The forest brother

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Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz

The Forest Brother, a counterpart to Werther's suffering , is a story by Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz , which was written in Weimar and Berka in 1776 . Goethe had the fragment printed in the magazine Die Horen in 1797 - five years after the poet's death .

Herz, the forest brother, lives and weaves in sheer imaginations . So he becomes the pawn of the intrigue of the wealthy, ugly widow Hohl, a lady of extraordinary understanding . Rothe, the only person who still understands the heart at times , starts a counter-intrigue.

content

Prehistory
In 32 letters, written by seven people, some of the life story of the forest brother is communicated. Herz, the fake son of a late great lady , enjoyed an excellent upbringing and ran away at the age of twelve. Thanks to his docility, mind and heart , he was promoted by a French banker. There in France he also took the name Herz. Sent by the banker to Leipzig to study, Herz met his fellow student Plettenberg in Saxony. Herz moves on to Holland, forgets the favor of his French patron and comes to the scene of the action via Cleve ; probably located in or near Hessen .

The heart sees all people in an ideal light . He wasn't lucky with women. At the age of eleven, he met a really dissolute woman , the mistress of an old count. His second love, the niece of a merchant in Lion , was just flirtatious. Then in Leipzig he hoped to meet someone from Goethe's or Wieland's novels . He really did find this girl, daughter of a country preacher , but surprised her with a fat, round student .

Intrigue
Herz, a fool of characters , lodges himself as a subtenant with the widow Hohl on favorable terms, because she has extensive correspondence with noble men and scholars and can present them in a suitable light. The widow knows how to arrange it in such a way that Herz finally falls in love with the beautiful Countess Stella, a long-time pen friend of Hohl. What the widow hides from the lover when she reads her letters is that the countess is not available. Countess Stella has long been engaged to Herz's former fellow student Plettenberg, who is now a colonel in the Hessian service . His regiment is to be sent to America shortly against the colonists . The widow Hohl hopes that if Herz realizes that Countess Stella is out of reach for him, then maybe she can take the place of the lover herself.

Heart is slowly running out of money. The widow Hohl is just waiting for him to owe her. But heart is wiser. He moves out to a forest hermitage. Rothe, who wants to bring his friend back to town, asks Countess Stella for help. Both devise a plan according to which Herz should be helped: Plettenberg takes his old fellow student Herz as an adjutant in his regiment to America. There heart remains with the colonists. Later on, Plettenberg is supposed to marry the bride Stella in Germany. As compensation for his disappointed hopes , Stella wants to be portrayed for Herz. The countess lets Herz know in a letter that she would like to meet him at her friend Hohl's.

The portrait is being painted. Herz travels to the regiment, but does not receive the painting from Rothe, this traitor . Die Hohl had maliciously stolen the portrait from her heart and given it to Rothe.

The fragment breaks off with a letter from Plettenberg to Rothe. It looks as if the Colonel, no longer the youngest, is considering Rothe as his “deputy” to Countess Stella.

reception

  • Wilpert and Voit think that Rothe stands for Goethe and Herz for Lenz.
  • In his “most successful” - albeit unfinished - “prose poem”, Lenz dealt “clearly with his own existence”. “The little novel” asserts “alongside the traditional values ​​of the time, its independence”.

expenditure

source

  • Friedrich Voit (ed.): Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz: Stories. Zerbin. The forest brother. The country preacher . Pp. 31-67. Reclam Stuttgart 1988 (edition 2002). 165 pages. With notes (pp. 125–141) and an afterword (pp. 147–165), ISBN 3-15-008468-7

First edition

Further editions

  • Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz: The forest brother. A counterpart to Werther's suffering. Reprinted and introduced by Max von Waldberg. Publishing house by WH Kühl, Berlin 1881. 81 pages
  • The forest brother, a counterpart to Werther's suffering. Pp. 293-330. In: Friedrich Voit (ed.): Jakob Michael Reinhold Lenz: Works . Reclam Stuttgart 1992 (1998 edition). 604 pages. With annotations (pp. 509–514) and an afterword (pp. 559–604), ISBN 3-15-008755-4

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Voit edition (ed.) Anno 1992, p. 509, 6th Zvu
  2. ↑ Wilpert 1998, p. 622, 24. Zvo
  3. ↑ Source, p. 123, 6. Zvo and see also under “First edition” in this article.
  4. ↑ Source, p. 49, 10. Zvo
  5. ↑ Wilpert 1998, p. 622, 23. Zvo
  6. ↑ Source, p. 156, 1. Zvo
  7. ↑ Voit edition (ed.) Anno 1992, p. 594, 16. Zvu
  8. ↑ Voit edition (ed.) Anno 1992, p. 577, 9th Zvu
  9. ↑ Voit edition (ed.) Anno 1992, p. 594, 10th Zvu