The preferred student
The preferred student is a novella by Joseph Roth , which first appeared on September 10, 1916 in the Vienna newspaper Österreichs Illustrierte Zeitung . Primus Anton does almost everything right in life, he just refuses to laugh and love.
content
Ms. Wanzl is proud of her two husbands - the Viennese postman Andreas Wanzl and their little son Anton. The little one is smart , is always right , can nod his head for hours at school and always needs classmates he can surpass. Later Anton studied philology . But science is not everything. Always obeying is exhausting. Anton's immeasurable lust for power calls for a loving woman whom he can command to his heart's content. Mizzi Schinagl is the chosen one of the Lord stud. phil. Anton Wanzl . Mizzi rushes forward: You, Anton, do you love me like that too? The Studiosus, a little baffled, quotes Walther von der Vogelweide “I am dîn, Dû bist mîn” and in a short lecture about the shifts in sounds in Middle High German comes to the loyalty of German women . Mizzi, the bodice seller , cannot follow. You kiss.
The narrator is convinced that preferred students like Anton have instincts. That instinct gives Anton the idea that it is not Mizzi who is the right woman for him, but Lavinia Kreitmeyr, the only daughter of Hofrat Sabbäus Kreitmeyr, director of the II. Kk state high school and a philologist with a reputation . Anton is not courting Lavinia, but his wife Mama. With this shoot, Anton dismisses Lavinias' admirer. Anton becomes engaged to Lavinia and marries her. Mizzi hates Anton because he's a coward , a hypocrite, a hypocrite . She has an illegitimate child from Anton, who is stillborn.
Anton can be transferred to the small high school in his hometown. When the old director there finally dies, Dr. Anton Wanzl succeeds him.
There are no children from the marriage to Lavinia. The couple still lives happily for a long time. Anton is admired by Lavinia. He smiles at the world, but at most in secret and only within his four walls. Ultimately, the strength of Anton's life, which had been overstretched throughout his life, gradually subsided . The director falls ill and dies. End of the line: Lying in his black metal coffin, Anton can finally laugh. For the first time the dead man laughs strongly and heartily .
shape
Anton's life is presented in the style of a petty song. Catchy phrases are repeated appropriately: You just had to do it cleverly. And do something cleverly - Anton understood that.
reception
- The trick that Anton Wanzl is playing on society is his adaptation even before the threat of upbringing.
- The beginning of the text is reminiscent of Thomas Mann's novella Das Wunderkind from 1903.
- Based on the text passage "... Mizzi Schinagl was a corsetry seller at Popper, Eibenschütz ...", Bier looks at names a little bit far-fetched in his short discussion. With Mizzi, the ironist Roth reminds the Viennese reader from the above-mentioned year 1916 of the protagonist Maria in Enrica from Handel-Mazzetti's Jesse und Maria (1906), with Popper of Josef Popper-Lynkeus and with Eibenschütz of Jonathan Eibenschütz, who "died in 1764 " . Beer from Bavarian Wiguläus Kreittmayer comes to mind for the figure of Hofrat Sabbäus Kreitmeyr .
literature
expenditure
- Fritz Hackert (Ed.): Joseph Roth. Works. Volume 4: Novels and Stories. 1916-1929. P. 1–13: The preferred student. 1916. With an afterword by the editor. Book guild Gutenberg, Frankfurt am Main 1994, ISBN 3-7632-2988-4 (edition used).
- Abridged version in: Österreichs Illustrierte Zeitung, 1915/1916, issue 50, September 10, 1916, p. 1122/23 on the Internet .
- Stefan Rogal (Ed.): Joseph Roth. The preferred student . Reclam, Stuttgart 2012. ISBN 978-3-15-0188583 .
Secondary literature
- Helmuth Nürnberger : Joseph Roth. In self-testimonials and picture documents. Rowohlt-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Reinbek near Hamburg 1981, ISBN 3-499-50301-8 ( Rowohlt's Monographs 301).
- Jean Paul Bier: Assimilatory spelling and onomastic irony in Roth's early narrative work. P. 29–40 in Michael Kessler (Ed.), Fritz Hackert (Ed.): Joseph Roth: Interpretation - Criticism - Reception. Files from the international, interdisciplinary symposium 1989, Academy of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart. Stauffenburg Verlag Brigitte Narr, Tübingen 1990 (2nd edition 1994) ISBN 3-923721-45-5
- Gero von Wilpert : Lexicon of world literature. German authors A - Z. 4th completely revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-83704-8 , p. 519.
- Wilhelm von Sternburg : Joseph Roth. A biography. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2009 (2nd edition), ISBN 978-3-462-05555-9 , p. 183.