”cannot mean anything other than Thumelicus, the son of the Germanic Commander-in-chief and Roman conqueror Arminius was brought up to be a gladiator ("fencer") in order to be shown to the amusement of the Roman public in exhibition fights . However, it can only be considered historically certain that Armin's wife Thusnelda and her little son Sigmar, called Thumelicus by the Romans, were presented as spoils of war during the triumphal procession of Germanicus in Rome and then sent to Ravenna. The fact that Thumelicus was trained in one of the gladiator schools there and that his mother stayed with him until the end in order to spare him and her fatherland the disgrace of an exhibition match has not been proven beyond doubt, nor is the assumption that the end of Thumelicus in the last days of Emperor Caligula (37–41 AD) fall.
Halm worked out the material from March 1852 to the end of 1853 with interruptions. The premiere took place anonymously on October 18, 1854 at the Vienna Burgtheater. Halm, who at that time was already a renowned author, had, in his own words, the "wish to see one of my plays make its way, neither favored nor disadvantaged by the influence of the name of its author."
content
1st act
Hall in Mark Anton's Gardens
Thumelicus and the other gladiators camp under the arcades and are bored. They should gather strength for the upcoming battles. For a trivial reason a tangible dispute arises, which is ended by the Glabrio driving in between. - In the other wing of the same building, Ramis and Thusnelda have been under light house arrest for years. They do not know about the presence of the gladiators. Thusnelda laments her fate, having to spend her days in Roman captivity as the wife of “ Germany's best man ” Armin. Even her son was taken away from her as a small child by the Romans. She knows nothing about his future fate and that of her husband. Merowig brings her the news that Armin fell victim to an assassination years ago. The people are now looking for the longed-for “ leader ” in Armin's son and are hoping for national unity from him. For this purpose Merowig has brought Armin's sword and puts it in Thusnelda's hands so that she can hand it over to her son. This is already on the way to Rome. Thumelicus emerges from the other wing of the building, Thusnelda recognizes her son by the resemblance to Armin and hands the sword to the completely taken by surprise.
2nd act
Hall of the Imperial Palace
Senator Marcius paints a gloomy picture of the cruel Emperor Caligula, who has just passed forty death sentences against men named Cassius following an oracle. The chief of the bodyguard, Cassius, fears that the half-mad Caligula will soon be after him too and suggests to Cornelius Sabinus to carry out an attack on Caligula today, when he himself occurs and in a gloomy mood about nocturnal ghosts of his suicides even murdered relatives. His wife Caesonia wants to cheer him up, even though she dreads him too. The only consolation for his overexcited nerves is the upcoming gladiatorial game of the fencers from Ravenna, for which he is given the list of names. When he discovered the name Thumelicus in it, he had the idea to let Thumelicus die in the arena in Germanic costume in front of his mother Thusnelda in order to glorify Rome's triumph over the Teutons. Delighted with his devilish plan, he has wine served, while the rest of them are now sure that they have a madman in front of them.
3rd act
As in the first act
Glabrio asks Lycisca to calm Thumelicus, who is utterly disturbed by the encounter with his mother and the associated realization that he is a Germanic prince. Lycisca mentally prepares Thumelicus for the upcoming fight in the arena, and she manages to rekindle his old belligerence. In contrast, Thusnelda admonishes her son not to neglect the great task to which he is called. Little does she suspect that her son is an ordinary gladiator, determined and ready to die in the arena. She only found out about this through Flavius, her husband's brother, who was raised in Rome. She immediately realizes that the planned duel, to which her presence is expressly desired, is a set up show with a fixed outcome that is shameful for Germania. She therefore expects from Thumelicus that he will not fight, which the latter, however, indignantly refuses, since he was only trained to fight and is now looking forward to his first big performance. Unreconciled and mutually misunderstood, mother and son part.
4th act
Location as in the previous act
Merowig has prepared everything necessary for an immediate escape Thusnelda with Thumelicus. He and Thusnelda make one last attempt to persuade Thumelicus to fight against the Roman occupiers at the head of a united Germanic army, and portray his previous life as a gladiator who has to fight in the arena to amuse the Roman mob as dishonorable, which, however, stimulates the Thumelicus all the more to contradict, since he knows no other life and does not want it either. Angry, he finally returns to his interrupted wine situation. - Thusnelda sees her son's last chance to change his mind, to influence his friend Lycisca, and offers her to flee with them in order to rule in Germania as princess at the side of Thumelicus. Lycisca rejects this, because as a Roman citizen a life in the wild Germania is out of the question. Thusnelda is desperate, but when Ramis brings her oak wreath and purple cloak on the orders of Caligula, in which she is supposed to attend tomorrow's gladiator fights as "Germania", a completely new plan takes shape in her.
