The small town
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Die kleine Stadt is a novel by Heinrich Mann , written from autumn 1907 to March 31, 1909 and published in 1909.
While a traveling opera with the participation of art-loving citizens is making a guest appearance in the small town, the priest Don Taddeo gets to know a new side, sensual desire. When the comedians move on, Alba Nardini kills her lover, the lyrical tenor Nello Gennari, and then herself out of jealousy.
Palestrina , a small town southeast of Rome in the Campagna Romana , which Heinrich Mann got to know from 1895 to 1898, served as a model for the small town.
The school of humanity
The actors
Citizen of the small town
- Reverendo Don Taddeo, priest
- Mr. Ferruccio Belotti
- Miss Alba Nardini, granddaughter of the landlord Nardini
- Mrs. Camuzzi
- Mr. Savezzo
Comedians
- Miss Italia Molesin, soprano
- Mr. Nello Gennari, lyric tenor
The people
The small town is teeming with people like a beehive. Some of the protagonists listed above are skilfully hidden by Heinrich Mann among several dozen citizens and the more manageable guest comedians. Mr Savezzo, for example, already appears among the numerous citizens in the first part of the novel. The reader soon loses sight of him. But finally Mr. Savezzo fights against the lawyer for power in the small town and loses.
The lawyer Belotti and the community secretary Ghino Camuzzi look down on the lively people as they talk on the street the morning after the fire at the inn "Zum Progress".
The confusing number of figures is unusual, but not too bad. The special thing about the novel, however, is the seething rumor mill. Crucial action almost always takes place behind the scenes. The reader usually learns about it from the mouths of bystanders. And he has to pay close attention so that he even notices decisive turns. In his five-part work, based on the pattern of ancient tragedy , the author creates tension from this unusual concept .
The Confession of Italia
It was claimed above that the reader learns relevant information from third parties. There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Sometimes Heinrich Mann shares the thoughts of a character with us verbatim. One example is the carnal lust that surges in Don Taddeo, while the “extremely decent” soprano Italia Molesin confesses to him. Most likely nothing more happened between the two of them, except for a fleeting touch of the beautiful soloist's dress during confession by the clergyman. But that is enough to plunge Don Taddeo into the deepest despair. The strictest self-mortification is useless. The voluptuous act just happened. It continues like that with the "couple". Don Taddeo watches Italia from the church window during the "fornication" and cannot look away. It is sin. Everyone sinned - Don Taddeo, Italia, the whole little town, where its citizens preferred to go to the comedians than to church. So, the priest concludes, everyone must be on fire. Because shortly after the precisely communicated train of thought by the priest the singer's accommodation really does go up in flames, we must, in accordance with some popular rumors, suspect that Don Taddeo set fire. But - it cannot be repeated enough - nothing is certain in this novel. Almost everyone suspects everyone of arson.
The two cafes or the bucket
The freedom-loving lawyer Belotti has power in the small town. The supporters of the liberal lawyer, who see themselves as the descendants of General Garibaldi , meet in the café "Zum Progress". The opponents of the freedom-loving crowd around their priest Don Taddeo in the church and after the sermon in the café "Zum heiligen Agapitus ".
The small city has older origins than Rome. The lawyer and Don Taddeo fight for power in the city. It's about fame, about principle. The point of contention is a wooden bucket, the possession of which the citizens of the small town waged a war against neighbors a few hundred years ago and shed their blood. Don Taddeo does not hand over the museum piece because it hangs in his bell tower.
The lawyer does not care so much about the urgent modernization of the fire brigade, but wants more than a new “steam injection”. So he hires a traveling opera. Although some women from the people don't like the comedians who are arriving, the people are divided into lawyers and priests, the people talk their heads hot and even beat each other, but several citizens of the small town play at the opera premiere Instrument in the village chapel, choir girls perform and there is no shortage of audience. Success proves the lawyer right.
But the power of the lawyer seems to vanish in one fell swoop when the café "Zum prograde" burns. The lawyer is said to be the arsonist, or at least to be behind the arson. The supporters promptly fall away from the lawyer and turn to Mr. Savezzo, a wicked intriguer and deceiver. It seems like Savezzo is coming to power. Don Taddeo saves Italia from the flames. The people applauded and from then on revered the priest as a saint for his courageous act. The people now think that the power of the lawyer is finally over. Moreover, the judge did not award the bucket to anyone other than Don Taddeo.
Mr. Savezzo's nasty intrigue is over when Don Taddeo takes the blame for the fire, wants to pay for the damage and declares the lawyer innocent. The lawyer and the priest are reconciled. Don Taddeo would now like to pull out the bucket. The former followers of the lawyer serve their old man again. Both parties, which were still divided but now fraternized, dismiss the comedians by escorting the opera singers on horse-drawn carts from the city to the next town. The lawyer can with satisfaction note the progress "in the school of humanity".
