The duel

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The duel is a story by Heinrich von Kleist . It first appeared in 1811 in the second part of the stories . The text corresponds to a sub-genre of the crime novel, the so-called Whodunit . The setting and time of the narration lie in the Holy Roman Empire during the late Middle Ages . According to the Reclam edition , Kleist took over "suggestions from Jean Froissart's Chronique de France, d'Engleterre et des païs voisins , created after 1370 ".

Dramatis personae

  • Duke Wilhelm von Breysach
  • Countess Katharina von Heersbruck, wife of the Duke
  • Herr Friedrich von Trota, Duke's Chamberlain
  • Count Jakob, the red beard
  • Mrs. Wittib Littegarde von Auerstein
  • The emperor (only mentioned as such, but without a name)

action

The story begins "towards the end of the fourteenth century " in the "Night of St. Remigius " with a look back at recent events: the unresolved fraternal quarrel between two high nobles, created through the morganatic "connection" of Breysachs with Katharina von Heersbruck. Before the murder of Breysachs by an unknown perpetrator at the beginning of the story, he had obtained a change of succession from the emperor in favor of his male descendant with von Heersbruck.

At the beginning of the text, von Breysach is killed by a sniper. The murder weapon refers to the brother of Breysachs, Count Jakob, the Rotbart, the smoldering succession dispute is assumed to be the motive for murder, and Count Jakob has to testify before an imperial court in Basel . There the count refers to his alibi that at the time of the crime he was investigating a secret affair with the widowed Mrs. Wittib Littegarde von Auerstein. As proof of this liaison, the count produces a ring that belonged to the deceased husband.

Friedrich von Trota seeks the widow's rehabilitation before the court in Basel . A chivalrous duel, the outcome of which is directed by God - according to the belief of the community and disputed parties - is intended to clarify the question of guilt. Von Trota is defeated in the duel. Von Auerstein and von Trota are therefore sentenced to death at the stake. But the miraculously quick healing of the fatal wounds of Trotas, as well as the strongly festering, actually only a superficial, flesh wound of Jacob the redbeard, who begins to suffer from a fatal infection , seem to point the court and the clergy to a divine intervention.

Investigations by a clergyman reveal that, because of an intrigue , the count had mistakenly believed that he had had an affair with von Auerstein. The count interrupts the execution of the condemned, which is to take place in front of the assembled court including the imperial retinue . Already close to death due to the inflammation, the count finally confesses that he was the client for the murder of his brother. The emperor acquits the condemned, the body of the just deceased count is handed over to the judiciary, the stake. Von Auerstein and von Trota marry after a short time and receive an imperial gift: the count's possessions.

interpretation

reception

The duel was until recently a relatively disregarded, sometimes even scorned, writing by Kleist, the awkward reception of which had already begun with Ludwig Tieck's judgment in the first complete edition of Kleist's works. Her rehabilitation has only taken place since the 20th century, a cultural-scientific observation of the script, as von Jagow stated in 2005, "only recently".

The linguistic urgency of the medieval material, the apparent lack of dramatic tension, the absence of tragic consequences caused by overflowing emotions, as well as an understated ironic point, understood as Kleist-untypical, are cited as reasons for earlier negative reception.

Schubert recognizes in the medieval choice of material by Kleist, as well as that of romantic authors, "no escape from the present", but, since strict censorship conditions prevailed during Kleist's creative time, a "cloak under which political opposition could be lived."

To the genus

The duel is repeatedly referred to as a novella in literary studies .

The editor of the Brandenburg edition of Kleist, Roland Reuss, calls the duel a text throughout . This text consists of a framework plot (fratricide, concerns of the Duchess) and an internal plot (trial, struggle). Framework and internal action are only weakly linked, especially since their staff hardly ever come into contact with one another. The internal plot seems to displace the framework, this is "apparently" the formal weakness of the text.

Kleist's story combines a modern genre in literary history, the crime thriller, especially the whodunit, with a premodern narrative situation. Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose (1980) and Ellis Peters' brother Cadfael novels also consist of such a connection (crime thriller in the Middle Ages) . In Kleist's text, however, a genuine detective figure is missing, the investigative work is subject to a division of labor (by a chancellor in the general plot and a prior in the internal plot), but remains unsuccessful despite the raising of convincing suspicions. The perpetrator ultimately discovers himself. The resolution of the criminal case does not follow a genus-typical structure of the Whodunit (secret, investigation, reflection, solution). It should be noted that this genre did not yet exist at Kleist's time. Works that are contemporary to Kleist and tell a crime story are ETA Hoffmann's Das Fräulein von Scuderi (1819) and EA Poe's The Double Murder in Rue Morgue (1841).

