The young master carpenter

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Ludwig Tieck
* 1773 † 1853

The young master carpenter is a time novel in seven sections by Ludwig Tieck , which was published by Reimer in Berlin in 1836 .

Out of “childlike love for Goethe”, the married Protestant master carpenter Leonhard turns his back on his ideal world and follows Baron Friedrich Elsheim, the unmarried childhood friend, to his castle. In addition to their acting, both young men love the same lady “impetuously, almost insane” - Miss Charlotte Fleming. Eventually, the friends find their way back on the right path after seeing through Charlotte's “untruth and pretense”. In retrospect, the baron suspects the friend: "It is possible that we can only find ourselves, our peculiarities, by apparently losing them for a short time".

time and place

The novel is initially set in 1802 in an unnamed city. This is an industrial city with “mechanical institutions” and “factories” outside Franconia . Tieck then moves the actual action to a castle near the border with Franconia; far from that city. At the end of the novel, Leonhard travels through his beloved Franconia. And after a jump of “more than two years”, the novel 1805 is briefly about again in the city listed above.

content

Leonhard likes to talk about Franconia. There is talk of Wunsiedel , of the Ochsenkopf , of "the Catholic city of Bamberg" and above all of Nuremberg. Leonhard was married to Friederike, who brought a fortune into the marriage, for a year and a half. The little orphan Franz was adopted as a child by the young couple. When Leonhard answers Elsheim's call to set up a theater in his knight's hall, Friederike can hardly hide her astonishment, but as a good wife she makes a good face to the bad game: The family father Leonhard leaves his wife, foster son, four journeymen and five apprentices in the lurch so that “ Götz von Berlichingen ” and other “classic patriotic plays” can be given somewhere abroad .

Leonhard, after leaving the “limitedness of his civil relationship” behind him, confesses to the baron that he is dissatisfied with life. The job is perhaps a wrong one and his relationship with Friederike is not full of passion. But every person is “made up of contradictions” and they want to try their solution. The baron introduced the master carpenter Leonhard to his castle as a professor of architecture. Elsheim is taken for granted in his art-loving environment, although one is amazed at how skillfully the “professor” uses a plane, drill and saw in his set design “in the comedy hall”. Friederike, who misses her husband very much, writes “to Master Leonhard”, and those at the castle ask themselves: “Master! What does this mean?"

Elsheim's mother, the old baroness, would like to see the son marry his cousin, the young Fraulein Albertine Fernow. Elsheim does not want to hear about a marriage. He told his friend Leonhard that Albertine was “a silly goose” and Charlotte a “ coquette ”.

The aversion is mutual. Elsheim is "repugnant" to Albertine. But the circumstances forced the baron to “get into a closer relationship with this Albertine”. The first Götz performance ends with a sottise . The baroness passed out after the “naughtiness” towards the end of “the national drama”. Elsheim insulted his mother deeply with the performance and, as a good son, has to accommodate his mother's wishes. “The honorable squire” regrets his “disgusting behavior”. At the same time he belittles his friend behind Leonhard's back. That is very surprising. The relationship between the two friends is extremely cordial, exuberant, and almost unclouded throughout the entire novel. But the behavior of the young baron is understandable. The unprepared reader learns that Elsheim loves, just like Leonhard, Charlotte.

Leonhard, however, thinks back just in time and runs away. He didn't do anything else - settled the languishing kisses on Charlotte's mouth and the passionate clenching of Charlotte's bosom. Before returning home, Leonhard makes a detour to his beloved Franconia. It seems strange, however, how he is betraying his wife: he has given his friend letters to Friederike, which the baron is supposed to post with a delay.

The happy ending. At the beginning of the last, the seventh section of the novel, Tieck makes a leap in time of more than two years. Suddenly it's all sunshine. Baron Elsheim married Albertine. The couple has one child. Leonhard, who returned to the Ehehafen, is also the father of a child that Friederike finally gave him. All the more essential threads are spun to the end quickly. Charlotte gets a husband, becomes a mother and is pious. The story of a childhood sweetheart Leonhard's will be submitted and brought to an end.

Quotes

  • This urge to move us outside of us is one of the most powerful and indomitable .
  • A spirit flows in music which, more than in all other arts, exempts its confessors from prudence .
  • Illness is the very best schoolmaster .
  • Real enthusiasm never goes wrong and creates its own rule .
  • Most [people] are far too powerless to find the faith and humility that are essential to understanding a real work of art.
  • Other times must come; the world has worn out.
  • Often times you get worse by getting better .

Testimonials

Tieck writes in the preface to the novel:

"The plan for this story is actually one of my earliest drafts, because it was created in the spring of 1795."

- Ludwig Tieck : The young master carpenter

"I can give myself the testimony that I always research and learn more the older I get."

- Ludwig Tieck : The young master carpenter

interpretation

Conversations about art dominate the novel.

