The young scholar
| Data | |
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| Title: | The young scholar |
| Genus: | Comedy |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Gotthold Ephraim Lessing |
| Publishing year: | 1754 |
| Premiere: | 1748 |
| Place and time of the action: | in the study of Damis, one day |
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The young scholar is a comedy in three acts by Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , completed in 1747 and premiered by the Neubersche troop 1748. The comedy was published 1754th It is his most famous youth work.
Creation and conception
In his comedy, Lessing parodies his own career from being a model student at the Fürstenschule St. Afra to becoming a student in Leipzig. In this, his first stage work, his linguistic strengths are already evident, especially his feeling for polished dialogues that later made him a great playwright of the pre-classical period. The "Comedy in Three Acts" is about the twenty-year-old unworldly and self-important scholar (Damis) who thinks he can do a doctorate in several subjects at any time, who speaks six foreign languages and devotes his life to meaningless scientific special studies. Of Lessing's early works, The Young Scholar is most strongly attached to the scheme of the so-called Saxon ridiculous and type comedy , which aims to ridicule vicious or unreasonable behavior.
After completion of the work in 1747 Lessing handed the text to Friederike Caroline Neuber , who immediately brought the text to the stage with her acting troupe. Lessing himself wrote:
“With so many improvements than I could ever make, my young scholar came into the hands of Ms. Neuberin . I also demanded their judgment; but instead of a judgment, she did me the honor that she otherwise did not easily do to a budding comedy writer, she had him performed. "
The text was published in 1754, a few years after the first performance.
Scope and people
The plant consists of 3 elevators. The setting is Damis' study room. It occurs:
- Chrysander, an old merchant
- Damis the young scholar, Chrysander's son
- Valer
- Juliane, Chrysander's ward
- Anton, servant
- Lisette, servant
Other people who play a role in the play but do not appear are:
- A friend of Dami's in Berlin, who does not pass his work on to the Prussian Academy
- A lawyer in Dresden who Chrysander wrote to inquire about the 'document' and a possible process
content
Act 1: The merchant Chrysander has decided to marry off his son, the "young scholar" Damis, who is lying on his back, to his ward Juliane. A document has fallen into his hands which holds out the prospect of regaining the girl's fortune, believed to be lost, in a lawsuit. But Damis doesn't want to know anything about it: he disgusts women per se and his adoptive sister Juliane especially. He is waiting impatiently for a letter from Berlin, which will certainly tell him that he has won a scientific competition at the Prussian Academy. Damis' childhood friend Valer, whom Chrysander had actually promised the girl because of his sincere love for Juliane, arrives and wants to speak to Chrysander. Since the father achieves nothing with Damis, he instructs his servant Anton to get the son to agree to the marriage plans and promises him a reward for it.
Act 2: Threaded by the servant Lisette, the lovers discuss in which Juliane announces her decision to enter into the proposed marriage out of a sense of duty to Chrysander. In order to help the desperate Valer, Lisette then suggests that Chrysander be blamed for a forged letter in which the validity of the decisive document is questioned. Anton meets Lisette, who is working on the fake, and we learn that the two actually love each other, but that there has not yet been an official engagement. Lisette listens to Anton and learns what job he has. She herself now shifts to excessive flattery towards Damis in order to scout him out and portray Juliane in a bad light. But she is stunned to watch how her secret lover allies himself with his master and supports his plans to marry Juliane despite his aversion and all the arguments put forward as a sign of his tolerance and contempt for the world. Valer tries to come to terms with his friend Damis personally and to get him to give up the marriage plans for his sake. But Damis lets him off.
3rd act: Now Lisette turns on again and uses her influence on Anton to have him deliver the now completed false letter to the landlord. After receiving the letter, Chrysander tries to dissuade the son from the proposed marriage, which only increases his insistence on his decision. Valer bursts into their argument with the news that he is about to leave. Chrysander, however, makes him hope again in Juliane and pretends that he has changed his mind. When Juliane learns what brought about the change of guardianship, she renounces the marriage to Valer again, because she does not want to be the beneficiary of a fraud. All efforts by the servants to straighten things out have thus failed. Damis now receives his longed-for letter and reads it to Anton right away. It turns out, however, that not only did he not win the competition, but that his friend, who was entrusted with delivering the entry, withheld it in order not to ridicule Damis because of his work that was written on the subject. For Damis, the world of his self-deception collapses. But soon he is on top again: the stupidity of his German compatriots alone is to blame for the fact that his genius is misunderstood. Because he is now leaving home and renouncing Juliane, the couple can finally get together.
literature
Primary literature
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: The young scholar. A comedy in three acts. At: zeno.org .
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: The young scholar in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: The young scholar . With an afterword and explanations by Alfred Anger. Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart 2005, ISBN 3-15-000037-8
Secondary literature
- Charles E. Borden: The original model for Lessing's “The Young Scholar” . University of California Press, Berkeley / Los Angeles 1952 (University of California Publications in modern philology, Vol. 36, No. 3).
- Verner Arpe: Knaur's actor . 6th edition. Stuttgart / Hamburg 1961, p. 144.
Web links
- The young scholar in the Gutenberg-DE project
- The young scholar at Zeno.org .
- Figure lexicon for Lessing's dramas in the online literature lexicon portal
Individual evidence
- ↑ reclam.de accessed September 21, 2008.
- ↑ Verner Arpe: Knaurs actor leader . 6th edition. Stuttgart / Hamburg 1961, p. 144
- ^ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Works . 1743-1750. Volume 1. Frankfurt am Main 1989, p. 1052
- ^ Text after the edition: Gotthold Ephraim Lessing: Werke . Volume 1. Munich 1970 ff., P. 374.