The Knopp trilogy

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Wilhelm Busch: Mr. and Mrs. Knopp

After Max and Moritz, the Knopp trilogy is one of the most famous works by Wilhelm Busch . Becoming a father in two lines is not difficult / being a father, on the other hand, comes from this trilogy.

The trilogy consists of three parts: The adventure of a bachelorette was the first part, the sequels of which appeared as Mr. and Mrs. Knopp in 1876 ​​and Julchen in 1877. For the first time, the citizen is not the victim of powerful nuisances, as was the case in Max and Moritz or Hans Huckebein, the unlucky raven , but rather the main character.

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Single scene from Julchen

The work was created in the 1870s and thus falls into Wilhelm Busch's middle creative phase. According to his biographer Berndt Wessling, Wilhelm Busch has written off his own desire for marriage with this trilogy. His attempts to forge a long-term relationship with a woman had all previously failed. Johanna Keßler, whom he admired, was married; The pen friendship with the Dutch poet Marie Anderson ended after the two met in person.

At the time, Wilhelm Busch lived in circumstances that corresponded to those of his hero Tobias Knopp in terms of individual characteristics. He found his housekeeper in his sister Fanny, who was married to the pastor Hermann Nöldeke. In Wiedensahl he first lived in his parents' house and then moved in with his sister's family. He wrote to Marie Anderson: I will never get married ... My sister is now fine too.

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Tobias Knopp is the prototype of the wealthy philistine. At the beginning of the first part of the trilogy, Wilhelm Busch lets his hero Tobias Knopp become aware of his own transience:

Roses, aunts, bases, carnations
Are compelled to wither;
Oh - and finally through me
you make a big dash

Overwhelmed by the possibility of one day having to die unmourning, he decides to marry to secure a bereaved bereavement.

This is terrible.
So Knopp, marry you.

In order to counter the emptiness of his existence, Tobias Knopp goes on a bridal lookout in the first part of the trilogy and visits his old friends, whom he always finds in unenviable marital relationships:

  • Knopp's former great love Adele, who has changed so much that it has become unattractive to him.
  • Knarrtje, who, when he and Knopp go into the house, realizes that his wife is cheating on him, whereupon he beats her up.
  • Rector Debisch, who, after he has drunk the wine and replaced it with water from the rain barrel, sends his son Kuno out of the room indignantly, but otherwise does not draw any conclusions.
  • Master Druff, who brings up his son by means of corporal punishment , but this does not prevent Knopp from becoming the victim of his pranks and the mockery of the current shooting festival.
  • The formerly so funny Babbelmann, who has nothing to say in the presence of his arch-Catholic wife and for her sake plans the whole week.
  • Plünne, who is overwhelmed with raising his children so that they do what they want without being asked.
  • Mosquito cheating on his wife and exposing the unsuspecting Knopp to the beatings his wife intended for him.
  • Sauerbrot, which celebrates the death of his wife as he has not endured her constant demands and requests for new clothes and entertainment. When she turns out to be apparently dead, he turns to ice in shock and falls over dead.
  • Piepo, with whose daughter Knopp falls in love, but the next morning he stumbles on the way from the toilet to his room, exposing himself to her . Disgraced, he flees through the window.

As the example of the lonely hermit did not convince him either, he returned home and made his housekeeper Dorothea Lickefett (Dorothee, then called Doris as Frau Knopp) a marriage proposal, which Busch's biographer Joseph Kraus believes is the shortest in German literary history:

Girl, - he speaks - tell me if -
And she smiles: Yes, Herr Knopp!

Daughter Julchen becomes the new purpose in life. And after Tobias Knopp has showered from one meal to the next for a happy married life and finally married his daughter, his life becomes completely meaningless again.

Knopp has
nothing more to do down here. -
It served its purpose. -
His image of life becomes wrinkled. -

Adaptations

Günter Nehm rewrote the Knopp trilogy so that it consists entirely of shaking rhymes . Alfa-Film-Produktion Göttingen and EOS-Film from Bad Sachsa produced the first full-length animated film from post-war Germany in 1949/1950 with Tobias Knopp - The Adventure of a Bachelor .

expenditure

  • Wilhelm Busch: The Knopp Trilogy. Adventure of a Bachelor, Mr. and Mrs. Knopp, Julchen. In: Rolf Hochhuth (Ed.): Wilhelm Busch, Complete Works and a selection of the sketches and paintings in two volumes. Volume 2: What is popular is also allowed. Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1959, pp. 148–323.

supporting documents

literature

  • Michaela Diers: Wilhelm Busch, life and work. dtv 2008, ISBN 978-3-423-34452-4
  • Joseph Kraus: Wilhelm Busch. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1970 (16th edition 9/2004), ISBN 3-499-50163-5
  • Gudrun Schury: I wish I were an Eskimo. The life of Wilhelm Busch. Biography . Construction, Berlin 2007, ISBN 978-3-351-02653-0
  • Gert Ueding : Wilhelm Busch. The 19th century in miniature. Insel, Frankfurt / M. 1977 (new edition 2007).
  • Eva Weissweiler: Wilhelm Busch. The laughing pessimist. A biography . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 2007, ISBN 978-3-462-03930-6

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kraus, p. 94
  2. ↑ quoted from Wessing, p. 155
  3. ↑ Kraus, p. 97
  4. ↑ Stefan Matysiak: Fieber-Zeit - faktor-magazin, September 12, 2009