Narrative style

The narrator

The narrative situation is authorial , but "noticeably often [...] knowledge is withheld." The narrator also comments on the events at various points, sometimes through subliminal judgments and moral influence on the reader, sometimes through direct emergence ("Now you have to know that [...] ";" But who describes the horror of the unfortunate Littegarde [...] ").

Narrative time and narrated time

Linguistic means

  • Nesting sets
  • Variety of relative pronouns
  • Accumulation of medieval terms (vassal, table, crusade, castle, armory, city bailiff, landdrost, banquet, squire, brush, and much more.)
  • Hyperbolas
  • Ellipsis, analepsis

Kleist's Middle Ages

Kleist's text contains a whole series of anachronisms that suggest, on the one hand, medieval life and, on the other hand, produce factual deviations.

First of all, the important supporting role of the emperor, who was not named by Kleist, is striking. This emperor represents the highest secular authority in the text. However, Charles IV, the last emperor of the Holy Roman Empire of the 14th century, died in 1378. The story takes place "towards the end of the fourteenth century". The son of Charles IV was Wenceslaus IV , who was not awarded the imperial title. This is a typical way of dealing with the facts in Kleist's narratology: in many cases, on closer examination, apparent truths and unambiguities are transferred to gross - one should assume intentional - inconsistencies. The Count's sword, e.g. B., is a sword called "Flammberg" in the text (actually Flamberge ) - this type of sword is only used from 1400 onwards, is unusable for duels and can hardly cause the injuries attributed to it in the text.

“The poet sees the knightly Middle Ages from the perspective of the aristocratic culture of his time,” according to Schubert. Kleist breaks through a realistic representation of medieval living conditions in several respects. B. exaggerate the material wealth of the nobility or suppress the military functions of the castle complex.

The court administration in the story is equally anachronistic; it corresponds to a "state [n] world of bureaucratized court administration [...] with its written process structure."

Religious rite - theological framework

  • Saint Remigius (249)
  • "On the Monday after Trinity" (255)
  • "[...] and only at the trumpet call of the angel who is blowing up the graves, to be risen before God with me." (256)

expenditure

  • The duel. In: The Complete Stories. Reclam, Stuttgart 1992, pp. 249-87.

literature

  • John M. Ellis: Kleist's The Duel. In: monthly books . Vol. 65, No. 1 (Spring, 1973), pp. 48-60.
  • Bettina von Jagow: Understanding and perceiving as a contradiction between the semiotic and the performative. On the cognitive turn in literary studies using the example of Heinrich von Kleist's Der Zweikampf (1811). In: Orbis Litterarum . 2005, Vol. 60 Issue 4, pp. 239-259.
  • Irmela Marei Krüger-Führhoff: Reading the wounded body. In: Kleist-Jahrbuch , 1998, pp. 21–36.
  • James M. McGlathery: Kleist's "The Duel" as Comedy. In: A. Ugrinsky (Ed.): Heinrich von Kleist studies. Berlin 1980, pp. 87-92.
  • Jan-Dirk Müller: Kleist's Middle Ages Phantasm. To the story “Der Zweikampf” (1811). In: Kleist-Jahrbuch , 1998, pp. 3–20.
  • Roland Reuß: With broken words In: Brandenburger Kleist-Blätter 7. Stroemfeld Verlag, 1994, pp. 3–41.
  • Ernst Schubert: The duel: a medieval ordal and its visualization with Heinrich von Kleist. In: Kleist-Jahrbuch , 1988. pp. 280-304.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. All the stories. Reclam, Stuttgart 1992, p. 304.
  2. James M. McGlathery: Kleist's "The Duel" as Comedy. P. 87
  3. Roland Reuss: Brandenburger Kleist-Blätter 7, p. 5
  4. Bettina von Jagow, p. 239
  5. see Reuss, p. 5; McGlathery, p. 87; von Jagow pp. 240-41
  6. Ernst Schubert: The duel: A medieval ordal and its visualization in Heinrich von Kleist- In: Kleist-Jahrbuch , 1988, p. 282
  7. Roland Reuss, Brandenburger Kleist-Blätter 7, pp. 3–41
  8. Reuss, p. 6
  9. Reuss, p. 14 fn. 42
  10. ^ Reuss, pp. 14, 21
  11. All the stories. Reclam. 1992. p. 249
  12. see Roland Reuß : Brandenburger Kleist-Blätter 7. Stroemfeld Verlag, 1994. pp. 3–5
  13. Reuss, p. 14 fn. 39
  14. ^ A b Ernst Schubert: The duel: A medieval ordal and its visualization in Heinrich von Kleist. In: Kleist-Jahrbuch , 1988. p. 288
  15. Schubert, p. 290