The Comet or Nikolaus Marggraf

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Jean Paul around 1797
* 1763 † 1825

The Comet or Nikolaus Marggraf is the last novel by Jean Paul , which, written from 1811, was published by Georg Reimer in Berlin from 1820 to 1822. The work remained a fragment. The author had "no more strength to be funny".

content

The "Marggrafsche story" of the "self-coronation" of a rich citizen falls in the years "1789 and 90".

The Prince Pharmacist Nikolaus Marggraf

The small town of Rome is located in the margraviate Hohengeis on the edge of small Germany. Enoch Elias Marggraf runs a pharmacy in Rome. When Enoch travels to a seaside resort in the wake of the Hereditary Prince von Hohengeis, he meets the beautiful Italian singer Margaretha there. Enoch successfully solicits the lady's hand. The couple is still married in the seaside resort. Nicholas is born almost nine months after the wedding. During the four years of marriage, Margaretha gave the pharmacist three more daughters. Enoch suspiciously compares the faces of his daughters with that of the boy. Should Nikolaus really be the biological son? The child is stigmatized with a “ pale nose ” and with a “kind of halo around his head”. Margaretha dies after giving birth to her fourth child. As a Catholic, she confesses to a Franciscan monk on her deathbed that she had received her son from a Catholic secular prince. Enoch listens in ecstasy next door and afterwards generously forgives the dying: A prince should grow up in his family!

The pharmacist sent the 18-year-old son to Leipzig University in 1781 . A future prince must acquire the appropriate education. But with the title of prince nothing will come of it. Nikolaus remains a citizen because the princely father cannot be found in the novel. So Nikolaus returns from Leipzig to Rome and takes over the pharmacy of the late father. After many failed experiments, the young pharmacist, who also conducts research as an " alchemist ", hits the jackpot . From his “chemical incubator” he pulls a cake that really makes him rich: artificial diamonds. One of them weighs seven carats heavier than the regent . From the sale of the gemstones, Nikolaus finances his great trip, which he undertakes "in the strictest incognito " after the Lukas City residence . The young pharmacist is on the “holy pilgrimage to” Princess Amanda, a “heavenly figure” he met once, and of course he is looking for his princely father. The prince pharmacist carries a wax bust of the lovely Amanda, which he once stole in his youthful exuberance. On the way, Nicholas had the truly princely idea of ​​immediately marking the beginning of his government and journey with the establishment of a city. When it comes to naming, one vacillates between Niklasruh and Nikolopolis. Nikolopolis is built near Liebenau. Liebenau is reached via Gschwend, Wölfis , Trebsen , Hohenfehra, Niederfehra, Sabitz, Zabitz, Fürberg, Scheitweiler and Strahlau. When the “Prince” enters Lukas-Stadt, the entourage (see below) is not embarrassed when the pharmacist has to be registered with the police. Because Nikolaus does not know the name of the princely father, he simply calls himself Count von Hacencoppen. The police laughed at the dizziness for a “strong advance payment”. Nikolaus can only be addressed with "gracious Count!", Not as before with " Your Highness ".

Hacencoppen wants to get in touch with the beloved Amanda through the princess in the Lukas-Stadt residence. He behaves so clumsily, or is so led by the nose by his “court”, that the Lukas townspeople prince tells his friend Hacencoppens, a certain Worble (see below), that Count Hasencoppen will like his court in the future no longer come close. Another disturbing occurrence is the threat to Hacencoppens from a strange man clad entirely in leather. The leather man calls himself the prince of the world . Scary - Hacencoppen has guards posted in front of his lodgings against the leather man. After all, there is an encounter. The leather man shows his curved hair horns and the snake on his forehead, reddened from anger or from walking. The leather man, this Cain , is demagnetized and thus appeased by Worble, who appears as a magnetizer . Contrary to expectations, the end of the novel is forgiving. The leather man suddenly utters in a soft voice: "And now I love the whole world."

The “princely” court

The “crown troop” of the “joy and travel thirsty” pharmacist consists mostly of Roman (not Roman!) Citizens. Nikolaus addresses them with "Dear Faithful!":

  • Libette, one of the pharmacist's three sisters, is allowed to go on the trip as a court jester . In this capacity, she speaks a basic truth about her brother openly in front of the "court", namely, " that he [her brother, the pharmacist Nikolaus] really thinks he is a prince ." Tears come to the eyes of the sister who is capable of living because of the good Brother's heart and sick head.
  • Likewise, all of the others in the entourage are completely normal citizens - including the crafty prison preacher Süptitz who has advanced to become court preacher. The clergyman basically agrees with Libette when he articulates the general opinion: "Let him [the 'prince'] travel and let him go ".
  • The " freemason " Peter Worble, school friend of the pharmacist, son of a "skinny hairdresser", provided Nikolaus with the "medical doctoral hat" in Erfurt. Worble becomes “Our Travel Marshal” and is just as cunning as the “Court Preacher”. With all this, Worble always proves to be a loyal friend of the “living Demantbruch”, which he calls “Your Highness”.
  • The butcher and singer Hoseas, the court stable painter Renovanz as a court painter and a pharmacist's assistant, the Stößer Stoss as a personal page - all from Rome - hold other well-paid positions at the court of the prince pharmacist.

But even strangers, that is, non-Romans, are accepted into the entourage of the false prince. For example, the “honest” candidate Richter from Hof ​​im Voigtlande is appointed as a weather prophet. The judge is Jean Paul himself, the world-renowned author of Hesperus and Titan . Together with Worble and Süptitz, Jean Paul is one of the scholars of Count von Hasenkopf. A horn player who blows out of a wood becomes a body horn player.

