Puss in Boots (Tieck)
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| Title: | Puss in Boots |
| Genus: | Children's fairy tales in three acts, with interludes, a prologue and epilogues |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Ludwig Tieck |
| Publishing year: | 1797 |
| Premiere: | April 20, 1844 |
| Place of premiere: | Berlin |
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Puss in Boots is a comedy by Ludwig Tieck , which he published in Folk Tales in 1797 together with Der blonde Eckbert and Ritter Blaubart . In 1811 a second, revised version appeared. It was not premiered until April 20, 1844 in Berlin.
content
prolog
The prologue initially takes place on the ground floor of the theater. The viewers who describe themselves as “enlightened” are mostly confused and negative about the upcoming piece. The narrow-minded, commonplace , but also poorly prepared for the performance audience feels obliged to what they think is good taste, and therefore begins to throb to show that it is a children's fairy tale in which a hangover occurs (which the audience apparently did not know before the performance), not accepted. To calm the audience, the poet appears on the stage. With his polite manner, he succeeds in making himself heard by the audience and making it clear to them how desperate he is because of the rejection his piece is experiencing. The easily influenced viewers are touched by this and begin to applaud the poet.
first act
Scene "Small farmhouse parlor"
The three sons of the deceased miller share the inheritance among themselves in the farmhouse parlor. Gottlieb, the youngest of the three brothers, only receives the tomcat Hinze and is desperate about his situation. The audience is satisfied as they see the beginning of a family painting , a dramatic genre popular around 1800.
But when Hinze begins to speak, Gottlieb is amazed at the talking cat. The audience immediately became excited about the “unreasonable illusion ” and confused. The talking tomcat looks clever and intelligent and is very worried about Gottlieb. Gottlieb and Hinze become friends, whereupon Hinze expresses the will to help the clumsy Gottlieb out of his misery if he has a pair of boots made for him. To comply with Hinze's request, Gottlieb asks the shoemaker who passed by, who, like all characters in the stage story after him, is not astonished at Hinze.
When the scene changes, it becomes clear that the audience takes the piece seriously and is consequently disappointed because of what they consider to be a nonsensical scene.
Scene "Hall in the Royal Palace"
The king speaks to the princess as a father who is concerned for the well-being and future of his daughter. He warns her not to have an unhappy marriage. The audience reacts enthusiastically despite the lack of reference to the fairy tale story. In the conversation that followed between the princess and the court scholar Leander, the main thing about the princess was the contradiction between her enthusiasm for the intellectual and her lack of language skills.
After this conversation, Prince Nathanael of Malsinki has an audience in the royal hall. He has come from a distant country and wants to ask for the princess' hand. Since Nathanael does not know whether his country is adjacent to that of the king, the king expresses his willingness to attack countries in between, since he is interested in their raisins anyway. The king is thus represented as an arbitrary ruler , which is difficult to reconcile with his previously presented character. Furthermore, he is surprised that Nathanael speaks his language. This asks him not to point this out to the audience.
The audience is indignant about this violation of the rules ( in fairy tales there is no audience at all, and in fictional works it is customary for all participants to speak fluent German), i.e. about the contradicting and unnatural scene from their point of view.
Scene "in front of an inn"
The landlord speaks to his guests. His tavern is on the land of the moguls , who is described as an ungracious ruler who has the ability to transform himself into animals. The inn lives from its location right on the border with the king's land, so that deserters often come from there. Next up is a deserter and his pursuers. Happy that the persecution has now ended, the three of them have a beer together and then leave.
Intermediate act
After the curtain has fallen, the audience discuss the piece. Fischer and Leutner are dissatisfied with the last scene because of its supposed inoperability. You are asking for a firm position . While Schlosser is confused by the piece, Wiesener and his neighbor like it. The two believe that it is an imitation of the Magic Flute . You seem to be indifferent to the chaos that seems to reign in the entire piece.
