The boulder (Kleist)

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First printed in 1811

The Foundling is a novella by Heinrich von Kleist that appeared for the first time in the second volume of his novellas in 1811 (fig. Right). For a long time there was a lot of discussion about whether the work was really written for this publication or whether it was not a very early work. Today research is based on late dating. In 1967, a television film of the same name was made based on the novella.

action

Antonio Piachi, wealthy goods dealer and second married to Elvire, travels to Ragusa with his son Paolo, the son of his first wife. There is a plague-like disease there. Out of concern for his child, he wants to leave immediately, contrary to commercial interests. On departure, out of pity, he takes an infected orphaned boy with him, although at first he is reluctant: he “doesn't know what to do with him”. He is arrested by the police in a pub and transported to Ragusa out of quarantine protection. Piachi remains healthy in the local hospital , but his own son dies and Nicolo (only now the name is being introduced) is recovering. When Nicolo wishes him a good trip, Piachi asks him if he doesn't want to travel with him. Only now does Piachi look at him properly.

Back in Rome, Elvire mourns the dead Paolo, but quickly puts Nicolo in his place. He gets his clothes, room, yes his whole role. Elvire believes that Piachi cannot have children herself. Nicolo received a good education, the more he invested in him, the more his father grew to love. Finally he adopts him and employs him as a clerk in his business.

He is satisfied with his “son”, except for two of Nicolo's vices: Nicolo interacts with the Carmelites , who are primarily interested in the boy's future inheritance, and Nicolo has an early interest in women. At 15 he had an affair with Xaviera Tartini, the “bishop's co-sleeper”. At 20, Nicolo is married to Constanze Parquet, a niece of Elviren, in the interests of their parents. At the age of 60, the father retires and transfers most of his assets and the business to the son.

There follows a flashback that tells Elviren's history in the form of her memory: Father Phillippo Parquet, a well-to-do cloth merchant who lived in Genoa, had a house by the sea because of his job. A fire broke out in the house when Elvire was 13 years old. She saved herself on a beam high above the sea, which soon caught fire. Shortly before she wanted to jump to her death, she was rescued by a young Genoese, the son of the Marquis. This suffered such serious injuries that he died after three years of sick bed. The love-stricken Elvire cared for him during his illness and also got to know Piachi in his house, who had trade contacts with the Marquis. After the Genoese's death, she married Piachi, but could never overcome the death of her savior. Piachi respects Elvire and takes care not to talk to her about the Genoese.

Nicolo continues his relationship with Xaviera Tartini after the wedding and cheats on his wife. Elvire wants to get medicine to remedy an ailment in her husband. Nicolo returns from his love affair in the carnival costume of a Genoese knight. Nicolo had of course not informed his wife about his "excursion", so he panics when he finds the bedroom door locked. Elvire, startled by the Masquerade, falls from a chair that she had used as a ladder because she was "struck by lightning". In order to cover up his amorous adventures and not get a rebuke from his father, he snatches the key from Elvire, puts on his dressing gown and is surprised when Piachi arrives. Elvire is in shock: she recovers, but remains melancholy in the aftermath.

A year later, Constanze, Nicolos wife, and their child died giving birth. Nicolo's bigotry and fornication begin again. Before Constanze is underground, Elvire catches Nicolo and Xaviera's maid in his room. But she doesn't reveal anything. Piachi becomes suspicious when he accidentally intercepts the same maid with a letter from Nicolo to Xaviera regarding an appointment for a rendezvous. Piachi answers the letter on behalf of the woman and gives Nicolo the Magdalenenkirche as the meeting point. Piachi had Constanze's funeral canceled the next day and ordered a funeral procession to the vault of the Magdalenenkirche, where she was to be buried, for immediately. Nicolo asks who is being buried and is told that it is Xaviera Tartini. But Nicolo knows that it is his wife. Nicolo falls into hatred of Elvire because he believes that she caused him this shame and betrayed him. Piachi no longer speaks to Nicolo. Nicolo wants - with no real intention - to promise Piachi that his relationship with Xaviera will end. Elvire now arouses his desire, at the same time he wants to take revenge on her.

Nicolo believes he is watching Elvire through the keyhole during a relationship, but it turns out that she was kneeling in front of nothing more than a piece of self-woven canvas “in a position of rapture”. After leaving it, Nicolo enters her room and discovers that it is a picture of a young knight. Nicolo tells Xaviera the strange incident. Xaviera wants to overthrow Elvire and see the picture. She and her little daughter Klara, whose father is the bishop, see the picture. Suddenly the little one calls out: “Signor Nicolo, who is that other than you?” Xaviera reacts jealously, Nicolo excited. Elviren's believed passion excites him almost like the feeling of revenge on her.

Nicolo plays with letters from his childhood and discovers the anagram Nicolo = Colino (the man in the picture). Elvire also sees the anagram and cries red. Nicolo believes in his love goal and wants to follow her into her bedroom. Piachi comes and disturbs him. Nicolos "shameful joy" is destroyed by a ticket from Xaviera: News about Elvire through a confession of Elvirens to the Carmelites, who told the bishop who betrayed it to Xavira: The object of Elviren's love is Aloysius, who has been dead for twelve years, Marquis of Montferrat, called Colino. This is also in the picture. Nicolo should keep this knowledge secret.

