The journey of Urian

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Urian's Journey ( French: Le Voyage d'Urien ) is a short story by André Gide that appeared in 1893.

content

foreplay

The journey on the Orion leads to the " chimeric " islands. Then the men are held captive by beautiful, lovable women. While the sailors quickly surrender, the hard core, eleven men around Urian, even bravely resisted the caresses of the fragrant Queen Haïatalnefus. Haïatalnefus leads the prisoners into a tropical fairy tale world, but with this ruse can only put the twelve resilient men in a "lyrical mood". Eventually the island population is weakened and decimated by the plague. The seafarers can escape.

Sargasso Sea

On the further northward journey through the Sargasso Sea , the seafarers get stuck in the mud near the shore. Then Ellis, coming by land, meets the travelers. Urian calls her his dear sister. Ellis reads Kant , Leibniz and Scotus on the way . Urian, who reveals himself to be the first-person narrator, is annoyed about reading his "dear" Ellis. He could only love a woman of faith. In addition, the men have “gone out to do glorious deeds” and just want to leave their old thoughts, including the studies of the philosophers, behind them. But, Urian complains, the trip was “badly composed”.

Ellis gets mala fever. She is left behind with the Eskimos together with four sick companions. This woman has "almost no reality anymore".

Ride on an arctic ocean

At scurvy ill, lying on the deck, the remaining eight men dream of the fresh, juicy fruit that grew on the disastrous tropical islands. Pack ice turns into a closed ice sheet. Parts of the Orion are built into a sled. The rest of the ship is burned. Pulled by the large reindeer, the sleigh ride goes northward. Urian sees an apparition: the Ellis from earlier days. The rest of the way is laboriously mastered, marching in the snowstorm. On a large wall that finally stops the advance is written: HIC DESPERATUS [here abandoned, desperate]. A corpse lies in the ice in front of the wall. Completely frozen, the dead man holds a note in his hand. It says: nothing. In the colorless morning the travelers kneel down, thanking God that he let them hope to the very end for the goal that turned out to be nothing.

The poet Urian confesses in verse: "This journey is nothing but my dream."

Quotes

  • "Whatever happens, it will always be meaningless."
  • "Disordered things require incoherent sentences."
  • "In the resistance we first felt our will."

Testimonials

  • "I haven't written a book without a deeper need to write it, the only exception being Le Voyage d'Urien ."
  • The role model for Ellis is Gide's future wife Madeleine.

reception

  • The reviewers agree on the Novalis admirer Gide: The role model is " Die Sais " . Gide, always honest, also makes it easy for the reader. He quotes Novalis.
  • Lang writes: "Melancholy heroes cultivate their sterile virtue by abstinence and look for dream lands in which to tell of their beautiful souls."
  • Lang mentions two things in common with “ The books of André Walter ” : First, the topic is the transformation of the world in the head into the real world and vice versa. Second, the hero tells about the unhappy love for a woman.
  • Gide wanted to overcome "André Walter" and tried that with an "ironic pen"; with a satire.
  • Ellis is "a real, half burlesque , half melancholy materialization of the Gidean soul of that time."
  • Marianne Kesting interprets: According to Homer's Odyssey , the seafarer is to be equated with the poet, the ship with his work and the journey with the inner movement of his mind. Gide read Poe's Pym . At the end of the 19th century the continents - except for the poles - are known. So the search for paradise is directed there. But Urian cannot find paradise. This journey is about the act of writing itself. The "adventure of writing" ( Jean Ricardou ) is discussed. The little novel is a description of life as it is - "a journey without end and without return."

German editions

source
  • Raimund Theis (ed.), Peter Schnyder (ed.): André Gide: The journey of Urians . Translated from the French by Andrea Spingler. Pp. 169-224. The basis of the translation was an edition of the Éditions Gallimard / Paris from 1929. With an afterword by Marianne Kesting: “To Urian's Journey ”. Pp. 528-535. Collected works in twelve volumes. Volume VII / 1, Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1991. 587 pages, ISBN 3-421-06467-9
German-language first edition
  • André Gide: Urian's Journey. Translator: Maria Schaefer-Rümelin. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt Stuttgart 1955. 66 pages. Original cardboard tape
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
  • 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

precursor

Matthias Claudius wrote the poem "Urian's Journey Around the World". It was set to music by Beethoven (eight songs op. 52).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Source, p. 223, 19. Zvo
  2. ↑ Source, p. 202, 4th Zvu
  3. ↑ Source, p. 203, 7. Zvo
  4. ↑ Source, p. 209, 16. Zvo
  5. ↑ Gides diary entry in 1910, quoted by Theis in der Quelle, p. 544, 14th Zvu
  6. ↑ Hinterhäuser, p. 443, 17. Zvo
  7. ^ Lang, p. 86, 2nd Zvu
  8. ^ Marianne Kesting, source, p. 533, 2nd Zvu
  9. ↑ Source, p. 187, footnote
  10. ↑ Lang, p. 82, 16. Zvu
  11. ^ Lang, p. 85, 4th Zvu
  12. ↑ Martin, p. 58 middle
  13. ^ Germaine Brée, quoted by Martin, p. 60, 4th Zvu
  14. ↑ Marianne Kesting, source, pp. 528-535
  15. ↑ Source, p. 6
  16. ^ Matthias Claudius : Urian's journey around the world in the Gutenberg-DE project