Bötticher likes the details of the character of the cat, which he describes extensively, completely losing sight of the rest of the drama.
Second act
Scene "Bauernstube"
Hinze explains to Gottlieb that he still needs a little patience to be happy and goes hunting after dinner.
"Free field" scene
Hinze hears a nightingale and feels like eating it. In response to this animal regression , the audience drums loudly and is dissatisfied.
Then a couple appears. The two lovers express their feelings in enthusiastic, poetic language. When the lovers leave, the audience applauds the scene even though it has no relation to the storyline.
Hinze now catches a rabbit. He feels like eating the rabbit, but he can control himself. In a short monologue, he explains his sense of duty, which elicits thunderous applause from the audience.
Scene "Big Audience"
The king threatens (although he already is) to become a tyrant if his cook's one-sided diet is maintained. He also criticizes his daughter's decision not to marry Nathanael because she does not love him. At this moment Hinze appears and gives the king the rabbit as a gift from the "Count of Carabas". The king is so enthusiastic about it that he has the present recorded by his historiographer as an event in world history. The audience rejects the scene.
Scene "Royal Dining Room"
Hinze has a table talk with the court jester Hanswurst . Hanswurst complains about the lack of humor in his native Germany. At the other table, the king is impressed by the large numbers Leander uses to describe the size of the universe. The rivalry between Leander and Hanswurst is particularly clear in the scene. The king sees no difference between the court scholar and the fool, since both are for his entertainment.
Finally the king gets a "coincidence". To calm him down, the pacifier is called who plays on the carillon. Thereupon the audience knocks and whistles with the exception of Wiesener and his neighbor. After the pacifier has soothed the audience with his music, animals appear and dance with the actors to the sounds of the carillon, to which the audience beats the beat. The scene and the accompanying text are quoted from the first act of The Magic Flute, with the soothing person taking on the role of Papageno . At the end of the scene, the curtain falls to the enthusiastic applause of the audience.
Intermediate act
The audience is happy about the last scene. Bötticher gets lost again in the description of the subtleties of the hangover. He also boasts of being a "connoisseur" and thus rises above the rest of the audience. The other viewers show the first signs of dislike for Bötticher.
Third act
Scene "Bauernstube"
The curtain is raised too early. The result is that a directorial conversation between the machinist and the poet causes total confusion in the audience. To apologize for the incident, Hanswurst appears, inciting the audience against the poet. Now the poet also reappears and tries to win the audience over by declaring his intention, namely to prepare the audience for the still more extravagant birth of the imagination .
After this "breakdown" the actual third act begins. Hinze promises Gottlieb that he will become ruler that day. At this point, the fictional actor Gottlieb “falls out of his role” (an apparent extreme pore ) by pointing out to Hinze that the performance is over at eight. Understandably, this confuses the audience.
Wiesener believes that at the end of the piece you will see the decoration with fire and water from the Magic Flute. At the end of the scene, Bötticher is chased out of the theater by the other audience because of one of his interim remarks.
"Free field" scene
Hinze has become a seasoned hunter. Now, in contrast to the first scene “Free Field”, he no longer has to control himself in order not to eat his prey himself.
The pair of lovers reappear, but this time they are very divided and disappear again with the intention of getting a divorce.
Scene "Hall in the palace"
A discussion between Leander and Hanswurst takes place in the palace about the literary value of the play “Puss in Boots”, with Leander claiming that the audience is “well drawn”. The audience does not understand this statement; they are of the opinion that there is no audience in the play. When Hinze enters the palace, he accidentally helps Hanswurst, who thinks the play is bad, to win the discussion, which makes him melancholy.
The king, to whom Hinze has often presented his booty in the name of the "Count of Carabas", decides to visit him. Hinze hurries ahead of the royal carriage.
