The story of Herr von Morgenthau
The story of Herr von Morgenthau is a novel by Johann Heinrich Jung-Stilling and was published in 1779.
content
First part
Herr von Morgenthau builds a palace in a lonely valley. Pastor Steilmann sends his son Timothy to explore his faith. He finds a fine, strict gentleman. When peasants argue over whose ground a dead woman is lying on, Morgenthau takes the dead woman and her two children home. Her sad husband Reymund arrives and is followed by his angry father, Herr von Haberklee. He tells how he married Elise against Elise's will and how they have fled from him since then. While walking, Morgenthau and Timotheus meet two orphans who have a hard time with their stepparents, especially the girl, Trinchen, whom their son Caspar loves. Morgenthau declares himself her father and takes the boy, Pöll, with him. Late in the evening he visits Steilmann's daughter Johanette, whose manner he had liked in a letter to her brother, exchanges loving words with her and a kiss in the garden. Elise is buried. Pöll shows Morgenthau Stallknecht Salzbein's mockery of the valet Weiler's piety, so that he is dismissed. After Timotheus' Sunday sermon, Morgenthau asked Steilmanns, who had already heard a lot of good things, for Johanette's hand. Herr von Haberklee attacks Morgenthau's palace, is kicked by his horse and picked up there. Johanette and her brother arrive. Reymund has migrated.
Timothy and Pastor Salzberg demand repentance from Haberklee for the Lord's Supper. He gets visions of hell. The doctor Biller therefore criticizes the clergy, but is converted to a Christian by Morgenthau in the dispute. Haberklee repents.
Morgenthau visits the Steilmanns surprisingly and rides home with Johanette. The in-laws move in later. Caspar and Trinchen get married. More families move into the mountain valley. Johanette has a son, Friedrich Faramund. Timothy is a preacher now. He is called to the Pietists' sick daughter, Caroline Sommer, who is only in love and coaxes a secret promise of marriage from him. Morgenthau calms him down. He accompanies him in the summer and saves a traveling surveyor and his wife from Salzbein and two other muggers. He counters the reproach from Caroline's parents about their overly sensual and sensitive report of a lonely flute player near the ruin in the forest with the example of a man who became a sinner because he believed he was morally superior. The engagement happens happily. Morgenthau imprisons the unrepentant robbers and builds Elisen's tomb. Together with the Sommer siblings, he brings the melancholy Reymund out of a basement hole in the ruins to see his father, who is dying of joy. At the wedding there is a concert that the Pietists feel that music is not a sin.
Second part
When the Steilmanns and Sommers visit Morgenthau, Reymund absolutely wants to marry Sibylle Sommer, but she confesses to Johanette her secret love for the poor house tutor Lilienthal. Morgenthau and Johanette recognize his virtues, introduce him to Sommers and give him an estate with Sibylle.
Johanette has a daughter, Caroline. Pöll's character develops particularly well. He regrets Salzbein's fate and believes he is complicit. He serves him and can convert him. Salzbein wants the death penalty so that Morgenthau admits it.
The impoverished von Löschbrand noble family is looking for accommodation near Morgenthau. Reymund marries their virtuous daughter and gives the parents an estate. Having become proud, they humiliate Johanette at the table talk because of her lack of nobility, and are arrested in affect, Morgenthau apologizes. Morgenthau developed agriculture, church and education, but now realizes that dealers and manufacturers are also important.
The young summer falls in love with the dealer daughter Adelheid Silberstern, but is turned down by her mother. The pious Duke of Hochbergen dies on a friendship visit, shortly afterwards the old preacher couple.
Morgenthau and Lilienthal save a farmer's daughter from being raped by two hunters in the neighboring country and meet their father Dietrich Hollstein, who once traveled to England as a prince's confidante. The new Duke of Hochbergen, who does not like religion and to whom the case of the two hunters was misrepresented by fire, has Pöll and Caspar locked up and executed as alleged poachers. Morgenthau frees them from the place of execution with horsemen. Morgenthau Castle is occupied by soldiers, Johanette and the people have to endure a lot. In the meantime Morgenthau travels to Vienna, proves his origins from the English queen, who Hollstein had known, and deposed Hochbergen.
style
The plot develops essentially in dialogue, interrupted by descriptions of how Morgenthau manages his rule. Longer monologues arise from Reymund's, Lilienthal's and Hollstein's stories. In his last sermon, Steinmann prophesies bad times if the Enlightenment would gradually rob Christians of their religion (the author later feels confirmed in this and in the novel Das Heimweh refers to this passage as an example of the prophetic power of the Bible).
Johann Heinrich Jung Stilling mentions the story of Herr von Morgenthau in his autobiography Heinrich Stilling's domestic life , saying that he wanted to improve his tarnished reputation with the Pietists, his former friends, who now despised him, and others. a. because he had written a novel. The figure Morgenthaus fits in with this, whose orthodoxy is first questioned, but whose deeds show his moral maturity, as well as the justifications for marriage, music and a feeling for nature (which still appears in the first two volumes of his autobiography).
In this fictional story he takes up romantic motifs from the opening volumes of his life story. The forest ruins in which the death-yearning Reymund hides is particularly striking. Often there are references to Bible passages, e.g. B. from the blood that screams to heaven or from rampant pounds. A system of different characters is indicated in the characters who are also described in their physiognomy .
There are autobiographical echoes in the story of Lilienthal, who struggles as a tutor and is slandered. In addition, the nature of the landscape descriptions shows Stilling's youthful experience at country fairs and his later interest in business. Stilling also married after a secret engagement while on night watch with a sick person.
The story seems like an anticipation of Stilling's later novel Das Heimweh , in which Prince Eugenius cultivates a new land, also contrasting the true nobility with the secular. Morgenthaus dispute with Dr. Biller that sentences from the spirit realm of reason must appear paradoxical in themselves is further elaborated there. Similar to there, the author apologizes at the end that the second part in particular was written fleetingly, which is not due to his will, but to ability and time.
literature
- Jung-Stilling, Johann Heinrich: The story of the Lord of Morgenthau. In: Johann Heinrich Jung called Stilling. All the writings. Volume VI 9th JH Jung's complete novels. Pp. 301-574. Hildesheim, New York, 1979. Reprint of the Stuttgart edition 1835–1838. (Georg Olms Verlag; ISBN 3-487-06816-8 ; The reprint is based on the copies of the Württemberg State Library in Stuttgart. Signature: Misc. Oct 1304)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jung-Stilling, Johann Heinrich: Das Heimweh. Complete, unabridged edition after the first edition published from 1794 to 1796, introduced, provided with notes and a glossary by Martina Maria Sam. In the appendix: Young stillings "Keys to homesickness". 1994. p. 419. (Verlag am Goetheanum; ISBN 3-7235-0741-7 )
- ^ Jung-Stilling, Johann Heinrich: Life story. Complete text after the first prints (1777–1817). With an afterword by Wolfgang Pfeiffer-Belli. Munich, 1968. pp. 229, 269, 271, 273, 278 (Winkler Verlag; ISBN 3-538-06037-1 )