André Walter's notebooks

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André Walter's notebooks ( French: Les Cahiers d'André Walter) is a short story by André Gide that was published anonymously by Didier-Perrin in Paris in 1890. Gide published revised versions under his name first in 1925 and then finally in 1930 (under the title Les cahiers et les poésies d'André Walter ) with G. Crès, also in Paris.

In a novel he titled "Allain", the young André Walter ponders his unhappy past love for Emmanuèle, gradually goes mad over writing and dies of " brain fever ".

content

The diary entries range from July 1 to October 28, 1889 and contain flashbacks to March 1886.

The white book

André looks back on the month of August 1887. Emmanuèle moved into the room of his sister, who died in 1885. The writer is disgusted with the life he has to live because at that age - he is in his early twenties - "passion breaks out". He prefers his dreams. He takes refuge in Chopin's, Schumann's and Bach's music. Such harmony inspires the soul, drives it towards Emmanuèle's soul. André writes about Emmanuèle's voice, this “fragile vessel of feelings”. But images push ahead. Naked couples entwine on either side of his path. André looks away in the dream, but hears the kisses. He writes about Emmanuèle because he doesn't want to forget. André does not despise philosophizing, the understanding, but he gives the soul a place before the spirit. Because the soul is “the loving desire”. That is why his notebooks are full of quotes from the poets - because poets remind him of many things. André finds and articulates his own poetry. He hopes, gets on, even sees Emmanuèle's gaze in a dream. But oh, before his mother dies, she is still engaged to T. and Emmanuèle. André renounces; obeys, but still hopes. Emmanuèle and T. get married.

The black notebook

André is writing his novel “like a madman” and is already fighting the chimera . The music should help in the fight against the monster. Madame Emmanuèle T. André works “obsessively” on “Allain”, the “draft of a love”. Allain and André become one. The memory of Emmanuèle becomes a torment while writing. André begins to dread the dream of the coming night, is afraid of "going crazy". André is working on the novel and can no longer rest. Allain, who is André, is going insane. André, so mad, considers his work to be "very successful". The dream images are no longer poetic, but are now dictated by madness. André dies, as the editor of André Walters notes in both issues. The last picture André writes in his black notebook tells of his love for Emmanuèle - written down in the language of a madman.

Quotes

  • "The best thing is to let things take their course."
  • "You can't give in to things."

Testimonials

  • Gide writes in the preface to the 1930 edition: "... if I hadn't written this first book, I would undoubtedly have written the following books less well."
  • To a praise from Valéry , Gide replies with Mallarmé : "A veil, thrown out as a shroud to fill an extinct youth with fragrance."
  • "When I wrote this book ... it seemed to me to be one of the most important in the world ..."
  • The model for Emmanuèle is Gide's future wife Madeleine.

reception

  • Mallarmé says to Gide: "Your book is a book full of silence ... so that all thoughts can be read between the lines".
  • Maeterlinck writes: "This melancholy and wonderful breviary of the untouched is at certain moments imperishable like the imitation ".
  • Valéry writes to Gide: "O thanks for this beginning in minor ... A broken piece of music with broken wings twitches and wilts ..."
  • The book is overloaded with quotes. Before writing , Gide read Plato , Descartes , Spinoza , Leibniz, and Schopenhauer .
  • Mise en abyme : The novelist André Walter is reflected in his character Allain.
  • The model for Emmanuèle is Gide's cousin Madeleine Rondeaux, whom he married on October 8, 1895.
  • Gide has planned his "Allain" since the Unterprima.
  • Renée Lang attributes the book to symbolism . Issue in André Walter mainly "to the Christian conflict between flesh and spirit." Lang quotes Rémy de Gourmont , who in 1891 called the (still anonymous) author “an enthusiastic and philosophical spirit in the footsteps of Goethe”. Both Werther and André Walter consumed each other in love for a married woman.

German editions

source

André Gide: André Walter's notebooks . Translated from the French by Gerhard Kluge and Hans Joachim Kesting. In: ders .: Collected works in twelve volumes. Ed .: Raimund Theis and Peter Schnyder. Volume VII / 1, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-421-06467-9 . Pp. 27-154. Afterword by Hans Joachim Kesting: To “Die Hefte des André Walter” , pp. 509–520. (The basis of the translation was an edition of the Editions Gallimard , Paris 1952.)

German-language first edition
  • André Gide: The notes and poems of André Walter. With colored watercolors by Roland Oudot and Maurice Brianchon. Translator: Gerhard Kluge, Joachim Kesting and Rolf von Höne. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1969. 183 pages. linen
Secondary literature
  • Renée Lang: André Gide and the German spirit (French: André Gide et la Pensée Allemande ). Translation: Friedrich Hagen . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1953. 266 pages
  • Günter Krebber: Studies on the aesthetics and criticism of André Gides . Cologne Romanistic works. New episode. Issue 13. Geneva and Paris 1959. 171 pages
  • Claude Martin: André Gide . Translated from the French by Ingeborg Esterer. Rowohlt 1963 (July 1987 edition). 176 pages, ISBN 3-499-50089-2
  • Hans Hinterhäuser (Ed.), Peter Schnyder (Ed.), Raimund Theis (Ed.): André Gide: Et nunc manet in te . Translated from the French by Maria Schäfer-Rümelin. Pp. 431-477. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume IV / 4, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1990. 709 pages, ISBN 3-421-06464-4

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Martin, p. 157, 10. Zvo
  2. ^ "Wagner is too overwhelming", source, p. 131, 19. Zvo
  3. ↑ z. B. Quelle, p. 79, 8. Zvu
  4. ↑ Source, p. 123, entry from September 1st
  5. ↑ Source, p. 143, 8. Zvu and also p. 144 below, entry “Thursday”, 1st and 2nd paragraph
  6. ↑ Source, p. 148, 9. to 13. Zvo
  7. ↑ Source, p. 78, 5th Zvu
  8. ↑ Source, p. 119, 10. Zvo
  9. ↑ Source, p. 29, 9. Zvu
  10. ↑ quoted by Hans Joachim Kesting in his afterword, source, p. 511, 15. Zvo
  11. ↑ quoted by Hans Joachim Kesting in his afterword, source, p. 511, 12. Zvu
  12. ↑ Hinterhäuser, p. 443, 16. Zvo
  13. ↑ quoted by Hans Joachim Kesting in his afterword, source, p. 510, 17th Zvu
  14. ↑ quoted by Hans Joachim Kesting in his afterword, source, p. 510, 10th Zvu
  15. ↑ quoted by Hans Joachim Kesting in his afterword, source, p. 511, 6. Zvo
  16. ↑ Krebber, p. 18, 8. Zvo
  17. ^ Marianne Kesting , source, p. 523, 11. Zvo
  18. ↑ Martin, p. 24, 11. Zvu
  19. ^ Martin, p. 150, 9th Zvu
  20. ↑ Martin, p. 41, 5. Zvo
  21. ↑ Lang, p. 157, 13. Zvu
  22. ^ Lang, p. 152, 4th Zvu
  23. ↑ Lang, p. 154, 10. Zvo
  24. ↑ Lang, p. 154, 12. Zvu