The hour of the coltsfoot

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The hour of the coltsfoot is a radio play by Günter Eich that is available in two versions - written in 1956 and 1958. The first version was originally broadcast twenty-two years after the second (see below).

First version

First broadcast on April 4, 1980 on NDR . Director: Hans Rosenhauer . Music: Wolfgang Heinrich.

content

In southern Germany , in the area around Deisenhofen , the growth of the giant coltsfoot is rampant. The secateurs failed long ago. Soon the supply of electricity and food will collapse. When large parts of the now poorly surveyable surface of the earth were covered by coltsfoot forests, a manageable group of remaining Bavarian people emigrated towards Lake Constance in southern France and actually reached the intended shelter in one of the Auvergne caves. Probably only around 2000 people still live on earth.

The handful of immigrants now live in these stone age caves . Fortunately, everything in life passes. People read from certain leaf positions and other features that the coltsfoot is now afraid. It has happened to him since he got brained. So he no longer grows to heaven. People now communicate by beating the drums. The knowledgeable coltsfoot can be used by humans as a drummer. But people's minds are going downhill. Finally, the coltsfoot no longer drums either. Its hour has struck. The mountains now dominate in place of this sunflower. Mountains speak their own language. Volcanoes throw themselves fire. This is not just language, but also procreation. The final realization of one of the amazed people sounds like this: "We were so haughty to suspect that we would be the only possibility."

Second version

First broadcast on November 11, 1958 on BR and NDR. Direction: Fritz Schröder-Jahn , music: Johannes Aschenbrenner.

News from the first version

  • Günter Eich has not changed the message of the piece.
  • Work has been done on the shape in a number of ways.
    • In contrast to the first version, the action begins immediately in that Auvergne cave. The protagonists - the people - are now named with Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta. The history of these beings from the Munich suburb of Ottobrunn , who cannot indicate their age or gender, is brought into the radio play afterwards; Southern France and Southern Bavaria chapters alternate. The story extends over a hundred years.
    • The end - the fire-breathing mountains take over the world from the coltsfoot - is prepared from the beginning. Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta consider the rumbling mountains to be thunderstorms .
    • Coltsfoot reaches tree height across Europe and dominates worldwide as a tough but edible vegetable.
    • Some quite fantastic elements are partially withdrawn. For example, the coltsfoot no longer drums, but only takes on certain manners over time. Thus the coltsfoot forms an alley for approaching alpha, beta, gamma and delta. In addition, this plant becomes restless as its global supremacy comes to an end.
    • Prehistory: The Ottobrunners undertake the five-year hike through the coltsfoot thicket to the Auvergne because they suspect there are canned goods in the French cave systems. Beta actually finds it.

Testimonials

  • Günter Eich on the bad end of his human development: "... creation can do without both spirit and biology".
  • From Günter Eich's reply to a listener's letter: "The question is whether a person can be replaced or whether his position of creation is unshakable."

reception

  • Schwitzke discusses the second version.
  • According to Oppermann, it is not people who act in the play, but nature. The dying human can communicate with the dying coltsfoot below baby level, but the hostile volcanoes prove to be incapable of dialogue. The appearance of the human species ends where it began - in a stone age cave in southern France. At the end of this cycle, no further development can be seen.
  • In Barner's literary history, the “glittering ideas” and the thoughtful and playful handling of the deadly serious subject “decay” of the “civil world” are praised and the progress of the radio play author, who has meanwhile been poignant and elegantly confident, is registered. The rather fantastic scenario is reminiscent of Döblin's novel “ Berge, Meere und Giganten ” (1924).
  • Alber examines the consequences of the fall of man mentioned in the radio play . After all, God no longer cares about people. Even more, life on earth is being destroyed by volcanism. All in all, the author asks about the position of man within creation.
  • Martin deals with the cave dwellers: Alpha, predominantly crouching in the cave, is doing language studies and would like to preserve some of the humanity in the now hostile world. Beta also stays in the cave looking for canned stores. The language skeptics Gamma and Delta spend the day more outside of their homes. Both watch the coltsfoot and the volcanoes.

literature

Used edition

  • Günter Eich: The hour of the coltsfoot (I) (1956) . Pp. 269–304 and The Hour of the Coltsfoot (II) (1959) . P. 577–622 in: Karl Karst (Ed.): Günter Eich. The radio plays 2. in: Collected works in four volumes. Revised edition. Volume III . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991, without ISBN

Secondary literature

  • Heinz Schwitzke (Ed.): Reclam's radio play guide. With the collaboration of Franz Hiesel , Werner Klippert , Jürgen Tomm. Reclam, Stuttgart 1969, without ISBN, 671 pages
  • Michael Oppermann: Inner and outer reality in Günter Eich's radio play. Diss. University of Hamburg 1989, Reinhard Fischer publishing house, Munich 1990, ISBN 3-88927-070-0
  • Axel Vieregg (Ed.): Günter Eich. Mixed writings in: Collected works in four volumes. Revised edition. Volume IV . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991, without ISBN
  • Sabine Alber: The place in free fall. Günter Eich's moles in the context of the entire work. Dissertation. Technische Universität Berlin 1992. Verlag Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1992 (European university publications. Series I, German language and literature, vol. 1329), ISBN 3-631-45070-2
  • Wilfried Barner (ed.): History of German literature. Volume 12: History of German Literature from 1945 to the Present . CH Beck, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-406-38660-1
  • Sigurd Martin: The auras of the word-image. Günter Eich's mole poetics and the theory of inadvertent reading. Dissertation University of Frankfurt am Main 1994. Röhrig Universitätsverlag, St. Ingbert 1995 (Mannheimer Studien zur Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft, Vol. 3), ISBN 3-86110-057-6
  • Hans-Ulrich Wagner: Günter Eich and the radio. Essay and documentation. Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Potsdam 1999, ISBN 3-932981-46-4 (publications of the German Broadcasting Archive ; Vol. 27)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Karst, p. 764, 3rd Zvo and p. 766 below
  2. ^ Wagner, p. 350, right column above and Karst, p. 764 first entry
  3. ↑ Oppermann, p. 120, 15. Zvu and p. 121, 2. Zvu
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 301, 15. Zvo
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 304, 8. Zvo
  6. ↑ Wagner, p. 310, bottom right column and Karst, p. 766 last entry
  7. ↑ Günter Eich, quoted in Oppermann, p. 122, footnote 16, 4th Zvu
  8. ^ Günter Eich, quoted in Vieregg, p. 491, 17. Zvo
  9. ↑ Schwitzke, pp. 195-196
  10. ↑ Oppermann, p. 120, 20. Zvo
  11. ↑ Oppermann, p. 121, 11. Zvu
  12. ↑ Oppermann, p. 122, 1. Zvo
  13. ↑ Barner, pp. 250 below - 251 above
  14. ↑ Alber, p. 127, 2. Zvo
  15. ↑ Alber, p. 128 above
  16. ↑ Martin, pp. 189-190
  17. ↑ Martin, p. 193 above