The shadow of Villascura
Suddenly the small town is almost empty and the stage is clear for the dramatic finale. Behind the back of the lyrical tenor Nello Gennari, Ms. Camuzzi has zealously intrigued against the young, handsome comedian. Mrs. Camuzzi was turned away by the womanizer Nello and adheres to Mr. Savezzo. After his defeat by the lawyer, who was strengthened in his power, Savezzo becomes the henchman of the "spiteful" Camuzzi. Like the comedians, he leaves the small town, but not on horseback and cart, but on foot and, at the behest of Camuzzi, passes the young Alba Nardini. She lives in Villascura with her grandfather, the "largest oil producer" and landowner Nardini. Mr. Savezzo brings Alba the dangerous knowledge of the Camuzzi. Nello has stayed in the small town and has fun with the wife of the tailor Chiaralunzi. Alba lets the long train of wagons past the Villascura, sneaks into the small town, ambushes her lover Nello and stabs him and then himself.
This finale is so dramatic because Heinrich Mann embedded the poignant story of the love between Nello and Alba in the novel as a counterpart to Viviani's play “The poor Tonietta” . That piece was performed by the opera troupe in the small town. In it Tonietta loved her Piero, who was sung by Nello. Alba, destined to be a nun by her grandfather, had really loved Nello. The pleasantly surprised reader learned parts of this moving story directly and not - as usual in this novel - from the rumor mill. Alba was also loved by Nello, but the tenor turned out to be a vagabond. For him everything was “play and adventure; - and tomorrow it's out into the world ”. According to the motto, he dropped poor Alba and went straight to the next beautiful woman.
Quote
- “Real greatness only shows in defeat”.
Testimonials
- "The small town is my favorite of my novels ... There is warmth in it, the warmth of democracy" (letter of December 13, 1909 to Ludwig Ewers, quoted in Ebersbach, p. 131).
- “Just listen: what sounds here, it's the high song of democracy” (brochure from 1909 for Insel-Verlag Leipzig (quoted in Anger, p. 118)).
reception
- On September 30, 1909, Thomas Mann wrote to his brother Heinrich: "The whole thing reads like a song of high democracy ..." (quoted in Ebersbach, p. 131) ... "It contains a lot that is contemporary in a high and advanced sense" (Quoted in the materials in Schneider, edition by Fischer Verlag 1986, p. 465, 5. Zvo).
- Hesse , a connoisseur of such localities and landscapes, admires the faithful reproduction of the local color and puzzles as to whether they are referring to Arezzo , Foligno , Bevagna or Trevi .
- Schneider refers to further reviews from the years 1909–1914 by Karl Georg Wendriner, Monty Jacobs , Lucia Dora Frost, Hedda Sauer , Paul Ernst , Maximilian Brantl, Richard Huldschiner , Ludwig Hatvany , Franz Servaes , Willy Rath, Ludwig Seifert, Eugen Kalkschmidt , Marie Holzer, Franz Hirth, Alfred Günther and Paul Kraft.
- According to Schröter (p. 66), the comical epic of the “Stolen Bucket” is taken from Alessandro Tassoni .
- According to Koopmann (p. 29) “'Die kleine Stadt' provides in many ways a counter-image to the disastrous order of Wilhelmine Germany, which gradually turned into disorder."
literature
Text output
- The small town. A novel. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1971, 402 pages.
- The small town. Novel. Study edition in individual volumes. With an afterword by Helmut Koopmann and a material appendix compiled by Peter-Paul Schneider. Fischer-TB, Frankfurt 1986 (8th edition 2011), ISBN 978-3-596-25921-2
- The small town . Frankfurt am Main 2000, ISBN 3-518-39676-5
Secondary literature
- Klaus Schröter : Heinrich Mann . Pp. 66-67. Reinbek near Hamburg 1967, ISBN 3-499-50125-2
- Sigrid Anger (Ed.): Heinrich Mann. 1871-1950. Work and life in documents and images. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1977, 586 pages.
- Volker Ebersbach : Heinrich Mann . Pp. 124-133. Philipp Reclam jun. Leipzig 1978, 392 pages.
- Brigitte Hocke: Heinrich Mann. With 62 illustrations . Pp. 44-50. Leipzig 1983, 110 pages.
- Volker Michels (Ed.): Hermann Hesse. The world in book I. Reviews and essays from the years 1900-1910. In: Hermann Hesse. All works in 20 volumes, vol. 16. Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main 1988 (2002 edition), 646 pages, without ISBN
- Helmut Koopmann in: Gunter E. Grimm , Frank Rainer Max (eds.): German poets. Life and work of German-speaking authors . Volume 7: From the beginning to the middle of the 20th century . Pp. 15-39. Stuttgart 1991, ISBN 3-15-008617-5
- Peter Sprengel : History of German-Language Literature 1900-1918. Pp. 338-339. Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-52178-9
- Gero von Wilpert: Lexicon of world literature. German authors AZ . P. 410. Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-520-83704-8
- Monika Lippke: Heinrich Mann's opera novel "The small town". Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-89975-188-8
- Jürgen Joachimsthaler: The city as a palimpsest. Heinrich Mann's symphonic novel “Die kleine Stadt” and its narrative underground. In: Heinrich Mann-Jahrbuch 27 (2009), pp. 9–39. ISBN 978-3-7950-1293-9
Individual evidence
- ^ Text edition 1971, p. 169
- ↑ Hesse in the Munich “ March ” of May 3, 1910, quoted in Michels, p. 453 middle to p. 454 above
- ^ Schneider in the edition published by Fischer Verlag 1986, pp. 484–486
- ↑ Lucia Dora Frost in the German biography
- ↑ Hedda Sauer in the German biography
- ^ Marie Holzer in the German biography
- ↑ Paul Kraft in the German biography