The natural daughter
| Data | |
|---|---|
| Original title: | The natural daughter |
| Genus: | Tragedy |
| Original language: | German |
| Author: | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe |
| Publishing year: | Fall 1803 |
| Premiere: | April 2, 1803 |
| Place of premiere: | Weimar |
| people | |
|
|
The natural daughter is a tragedy in five acts by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . Written between October 1801 and March 1803, the piece premiered on April 2, 1803 in Weimar and was in print in autumn 1803.
action
First elevator
Dense forest
Eugenie is the natural, i.e. H. illegitimate daughter of the Duke and Princess. Since the mother recently passed away, the duke wants to introduce his daughter to the king. According to the Duke's will, Eugenie should emerge from the secrecy. The ruler should finally legitimize the beloved daughter. To do this, the Duke takes the first step on a driven hunt, in which Eugenie chases the deer on horseback in rocky terrain. In this daring venture, the beautiful young girl falls and lies unconscious in front of her father and king. When Eugenie came to, the king recognized her as his relatives and wanted to publicly confirm the legitimacy in the near future at a festival in the capital. But the king demands secrecy until the festival because there is resentment .
The duke puts the daughter in the picture in private. The king is weak. His mildness shows boldness . And he advises Eugenie
- Don't trust anyone, be it who it is! (V.545)
He especially points out to the daughter about her dangerous half-brother:
- My own wild son is lurking around
- The silent paths that I led you
- The goods little part that I have so far
- Turning guiltily to you, he already grudges. (V.548)
Eugenie hugs the duke. The quick goodbye in the forest is warm.
second elevator
Eugene's room, in Gothic style
The Duke's secretary, a bad tool for the ducal son's desolate ducal son (the prince who does not appear in the play himself), makes tempting, sexually tinged offers to the court master in private, which culminate in a marriage proposal. The court master, Eugenie's long-time surrogate mother, can have all of this, but not for free. The court master is supposed to kidnap Eugenie to the islands , i.e. overseas, and to return straight away. There in the tropics, Eugenie awaits a certain slow feverish death. The court master is horrified, but does not resist. Finally the secretary threatens that Eugenie will be killed if the court master does not play along.
The court master confronts Eugenie with the impending descent, which could possibly lead to death by assassinate hands . Eugenie believes that her foster mother is ill and that nothing can happen to her, the princess.
third elevator
Duke's anteroom, splendid, modern
In the meantime Eugenie is really kidnapped by the court mistress in a quick hurry , and the secretary now wants to lie to his duke. For this he has hired the corrupt world clergy. Both schemers coordinate their web of lies with each other. Eugenie be dead! fallen from the horse! The secular clergyman buried them.
The secular priest recognizes that he is an instrument of feudal absolutist nobles who, feuding one another, would undermine the fatherland and the throne . But, he accuses the secretary, others are also striving to take the place of those who rule . Despite this insight, he remains a compliant tool of the conspirators.
The secretary feigns sympathy for the painful loss that struck his duke:
- O pity! this limitless bliss,
- you have now lost this eternally fresh happiness. (V.1311)
The Duke blames himself. He had been warned when the daring rider Eugenie had fallen from the rock on horseback. And now again! Oh, if I had only seen her once more! he complains. The perfidious secretary blames the court master:
- She was badly kept with this woman. (V.1372)
The court master fled abroad in order not to have to look the duke in the face . But the Duke blames himself because he wanted to see the daughter everywhere as a master . Nevertheless, he wants to clear up the accident, wants to know everything . The Secretary responds with the tall tale of waiting at the door clerics who from the hand of death Eugenie taken and buried have.
Enter the secular priest. The Duke asks this liar
- O say: did she still speak? What did she say?
- Did she think of the father? (V.1436)
The Duke wants to see his beloved daughter again. The secular priest talked him out of it. Because Eugenie was dragged through the bushes, through rocks, disfigured and bloody, torn and shattered and broken. The desperate duke wants to chase away the secular priest. The "messenger of bad luck" wants to move away . The unhappy duke asks for forgiveness and comes to terms with the supposed death of his daughter.
Fourth elevator
Place at the port
The court master confesses to the judicial council that she should deport the noble Eugenie to the islands - against a certain death . The sailing ship is ready on the quay.
In private, the Judicial Council makes revered beauty clear what they expect in the islands: gift'ger Brodens ... angeschwollne plague. Eugenie knows from childhood what a corner of hell the islands are and asks for rescue. The judicial council, however, wants to get away. Eugenie believes in her old luck and won't let go of him. She is convinced he knows what to do. His deep, serious, friendly, cloudy look tell her that. But he sobered her: What you were is gone . The judicial council is at the mercy of the royal arbitrariness simulated by the conspirators and shouts: Let go of me! But Eugenie does not give up and wants to know what solution he has to the problem. He replies:
- I dare a lot! It is marital status! (V.2099)
Eugenie doubts that a small judicial council could compete with that power . But the judicial council knows what it wants and can do. He was prince in his house . He could not offer the honored stranger a heroic fist , but he could offer the citizen a high level of security . The aristocrat does not want to mix with a commoner.
The court counselor tells the court master that he wants to marry Eugenie.
Eugenie doesn't want to be embarked. The court master advises to bond with the honest man .