Scene "in front of an inn"
Hinze runs to Gottlieb, takes him to the Palace of the Popanzes and then hurries to the pub (which does play a role in the play). There he gets the landlord to tell the king that the villages belong to the "Count of Carabas". Since the king does not give the landlord anything for his information, he complains about the depravity of the kings.
Scene "Another area"
Kunz complains about the tyranny of the bogeyman. As Hinze walks past the field, he convinces Kunz to tell the king that the fields belong to the "Count of Carabas". The king and his daughter come to the area. It turns out that both of them don't know about grain. The king is so amused that, unlike the host in the previous scene, he gives Kunz a piece of gold.
Scene "Area by a river"
Hinze comes to the river, where he meets Gottlieb, whom he lets bathe in the river without clothes in order to bring him into the company of the king, which he succeeds when the carriage passes by.
Scene "Palace of the Popanzes"
The rulership of the bogey is indeed tyrannical and corrupt. When Hinze enters the palace, he outwits the bogus by first praising it and then eating it after it has turned into a mouse. At this point the scene gives the impression of a revolutionary piece through an exclamation from Hinzes.
The majority of the audience is therefore dissatisfied with the scene and expresses this by loud pounding. The soothing device is used again to calm the audience. At the sound of his carillon, the backdrop is transformed into fire and water from the Magic Flute . As in the opera The Magic Flute , Gottlieb goes through fire and water and thus becomes ruler. He also marries the princess, and Hinze is raised to the nobility by the king. The piece closes with a tremendous thumping of the audience.
epilogue
Contrary to the fact that the audience does not like the piece, the audience applauds because they really liked the decoration of the last scene. The poet appears and blames the audience for the failure of the play. He accuses them of considering the play to be something more important than it should be . The audience then chase the poet off the stage.
Drama technique
In his drama, Ludwig Tieck was one of the first authors in the German-speaking world to refrain from attempting to deliver “ reasonable illusions ” to his audience .
In illusion theater there is a simple distinction between fiction and reality: the stage is “played” and everything that happens there while the curtain is open has been rehearsed beforehand. The audience should as far as possible forget that what is happening on stage is “just a game”. In the stalls and in the stands, on the other hand, there are spectators who are largely calm and passively attentive, but occasionally react spontaneously.
In the comedy Puss in Boots, however, "strange things" happen:
- During the performance, “spectators” comment on what is happening on the stage and speak “spontaneously” with characters on the stage (especially with Hanswurst).
- The figures on the stage " extemporize " often.
- When the curtain is open, a "director's talk" takes place on the stage.
- The plot ends in a "tumult" twice.
These "peculiarities" can be explained by the fact that in Tieck's comedy there are three levels instead of one level of fiction. Together with the reality (the performance in the year 20 ..) there are four levels:
- Level 1: the real theater evening (real audience vs. real actors + other real theater staff).
- Level 2: the fictional theater evening (the real actors on level 1 play the fictional audience as well as the fictional staff on the other side of the ramp; from the point of view of the fictional audience, the fiction is limited to the fictional actors on stage and the fictional staff behind the stage; the fictional audience on level 2 cannot recognize themselves as fictional characters, because that would only be possible on level 1).
- Level 3: the play on the stage (the actual fairy tale plot, portrayed by the fictional actors).
- Level 4: The cat Hinze plays the “hunter”, Gottlieb the “Count of Carabas”.
The differences can be illustrated using the example of the male figure: A real actor of the year 20 .. (level 1) is presented in the prologue (level 2) as "the great actor" (who has similarities with Iffland and) who is currently prepare for his level 3 role by climbing into a hangover costume. During the play on the stage, the tomcat (level 3) creates the illusion of the king's court that he is a hunter in the service of the "Count of Carabas" (level 4).
The intervention of the fictional audience in the action of the stage (the "piece within a piece"), e.g. Partly in the style of undisciplined pupils (they speak “spontaneously” in between during the performance on stage), shows parallels to Bertolt Brecht's technique of alienation : the “natural should be made conspicuous” (e.g. the assumption that all people worldwide speak German, an assumption that is usually not problematized in fictional works). Also accumulate literary critical remarks about the "play within a play" (the fictional spectators are also referred to as a "critic").