Quotes

  • I do not respect the poet most, who is in misery, but the one who remains faithful to the muse in happiness and in leisure.
  • Loving is the only thing or the best thing that a person does not imagine.

Testimonials

Jean Paul in the preface to the novel

  • Especially in the politically evil year 1811, when the "Comet Nikolaus Marggraf" rose in me, I drafted the plan for a great novel, which I wanted to call "my last comic work" on the title, because in it I am with the comic muse intended to dance out completely once in my life.
  • About the title "Comet" it should still be remembered that nobody stood to godfather with this name of the book than its hero Marggraf himself with his nature ... his resemblance to a comet ... which, as is well known, increases in size in the sky, sometimes decreases in size - himself just as strongly, sometimes heated, sometimes caught cold - which on its orbit often runs counter to the path of the wandering stars, indeed is able to go from midnight to noon.
  • Jean Paul accused himself: "Too much conversation, too little action."

shape

The first-person narrator describes his novel as a work of art, as a "comic work", speaks of "this princely story , if not the prince mirror ". The reader has to get used to the language of Jean Paul. For example, "But the club shook No." is a fairly simple one of those countless unusual sentences. The narrator explains his foreign words: " perpetua mobilia (self-propelled machines)", "nutritor (breadwinner)", "inspissiert (thickened)", "stone scholar ( lithologist )" or also " nosce-te-ipsum (know yourself and your nest) ".

In order to keep the reader interested, the next chapter is touted every now and then.

The narrator, who is usually talkative, highlights the important things in very short chapters. The seventh chapter, for example, consists of a single sentence: a real diamond was finished in a chemical furnace and sparkled around; with that a seventh chapter can close, which begins ten thousand new ones.

Interpretations

  • In 1927 Wolfskehl regretted that the protagonists in the comet lacked the “inner kingship” and the “godlike security” of the “youths” from Jean Paul's earlier novels. For Robert Minder (1963) the novel is permeated with “ Flaubertscher Disillusion”.
  • Nicholas is a Don Quixote .
  • Although “Prince” Nikolaus is a fool, he is also a person, more benevolent than the gentlemen in his entourage.
  • The leather man who thinks he is Cain is the second maniac in the book next to Nikolaus. Cain, the leather man, hate the vain and love the helpless. From the madness of the leather man, a Cainite , speak the sufferings of the time. “Leather armor” is also a synonym for people being locked in their bodies. With this figure Jean Paul articulates his "longing for redemption".
  • Small states : the comet, which remained a fragment, was to become a “parody of the age of restoration ”. At the same time, Jean Paul parodies his own attitude to life. The author is said to have said that the novel was its own story.
  • The “Rome” in the comet also reflects autobiography.
  • An early draft of the title reads "A thousand and one fools".

literature

source
  • Jean Paul: The Comet or Nikolaus Marggraf. A strange story. In: Norbert Miller (Ed.): Jean Paul: Complete Works. Section I. Sixth Volume. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2000, DNB 960284400 , pp. 563-1036.
First edition
  • Jean Paul: The Comet or Nikolaus Marggraf. A strange story. 3 volumes. Georg Reimer, Berlin 1820–1822.
expenditure
  • Jean Paul: The Comet or Nikolaus Marggraf . With letters to Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi . In: Jean Paul's complete works (volumes 28 and 29). Georg Reimer, Berlin 1842.
  • Jean Paul: The Comet or Nikolaus Marggraf: a strange story. Novel. With an afterword by Ralph-Rainer Wuthenow . Manesse Verlag, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-7175-1998-0 .
Secondary literature

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Höllerer speculates (in the source p. 1367) how the author could have finished the novel.
  2. ^ Ortheil: Jean Paul. 1984, p. 127: Jean Paul tried his hand at being a weather prophet in his later years.

Individual evidence

References to a citation are sometimes noted as (page, line from above).

  1. ↑ Source, p. 1284.
  2. ↑ Source, p. 1285.
  3. ↑ de Bruyn (359.3)
  4. ↑ Source (798,24-28)
  5. ↑ Source (816.34)
  6. ↑ Source (840,10)
  7. ↑ Source (578,2-9)
  8. ↑ Source (580.20)
  9. ↑ Source (650,13)
  10. ↑ Source (866.27)
  11. ↑ Source (1003.9)
  12. ↑ Source (820.33)
  13. ↑ Source (821.7)
  14. ↑ Source (766–768)
  15. ↑ Source (835.4)
  16. ↑ Source (905,11)
  17. ↑ Source (569.6)
  18. ↑ Source (568.24)
  19. ↑ Quoted in Höllerer in the source (1366.15)
  20. ↑ Source (715.23)
  21. ↑ Source (791.6)
  22. ↑ Source (948.6)
  23. ↑ Source (718.33)
  24. ↑ Source (725.29)
  25. ↑ Source (740.8)
  26. ↑ Source (766.4)
  27. ↑ Source (782,19)
  28. ↑ Source (840,21)
  29. ↑ Source (757.24)
  30. ↑ Source (780.3)
  31. ^ Karl Wolfskehl in: Sprengel, p. 248, 7th Zvu
  32. ↑ Robert Minder in: Sprengel, p. 292, 17. Zvo
  33. ↑ Ueding (176.24)
  34. ↑ Schulz (363.8)
  35. ↑ de Bruyn (358.15)
  36. ↑ Ortheil (131.3)
  37. ↑ Ueding (178.24)
  38. ↑ Ueding (176.1)
  39. ↑ Ueding (179.3)
  40. ↑ Ortheil (131,10)
  41. ↑ Ueding (181,13)
  42. ↑ Ueding (176.34)
  43. ↑ Ueding (180.15)