"Because this is the great magic of the art that it occurs in clear form in shape in shape and form and the Dawning, Sophistical and invisible characterized equally well philosophical is understandable when it is poetically comprehensible" .

And all the stage plays that are at stake are discussed in detail and are illuminated from all possible angles. The lay actors present their partly contrary views. In the text, Tieck proves to be an admirer of Goethe. No bad word is said about the playwright Goethe. But the novelist Goethe is also uplifted, praised in the highest tones. Leonhard says of Werther : "It is a book in itself. You completely forget that it comes from an author." Leonhard does not only encounter art in his friend's castle between the scenes. There is in the novel z. B. the figure of old Joseph, valet of the baroness, artfully woven. Whenever the “dear steward”, as Leonhard addresses him, appears, the reader realizes that this passage is more than a mere conversation about art. This passage is intended to be poetry set in prose. Joseph tells about his "lovely, beautiful violin by Amati "; how he plays it. Leonhard admires "this musical fantasy". In addition, "dear Mr. Joseph" proves to be the only person who knows people far and wide. Namely, he promises Leonhard to become a carpenter.

In a number of places Tieck would like to propagate his art theory all too superficially - e.g. B. his reception theory or his observation of the "funny actors in Germany".

It doesn't stop there. Tieck lets his protagonists - Leonhard and the Baron Elsheim - attend a concert. In addition, the two "poetically inclined people" invest almost all of their time and energy for months in amateur theater performances. Leonhard found himself in an "educated circle" at the castle, in which nobles and commoners alike don't just talk intelligently about art. Charlotte sings "excellent" and "Elsheim pleasant". Almost all of the numerous novelists try their hand at “the baronial theater”.

shape

Well over half of the text consists of direct speech. Tieck does not use any quotation marks. Sometimes he changes the tenses; goes from its past tense to the present in order to fall back into the past tense. The novel is not free from exaggerations: "all the audience cried". Some melancholy echoes of sensitivity astonishes the reader in the 21st century: "No sooner had Leonhard finished these words than Elsheim threw himself on his bosom and a violent stream of tears relieved his chest".

Towards the end of the novel, the reader occasionally stumbles across strange constructs:

"His scrutinizing eye listened."
"The old Frau von Brommen appeared first with her obsolete daughters."
" Something like this has never been seen."
"It was a jubilation of good-heartedness and German convictions."
"Almost everyone talks about love, but always just playing, talking , without conscience and innermost experience."

reception

  • Kern points to Tieck's distance from the character ensemble in the novel. A figure is neither praised nor judged on.
  • According to Paulin, social criticism can also be read from the novel.
  • With the master carpenter , Tieck became a forerunner of Fontane and Thomas Mann .
  • The work of the capable citizen in a German nation to be aspired to, but in which the nobility is still dominated by small states, is glorified.
  • In the novel, the picture of a pre-capitalist era is painted: the master craftsman acts as an artist.
  • Tieck's friends found the novel morally questionable. The author defended himself against this in 1838.
  • The new character of the production process is shown: While the journeymen work, Leonhard sits in the back of the office.
  • "The master carpenter " was "quite simply failed through and through ..."
  • The question “Did Tieck later still remain a romantic?” Can be examined using the young master carpenter . Because the author had been working on the novella since 1796 - with major interruptions.
  • Tieck examines relationships between the nobility and the bourgeoisie. "Limitations" come up on both sides. The exemplary validity of the nobility is over. Nor are the foundations of civic education particularly well established.
  • Tieck presents his dramaturgy to the reader.
  • This "conversation novella" is intended to encourage thinking.
  • With the master carpenter, Tieck did not respond to Goethe's Wilhelm Meister years of apprenticeship , but rather dealt with his time - the 30s of the 19th century. In Tieck's novel - in contrast to Wilhelm Meister - no citizen strives for the nobility diploma. On the contrary, one conclusion of the master carpenter is: the citizen intentionally remains attached to his class. And every attempt by the citizen to escape from his or her circle of life is demonized in the master carpenter .
  • In the carpenter a "positive" utopia will demonstrated. Revolution - for example to abolish the privileges of the nobility - could be replaced there evolution. In the bourgeois family, the nobility and the bourgeoisie could merge.
  • In the 1830s, Tieck vacillated “between progress and preservation of the old”.