In contrast to Brecht's dramas, however, Tieck does not focus on teaching; his offenses against Aristotelian poetics are "playful". A discussion on the stage between Leander, the court scholar, and Hanswurst about a “recently published play” called “Puss in Boots” causes confusion, not only among the fictional audience.
Romantic irony
Ludwig Tiecks dramaturgy is an expression of the irony conception of romanticism ( romantic irony ). The most varied forms of irony can be found in comedy:
- Hanswurst makes rough jokes on stage.
- There is double irony when the audience thinks they are joking, but what they are meant to be ironic is true literally (example: to be confused, that is a “great art enjoyment” - in fact the audience thinks the opposite). Tieck would deny that an audience has a right to a “reasonable illusion”.
- Statements (especially those of the audience) are ironicized in that they are then confronted with “reality” (example: an allegedly “realistic”, but in truth kitschy love scene is followed by a scene in which the lovers are portrayed as hopelessly divided; at the same time “echoes “The hangover in the second scene by confronting the couple with his love words from the first scene).
- Tieck uses a “super-fine” irony, which only connoisseurs recognize as such, by giving the viewers names that are all derived from job titles for craftsmen (“craftsman” means “banausos” in Greek ). This makes it clear what Tieck thinks of the “connoisseurship” of the “art judges”. “Superfine” is also the irony that lies in the fact that the fictional audience believes that there is no audience in the play Puss in Boots .
- Finally, the two “tumult scenes” illustrate what Friedrich Schlegel means in his work “On incomprehensibility” when he speaks of “irony gone wild”. Allegedly all actors “forget” their role assignments; in fact, however, they continue to play the plot given by Tieck, and Hinze only falls out of the role of the hunter, but climbs "spontaneously" like a cat up a column.
One problem that Tieck's dramaturgy brings with it is that when his comedy is actually performed, real viewers who have not adequately prepared for the performance might get the impression that the fictional audience has "spontaneous disturbances", but also the supposed ones Extempore and the “falling out of the role” of the fictional actors on the stage really happened spontaneously, although these behaviors were rehearsed. The “irony gone wild” could lead to level 1 disruptions in this way. In this way , Tieck's “subjectivist” irony ultimately turns against himself. This is how the behavior of the real audience during the premiere in 1844 could be explained.
Relation to contemporary literature
In this drama, Tieck uses the material from the fairy tale Le chat botté by Charles Perrault . The piece also contains a variety of allusions to works that were famous and popular at the time. For example, the pieces by Iffland and Kotzebue , Mozart's Magic Flute and Schiller's dramas Don Karlos and Die Räuber are parodied. The character Bötticher is a caricature by the literary critic Karl August Böttiger . In addition, Tieck alludes to the French Revolution and small states, and he also incorporates local gossip into his piece.
Possible interpretations
- The piece can be seen as a criticism of contemporary literature . In the play, Tieck expresses his aversion to the authors who were successful at the time, who, in his opinion, gave up aesthetic standards in favor of public recognition. Puss in Boots shows that Ludwig Tieck did not want his artistic freedom restricted by the literary conventions that were in force at the time.
- On the other hand, the work also contains criticism of the audience , the narrow-minded, biased and is unimaginative characterized. Tieck therefore rejects the expectations of the audience who demand "good taste", rules, naturalness and reason. They expect a play and not a game. Wollin does not challenge the authentic education , but against the trivialization by the German educated middle class .
- After all, it could have been Tieck's intention to prove his own genius by confronting the audience with debauchery (comparable to his fictional "poet") that an average intelligent or "commonplace" person can hardly understand. The melancholy that regularly arises with Leander, the court scholar, when he cannot assert himself with his ideas, although he is right, is to a large extent comparable with Tieck's own attitude towards what is depicted (reactions of an “misunderstood genius”).
