The Majorate Lords

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Achim von Arnim
(1781–1831)

The Majoratsherren is a novella by Achim von Arnim , which - written around 1818 - appeared in a paperback for sociable pleasure in 1820 in Leipzig and Vienna.

There are three eponymous gentlemen in play - the young Majorate , his deceased predecessor and the future Majorate, an older lieutenant . During his lifetime, the deceased majorate chief disinherited his daughter through child suppression. This girl Esther is strangled by her stepmother Vasthi.

history

The story takes place before the French Revolution in a large German city on the left bank of the Rhine. After the revolution, France abolished the feudal right of inheritance of the "fief major" and freed the Jews from the ghetto.

content

The young majorate had lived abroad with his mother. Now that his mother has passed away, he is returning home. But he does not want to reside in his Majoratshaus, a palace, but prefers a modest back room in the lieutenant's house. The poor dwelling borders on Judengasse. The lieutenant, that is the cousin of the majorate, had received nothing thirty years ago when his uncle, while still old, surprisingly became the father of a son - the young major - in his second marriage. If the young master of the majorate died, the lieutenant would come into possession of the majorate. After his arrival, the young majorate chose the back room as his apartment because from there he can secretly observe a beautiful young girl who reminds him of his mother. The lieutenant puts the girl in Esther in the picture. Her late father bequeathed the girl a small fortune during her lifetime - in the hope that her stepmother Vasthi would then treat her well. The Jewess Vasthi does not spare Esther, however, because Esther is an adopted Christian child. Vasthi's husband had diverted the above small fortune from the hush money he had received from the old majorate. The old man was the father of a daughter thirty years ago - that is Esther - and had given the newborn baby along with the money to Vasthi and her husband. The son - that is the young majorate - had secretly born out of wedlock to a lady-in-waiting who was concerned about her social position. The young majorate visits his birth mother, the crafty lady-in-waiting. She confesses to the son that his biological father was stabbed to death by the jealous lieutenant when she was pregnant. The career of the careless lieutenant was over. She had avenged herself for the murder of her lover in her own way: she had made her son major, and the lieutenant had been asking for her hand for thirty years in vain.

Vasthi strangles Esther out of greed. The young Majorate becomes a witness in his observer position in the back room. He penetrates Esther, but comes too late and follows the girl into death. The lieutenant does call a doctor. But its actions accelerate the death of the dying person. The lieutenant becomes majorate and rises to general. Now he is heard by the lady-in-waiting. The woman marries the general in order to torment him day and night; to take revenge on him. After the revolution, Vasthi bought the aristocratic majorate house and ran a salmiak factory there .

shape

The novella contains at least two levels. About the factual level is reported above in the sub-item content . In the second - as it were the higher, fantastic-looking level - Esther shows the young Majoratsherrn theater. Esther, who is overwhelmed by madness, occasionally embodies different roles in her “social comedy”. The secret viewer in the back room plays along. For example, he hears a shot a few times. This shot was fired once at the above-mentioned factual level before the start of the narrated time . A gentile, unhappy lover of the beautiful Esther had shot himself on the advice of the lieutenant. Since then it has been to Esther sometimes in the evenings, as if a pistol shot had been fired nearby. Even the young major supervisor thought he heard the shot. It follows from Esther's comedy that she - like her poor lover before - does not want to live any longer.

reception

  • July 28, 1917: Hesse praises the novella in “ March ”.
  • Inheritance creep and disregard for human dignity are the themes of the novella.
  • Arnim took up Lessing's " Nathan " .
  • With vasthi, the Jews would be portrayed as the creators of "modern industrial capitalism".
  • Schulz describes the fantastic narrative level mentioned in the subsection Form as a somnambulist .
  • The author himself had inherited his family estate, which did not generate much economically, in over-indebtedness. His description of unscrupulous, adaptable Jews is therefore literary compensation for one's own precarious financial circumstances. Johann Freiherr von Aretin expressed himself in 1809 as follows: “Behind the mask of Germanism” the anger over the “loss suffered” can be felt.
  • According to Schlaffer, the downfall of the Majorate Lord is homemade.

expenditure

Quoted text edition

  • Achim von Arnim: The Majorate Lords . P. 186–226 in Karl-Heinz Hahn (Ed.): Ludwig Achim von Arnim: Works in one volume. 1st edition. Library of German classics. Issued by the NFG . Aufbau-Verlag, Berlin / Weimar 1981, 423 pages.

literature

  • Hannelore Schlaffer : Poetics of the Novella. Metzler, Stuttgart 1993, ISBN 3-476-00957-2
  • 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. Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-09399-X , 912 pages.
  • Volker Michels (Ed.): Hermann Hesse. The world in book III. Reviews and essays from 1917–1925 . Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2002.

Web links

Individual evidence

Source means the quoted text edition

  1. ↑ Source, p. 401, 8. Zvo
  2. ↑ Arnim paraphrases: "Soon afterwards the city came under the rule of foreigners." (Source, p. 226, 3rd Zvo)
  3. ↑ Source, p. 226, 4. Zvo
  4. ↑ Source, p. 226, 5. Zvo
  5. ↑ Hahn writes: "Since the 13th century, the Jewish population of the cities had to live in closed districts or streets, so-called ghettos." (Source, p. 401, center, entry Judengasse )
  6. ↑ It later turns out that the biological mother of the young majorate is the lady-in-waiting.
  7. ↑ Michels, p. 7 below
  8. ^ Hahn in der Quelle, p. XL, 14. Zvo
  9. ↑ The Jew Nathan raises the Christian girl Recha.
  10. ↑ Schulz, p. 153, 7th Zvu
  11. ↑ Schulz, p. 408, 6. Zvo
  12. ↑ Schulz, p. 154, 11. Zvo
  13. ↑ Schlaffer, p. 234, 13. Zvo