literature

source
  • Alfred Gerz (ed.): Ludwig Tieck: The young master carpenter. Rütten & Loening Verlag Potsdam (without year of publication). Cover design by Walter Tiemann . From the series The Magic Mirror. A collection of German novels . Typesetting, printing and binding: Friedrich Pustet , Regensburg. 595 pages
First edition
  • Ludwig Tieck: The young master carpenter. Novella in six sections . Reimer Berlin 1836. Writings, Volume 28
expenditure
Secondary literature
  • Johannes P. Kern: Ludwig Tieck: poet of a crisis . Pp. 127-152. Lothar Stiehm Verlag Heidelberg 1977. 243 pages. Volume XVIII of the Poetry and Science series
  • Ernst Ribbat: Ludwig Tieck. Studies in the conception and practice of romantic poetry. Pp. 221-228. Athenäum Verlag Kronberg / Ts. 1978. 290 pages (habilitation thesis, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster), ISBN 3-7610-8002-6
  • Roger Paulin: Ludwig Tieck . JB Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung Stuttgart 1987. Series: Metzler Collection; M 185, 133 pages, ISBN 3-476-10185-1
  • Gerhard Schulz : The German literature between the French Revolution and the restoration. Part 2. The Age of the Napoleonic Wars and the Restoration: 1806–1830. Pp. 511-513. Munich 1989. 912 pages, ISBN 3-406-09399-X
  • Burkhard Pöschel: “At the center of the most wonderful events”. Attempts on the literary confrontation with social modernity in Ludwig Tieck's late narrative work. Pp. 204-254. Bielefeld: Aisthesis Verlag 1994. 261 pages, ISBN 3-925670-99-8
  • Armin Gebhardt: Ludwig Tieck. Life and complete works of the “King of Romanticism” pp. 244–249. Tectum Verlag Marburg 1997. 354 pages. ISBN 3-8288-9001-6
  • Martina Schwarz: The bourgeois family in Ludwig Tieck's late work. “Family” as a medium of time criticism. Pp. 169-218 in: Epistemata. Würzburg scientific writings. Literary Studies series, Bd. 403. Königshausen & Neumann Würzburg 2002. 315 pages, ISBN 3-8260-2289-0

Individual evidence

  1. Joachim Worthmann (see Schwarz, p. 304), cited in Schwarz, p. 170, 1. Zvo
  2. Source p. 487, 4. Zvo
  3. ^ Source p. 568, 11th line from the bottom
  4. Source p. 542, 3rd line from the top
  5. Source p. 586, 10. 3rd line from the top
  6. Source p. 26, 6th line from the top
  7. Source p. 27, 7th Zvu
  8. Source p. 125, 4th and 10th line from the top
  9. Source p. 321, 4th line from the top
  10. Source p. 249, 12th line from the top
  11. Source p. 274, 3rd line from the top - Tieck apparently means the Swabian greeting with "the vulgar word"
  12. Source p. 567, 3rd Zvu: Leonhard tells: "She died smiling in my arms."
  13. Source p. 104, 1st Zvu
  14. Source p. 167, 5th line from the top
  15. Source p. 291, 8th line from the top
  16. Source p. 323, 5th Zvu
  17. Source p. 342, 2nd Zvu
  18. Source p. 447, 2nd Zvu
  19. ^ Source, p. 552, 1st line from above
  20. ^ A b Ludwig Tieck: The young master carpenter. Novella in seven sections. (= Berlin edition. 3rd edition), Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-1482768893 , p. 3. ( online )
  21. Source p. 593, 11. Zvu
  22. Source p. 247, 11. Zvu
  23. Source p. 319, 12. Zvo
  24. Source p. 395, 12. Zvo
  25. Source p. 186, 6th Zvu
  26. Source p. 387, 6th Zvu
  27. Source p. 437, 11th line from the top
  28. Source p. 431, 6th Zvu
  29. Source p. 444, 7th Zvu
  30. Source p. 447, 10th Zvu
  31. Source p. 459, 8th Zvu
  32. Source p. 577, 13. Zvu
  33. Kern p. 131, 4th Zvu
  34. ^ Paulin p. 38, 22. Zvo
  35. ^ Paulin p. 90, 14. Zvo
  36. Schulz p. 513, 7th line from the top
  37. Schulz p. 513, 19th Zvu
  38. Pöschel, p. 206 below
  39. Pöschel p. 215
  40. Gebhardt p. 249, 10. Zvo
  41. Ribbat p.221, 2nd line from the top
  42. Ribbat p. 224, 2nd Zvu to p. 225, 28th line from the top
  43. Ribbat S. 227, 18. ACR
  44. Ribbat S. 228, the first ZVU
  45. Helmut Koopmann , quoted in Schwarz, p. 169, 23rd line from above
  46. ^ Koopmann, quoted in Schwarz, p. 181, 14th line from above
  47. ^ Koopmann, quoted in Schwarz, p. 185, 27th line from above
  48. Markus Schwering (see Schwarz p. 303, 3rd lit. place vu), quoted in Schwarz, p. 195, 23rd line from above
  49. ^ Koopmann, quoted in Schwarz, p. 196, 1st line from above
  50. ^ Koopmann, quoted in Schwarz, p. 206, 8th line from above and p. 207, 17th line from above
  51. Schwarz, p. 211, line 27 from the top
  52. Peter Hasubek (see Schwarz footnote 369 on p. 190 and p. 306, 8th lit. position vo), cited in Schwarz, p. 218, 24th line from above
  53. ^ Paulin p. 92, 1st line from the top