5th act
Location as in the previous act
Slaves bring Germanic armor and weapons for Thumelicus' impending battle, Glabrio gives him final advice. Thumelicus wants to rest a little longer when his mother enters in oak leaves and a purple coat. After a short conversation, he falls asleep. When Thusnelda hears the approaching footsteps of Caligula, who himself rushes to pick up the protagonists of the play he has staged, she pierces her son with Armin's sword. Caligula is furious that his beautiful game has been spoiled and orders the guilty party to be arrested, but she prevents him by suicide, as does her brother-in-law Flavius, whom Caligula wants to sacrifice next. In order not to have to forego his fun entirely, he lets imprisoned Christians accuse the lions. - Cassius and Cornelius think that it is finally time to get rid of Caligula and set tomorrow to do so.
effect
After the first anonymous performances of the play at the Vienna Burgtheater, there was no lack of speculation about the authorship, among other things. a. Grillparzer was also suspected. After the play achieved growing success with its call for national unification of all German-speaking peoples and it had also spread to other German theaters, the Oberpfaffenhofen village school teacher Franz Bacherl spoke up with the claim that he had been the director of the Burgtheater Heinrich Laube before Halm submitted a piece with the same material to The Cheruscans in Rome . Laube had sent back Bacherl's student-like work without comment and may not have read it at all. As a result, Laube found himself exposed to allegations that he had stolen the material from Bacherl.
In order not to compromise Laube any longer, Halm made a long declaration on March 27, 1856 in the Wiener Österreichische Zeitung in which he confessed himself as an author and gave a precise account of his sources and the characters and plot elements he had invented for them. Shortly afterwards there was a real scandal in the Munich court theater when its director Franz von Dingelstedt had Halms Fechter performed on April 15, 1856 with the addition of " von Friedrich Halm ". Bacherl's supporters staged a commotion and attacked Dingelstedt.
The "fencing question", d. H. the question of whether Bacherl or Halm should be considered the author of the play preoccupied the German-speaking literary world in 1856 and had a very polarizing effect. According to the current state of research, the plagiarism allegations against Halm are irrelevant, although Bacherl probably worked on the same material before him.
The ballad Thusnelda by the Munich poet Paul Heyse is based on the same fable as the fencer . As Rainer Hillenbrand demonstrated, Heyse created the 18 short stanzas in 1856, based on Halm and Bacherl. In order to “decide” the escalating discussion about who had copied from whom, with his own version, he dated the creation of the ballad back over 30 years out of a bock beer mood, let it reappear under a pseudonym as allegedly lost and scattered it the rumor that Bacherl and Halm were both equally inspired by the ballad for their fencing dramas.
An unprocessed performance of the piece in recent times with its strongly German-national tones (" Ein einig Deutschland! ", " Ein Reich und eine Führer! ") Is no longer imaginable. Kurt Vancsa assesses it as "thematically topical, but embarrassing in its execution".
literature
- Friedrich Halms selected works in four volumes. Edited and with introductions by Anton Schlossar . Second volume. Leipzig undated (1904)
Web links
- Full text of Halms The Fencer of Ravenna
Individual evidence
- ^ In: Göttling , Collected Treatises from Classical Antiquity , Halle 1851.
- ↑ Tacitus , Annals 1.58.
- ↑ Halm , Werke Vol. 1, Introduction, p. 61
- ↑ Halm, Werke Vol. 1, Introduction, p. 60
- ↑ Dingelstedt , Münchner Bilderbogen , in: Deutsche Rundschau, Vol. 19 (1879), pp. 411–433
- ↑ see e.g. B. Landshuter Zeitung and supplement. Eighth year 1856, u. a. No. 73 of March 28, 1856, No. 88 of April 15, 1856, No. 106 of May 7, 1856
- ^ Hillenbrand, Heyses Thusnelda as a parody of the fencer of Ravenna , in: Archive for the study of modern languages and literatures 01/2007, pp. 94-101
- ↑ Heyse , Jugenderinnerungen und Confessions , 1st volume: From life, Stuttgart and Berlin 1912
- ^ Kurt Vancsa: Halm, Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 569 ( digitized version ).