With Nicolo, revenge and lust come together. Nicolo is planning a fraud, a "satanic plan" against the "pure soul" of Elvirus. Nicolo sneaks into Elviren's room in his Colino disguise. Elvire wants to "deify" him naked. He sinks into contemplation of her charms. She sinks pale from the kiss of death. He covers her with kisses. Piachi is returning home at this moment. Nicolo reveals himself and asks for forgiveness. Elvire collapses.

She will soon recover, and Piachi is ready to resolve the matter in silence. He gets the whip. Nicolo suddenly threatens, based on documents, that the house belongs to him and that “father” has nothing to say here. He directs Piachi and Elvire of the house. A legal dispute ends in favor of Nicolos, because the bishop, who hopes for a later inheritance share for the church, is standing up for him. In addition, the bishop is happy because Nicolo wants to take the annoying Xavira from him and marry. Piachi collapses with the lawyer. Elvire dies as a result of the incident and Piachi murders Nicolo. Piachi is executed without absolution because he threatens the priests and can now "persecute Nicolo even in hell", as Piachi wishes.

interpretation

The early dating of the text was considered due to, among other things, "breaks" in the plot or "little psychological motivation of the plot". Jürgen Schröder tried to motivate the action with recourse to sociophysical considerations of Kleist. In the very latest educational plan or in the essay On the Gradual Production of Thoughts While Talking, Kleist expresses the thought of a "strange correspondence between the phenomena of the physical and moral world".

The sociophysical reading sees the text, as it is considered for most of Kleist's texts in recent research, as an experimental arrangement. The boulder seems neutrally charged at the beginning. The father's excitement about the death of his biological son polarizes him positively and Nicolo negatively polarizes him. This is expressed in the fact that he shows no sympathy or sympathy, but sits introverted and "cracks nuts". Elvire has a love vacuum due to her sexual inactivity and can therefore be viewed as negatively polarized. Nicolo builds up early sexual activity through the lack of love in his “home”, which can be understood as positive polarization. His wife Constanze is able to bind this cargo somewhat. When Nicolo (disguised as Colino) meets Elvire at night, an electrical discharge occurs. There is lightning and Elvire collapses. When Constanze died, Nicolo's polarity became free. She polarizes Antonio Piachi in a complementary way, that he seeks revenge. This polarizes Nicolo against Elvire. Schröder interprets his sexual desire for her and at the same time the desire for revenge as an oscillation between two states of polarity. This build-up of tension implodes when Antonio Piachi steps in and puts an end to the almost love scene. Elvire collapses. When Antonio Piachi now pulls the whip, this polarizes Nicolo against him, which makes it plausible why he suddenly throws him out of the house.

Secondary literature

  • Helga Arend: Heinrich von Kleist's "The Findling" as a trivial horror story, moral story or philosophical discourse? The exemption from the category of 'trivial literature'. In this. (Ed.): “And who are you looking at me?” Popular literature and culture as aesthetic phenomena. Festschrift for Helmut Schmiedt , Bielefeld 2010, pp. 279–296. ISBN 978-3-89528-814-2
  • Fritz Göttler: Action systems in Heinrich von Kleist's 'The Findling'. Discussion and application of narrative categories and analysis methods, Frankfurt am Main, Bern (Peter Lang) 1983.
  • Joachim Müller: Coincidence and Incident. The world of events and narrative structure in Heinrich von Kleist's novella 'Der Findling'. In: Zeitschrift für Germanistik 3 (1982), pp. 427-438.
  • Gail M. Newman: Family Violence in Heinrich von Kleist's "The Findling". In: Colloquia Germanica 29 (1996), pp. 287-302.
  • Bernhard Rieger: Gender roles and family structures in the stories of Heinrich von Kleist , Frankfurt am Main (Peter Lang) 1985.
  • Frank G. Ryder: Kleist's Foundling: Oedipus manqué? In: Modern Language Notes 92 (1977), pp. 509-524.
  • Branka Schaller-Fornoff: There is no such thing as a "foundling". Projection and permutation in Kleist's novella. In this. (Ed.) Kleist. Relektüren , Dresden (Thelem) 2011, pp. 63–78. ISBN 978-3-939888-93-2
  • Jochen Schmidt: Identity as an aporetic project. Kleist's story The Foundling . In: Werner Frick, Susanne Komfort-Hein, Marion Schmaus, Michael Voges (eds.): Clarifications. On the history of modern literature. Festschrift for Klaus-Detlef Müller on his 65th birthday , Tübingen (Niemeyer) 2003, pp. 203–210.
  • Jürgen Schröder: Kleist's novella The Foundling . A plea for Nicolo. In: Kleist-Jahrbuch 1985, pp. 109–127. Reprinted in: Anton Philipp Knittel, Inka Kording (ed.): Heinrich von Kleist. New ways of research , Darmstadt (Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft), 2nd, revised edition 2009, pp. 40–58. ISBN 978-3-534-23081-5
  • Marianne Schuller: picture in text. To Kleist's story "Der Findling". In: Konstanze Fliedl, Bernhard Oberreither, Katharina Serles (eds.): Gemälderedereien. On the literary discursivation of images , Berlin (Erich Schmidt Verlag) 2013, pp. 42–50. ISBN 978-3-503-13761-9
  • Sigrid Weigel : The 'boulder' as a 'dangerous supplement'. The horror of images and the physical affect theory in Kleist's staging of discursive transitions around 1800. In: Kleist-Jahrbuch 2001, pp. 120-134.
  • Mathias Weißbach: Natural and rhetorical errors. 'The foundling' and the art of 'verifying'. In: Kleist-Jahrbuch 2016, pp. 82–99.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On the gradual creation of thoughts while speaking