The play can also be seen as a revolutionary play, because there is a scene in which it turns out that the king and princess do not know any grain. One can draw a parallel with Marie Antoinette, who is said to have said shortly before the French Revolution: “If the people have no bread, why don't they eat cake?” At the same time, the king proves to be an infantile tyrant who prefers undignified and tyrannical ones Wisely uses the insignia of his power (he throws the scepter at Leander's head in anger). Against the thesis that Tieck wanted to use his comedy to advertise a broadcast of the French Revolution to Germany, the fact that the philistine fictional audience is portrayed as being just as tyrannical as the king: it is not very tolerant, moody and ultimately becomes palpable by throws objects on stage completely uninhibited, because his "good taste" has not been satisfied.
Effect on the contemporary audience
In Tieck's time, the piece was largely rejected. For this reason, the premiere of Puss in Boots did not follow until 1844 , at the instigation of the then King of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm IV. On the Berlin court stage. The production turned out to be a definite failure. Tieck later wrote about the real audience of this premiere that they had reacted to the performance in a similar way to the fictional audience in the play.
For the majority of the audience, the reason for this was probably that they did not understand the meaning of Teck's “debauchery” and “gimmicks”, or at least had no understanding for it. The minority who were intelligent enough to understand that the reference to the “well-drawn audience” meant: “You viewers too are in a certain way just actors, not autonomous people!” Is likely to be outraged by this provocation to have.
radio play
The NWDR Berlin brought on 23 September 1949, directed by Robert A. Stemmle a 105-minute radio play version out. The roles spoke:
- Aribert Wäscher : The King
- Gerda Zinn : The princess
- Kurt Waitzmann : Nathanael
- Alfred Balthoff : Leander
- Franz-Otto Krüger : Hanswurst
- Walter Werner : Historiographer
- Hans Hessling : The soothing
- Paul Edwin Roth : Gottlieb
- Bruni Löbel : Hinze
- Bernhard Goetzke : Michel
- Paul Bildt : Popanz
- Ivo Veit : bailiff
- Walter Bluhm : The shoemaker
- Joachim Teege : The poet
- Franz Wilhelm Schröder-Schrom : Müller
- Erwin Biegel : The prompter
- Gerhard Bienert : The soldier
- Karl Vibach : He
- Charlotte Radplayer : You
- Klaus Herm : Lamp cleaner
- Werner Oehlschläger : Neighbor
- and other
Processing in the picture book of the same name
The author Bruno Blume and the illustrator Jacky Gleich presented the drama in the picture book Puss in Boots by Ludwig Tieck at a level that children can understand.
See also
- 1964: Puss in Boots or How to Play the Game . Comedy by Tankred Dorst based on Ludwig Tieck.
Bibliography
- Ludwig Tieck: Puss in Boots , Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2001, ISBN 3-15-008916-6 .
- Ludwig Tieck: Puss in Boots. A children's fairy tale in three acts, with interludes, a prologue and epilogues. Illustrated by Ingrid A. Schmidt. Publishing house hochufer.com Hannover 2016. ISBN 978-3-94151344-0 .
- Interpretations - Dramas of the 19th Century , Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 1997, ISBN 3-15-009631-6 .
- Bruno Blume / Jacky Gleich: Puss in Boots according to Ludwig Tieck , Kindermann Verlag, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-934029-21-3 .
- Ulrich Breuer: Paratextual programming to Friedrich Schlegel's idea of comedy and Ludwig Teck's “Puss in Boots”. In: Athenaeum 23,1 (2013), pp. 49-75.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Puss in Boots (Tieck) in the Gutenberg-DE project
- ^ Marianne Thalmann: Audience - in Tiecks pieces . In: Helmut Popp (ed.): Theater and audience . Munich 1978, pp. 74-77