Fifth elevator
Place at the port
Eugenie asks the governor for mercy. The understanding gentleman has an ear for Eugenie's needs. As presented , the governess him a paper . The governor studies it attentively for a while and wishes you a happy journey .
Eugenie leaves no stone unturned. Now she asks the abbess to be admitted to the monastery. The sheet that the court master finally hands over to the abbess works wonders again. With the declaration: I bow low to the higher hand, (v.2568) the abbess submissively refuses any assistance. Eugenie asks the court master for the paper. She gives it to her. Eugenie looks in and recognizes the king's hand and seal! The ruler himself signed the order to ban Eugenie. The Hofmeisterin is very sorry, the iron necessity forces embarkation.
Which of the two paths should Eugenie go now? She asks the monk. The pious man advises the islands. The noble Eugenie, however, decides to marry the bourgeois judge. Renunciation is required. Eugenie wants a married life like brother and sister. Initially separated from the table and bed, Eugenie even demands greater distance from the groom, but holds out the prospect of gradual rapprochement. Since the commoner doesn't contradict a word, Eugenie wants to go to the altar with the man immediately.
Quotes
“ Yes, with the best of will we accomplish
so little because a thousand wills cross us. (V.415) "
“ The word wounds more easily than it heals. (V.1471) "
“ The hopeless is quickly announced. (V.2221) "
“ The next thing is often inexplicably distant. (V.2245) "
“ Because when a miracle happens in the world, It
happens through loving, faithful hearts. (V.2854) "
Mémoires historiques
As Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon-Conti (1762-1825) claimed, she was the illegitimate daughter of Prince Louis-François de Bourbon (1717-1776) and the Duchess of Mazarin. His own mother and half-brother would have been legitimized as a princess by Louis XV. prevented by allegedly kidnapping Stéphanie, making her disappear in a monastery, declaring her dead without further ado and finally marrying a lawyer against her will.
In 1798, Stéphanie retaliated for the alleged injustice by publishing her vita. In this Memoires historiques de Stéphanie Louise de Bourbon-Conti made Schiller in 1799 Goethe attention. The fable of the natural daughter follows Stéphanie's memoirs.
On the eve of the French Revolution
Given the choice, a pandering , but stranger man to be (the Judiciary) to marry or exiled overseas, Eugenie decided ultimately for the man: bottom of my fatherland ... I will not let you go. Because Eugenie had to hear from her king's mouth: This empire is threatened with a sudden overthrow. The king's words were:
- O this time has terrible signs:
- The low swells, the high sinks,
- As if each could only be in the other's place
- Find satisfaction of confused desires,
- Only feel happy when nothing more
- A distinction should be made between ... (V.364)
And the monk also terrified the aristocrat Eugenie:
- In the dark, the future pushes its way ... (2783)
- A roar rushes through the gloomy air
- The solid ground sways, the towers sway
- Grooved stones come off
- And so crumbles into unformed rubble
- The splendor. (V.2798)
reception
Eugenie's story doesn't end in tragedy. On the contrary, at the very end she says to the Judicial Council:
- Here is my hand: we're going to the altar. (V.2955)
No other protagonist died during the plot either. Goethe called The Natural Daughter a tragedy. So the sequel is missing. Goethe planned this, but never carried it out.
The mentioned discrepancy evoked interpretations in Goethe's followers. Wilpert (pp. 746–747) lists a number of them.
In Heinrich Mann's novel “Der Untertan”, the wife of the District President von Wulckow makes use of Goethe's material and plagiarizes it under the title “The Secret Countess”.
Testimonials
"I can only say so much that she [the natural daughter] is assumed [accepted] very young, and that I have tried to recreate the feminine being, looking up into the world, from childish, even childish naivete to heroism for hundreds of thousands To lead motifs now and then. "
"Unfortunately, the continuation of the natural daughter is still in the open ."
"In fact I do not know where the external circumstances for the continuation or even for the completion of the same [The natural daughter] should come from."
"My Eugenie is a chain of lots of motifs, and that can't make you happy on stage."
“My conditions are not the best: I was close to taking on the role of Duke in the natural daughter ; the pre-rehearsal is already bothering me enough. "
literature
Secondary literature
Sorted by year of publication
- Richard Friedenthal : Goethe - his life and his time. Pp. 485-487. R. Piper Verlag Munich 1963.
- Gerhard Schulz : The German literature between the French Revolution and the restoration. Part 1. The Age of the French Revolution: 1789–1806. Pp. 489-494. Munich 1983, ISBN 3-406-00727-9 .
- Gero von Wilpert : Goethe-Lexikon (= Kröner's pocket edition . Volume 407). Kröner, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-520-40701-9 , pp. 130, 745-747.
- Karl Otto Conrady : Goethe - life and work. Pp. 744-756. Düsseldorf and Zurich 1999, ISBN 3-538-06638-8 .
- Nicholas Boyle: Goethe. The poet in his time. Vol. 2: 1790-1803. Pp. 798, 883-884, 907-910. Frankfurt a. M. 2004, ISBN 3-458-34750-X .
source
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe: Poetic Works, Volume 5 . Pp. 699-781. Phaidon Verlag Essen 1999, ISBN 3-89350-448-6 .