The invisible lodge

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Jean Paul around 1797
* 1763 † 1825

The invisible box is Jean Paul's first novel , published in January 1793 by Karl Matzdorff in Berlin.

In the princely residence town of Scheerau: The love of the young Gustav von Falkenberg for the beautiful Beata von Röper is unhappy. Gustav, a child “with a tender heart”, brought up in a Herrnhut manner, is seduced at court by the resident of Bouse.

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First part

Oberforstmeister von Knör only gives his daughter Ernestine to wife to a man who has previously defeated the young girl on the chessboard. The 37-year-old Rittmeister von Falkenberg, a very poor chess player, does the trick. The couple's happiness is clouded by another restriction. Falkenberg's mother-in-law has determined that the first child should be raised and hidden underground by a young Moravian, the Genius, for a full eight years. This is what happens to Gustav, the hero of this biography, after Ernestine gave birth to the child in the Falkenberg knight seat in Auenthal. The little boy is being hardened in an old, brick-lined cavity in the castle garden "not against the beauties of nature and the distortions of people at the same time". After eight years of upbringing “under the crust of the earth”, Gustav was released from the “moral greenhouse” and from then on he was in the care of his concerned above-ground parents. But soon afterwards the child in the forest goes astray. The boy survived this too. Gustav is safely handed over to the relieved parents by the wealthy wife Luise von Röper. At first Frau von Röper was very surprised in the forest. The boy found looked like her dear prodigal son Guido. An explanation for the similarity can be found quickly. Gustav's father, the Rittmeister, has another son. He had fathered him illegitimately, sixteen years before his marriage, with his lover Luise, and ran away. Luise was lucky in misfortune. Röper's commercial agent, “just an outward renegade of Catholicism”, had taken her as his wife. Luise had brought Guido into the marriage. Beata had emerged from Luise's connection with the commercial agent.

Gustav finds - again in the forest - his future friend Amandus, son of Doctor Zoppo from Pavia . The little Italian fared badly in Germany. A "devilish ophthalmologist" had lured the little one into the thicket to rob him of his eyesight. Fortunately, thanks to Gustav, Amandus is in the right hands. Pestilenziar Medical Councilor Dr. Fenk, who also takes care of Gustav's upbringing, is relieved to see: “He's not going blind!” And describes Amandus as his child, takes the boy under his wing. Fenk had also been Ottomar's tutor. This is the adult natural son of the ruling prince in Scheerau.

The Rittmeister insists on Gustav's military training. The Rittmeister's quiet, now 18-year-old son becomes a cadet. The "nerd who was educated underground" was not made for the profession of officer. “Gustavs Seele” is “a temperate country without storms, full of sunshine without the heat of the sun”. But "the storm months of his heart are getting closer". At court, Gustav met the resident von Bouse and her “companion” Beata, meanwhile in the 20s of his young life.

Second part

"Two chaste" young "people" - Gustav and Beata - can be found in the castle. But there is still Amandus. Beata is the lover of his heart. But Amandus has “nervous consumption” and “already hears the evening wind of his life blowing”. Shortly before his death - caused by a "nervous attack" - he brought Beata and Gustav together. However, disaster threatens from another side. Beata has too much innocence for the prince. The ruler is waiting for the opportunity to “offer the young girl a short love”. This can be found after a theater performance on the occasion of the resident's birthday. Beata, however, rejects the “Scheerau throne inmate”. The prince leaves. Gustav, however, does not have half of Beata's resilience. The innocent, “underground” educated young man succumbs the same night after the performance of the art of seduction by von Bouse. The “tainted” consequently leaves his beloved Beata. Both withdrew from the court, sick, and sought refuge with their parents.

Many months later, on the east Indian island of Teidor, the couple, who had recovered from their fair health, shyly approached. Both of them are no more than friends among all friends. Gustav had to go on a "longer legation trip" with Ottomar. Shortly after leaving Beata received the news of the accident: Gustav was in prison.

Schoolmaster Maria Wutz

Jean Paul added the story “ Life of the hilarious little schoolmaster Maria Wutz in Auenthal . A kind of idyll ” added.

Ring out

In his “ Seven Last Words ” to the reader, Jean Paul gives him consolation: “Are you still alive, mortal?… Do you know me? - I am the angel of peace and tranquility, and in your death you will see me again. I love and comfort you humans and I am with your great grief. - If it gets too big, if you are sore from your hard life: I take the soul with its wounds to my heart and carry it out of your sphere, which is fighting there in the west, and lay it slumbering on the soft cloud of the Down to death ”.

Jean Paul

Jean Paul, the author, fiction writer, Hofmeister Gustavs, lawyer, legal counsel, life descriptor and first-person narrator continually speaks aside: "Allow me to make an astute remark". Or he throws in: "I beg your pardon from the critic, if ...".

  • On page 160 the poet reveals the cards; addresses himself as "dear Jean Paul".
  • He does not divide his work into chapters, but into sectors. These should be excerpts from this world. When it becomes unreasonable, Jean Paul quickly opens a new sector "in which there is more reason".
  • On the way in the text, Jean Paul gives the reviewers and editors a hint more than once or he asks the critics for forgiveness in advance.
  • Although Jean Paul even lets the dear reader “to the language grid or into the parlor”, he is not squeamish with him. Jean Paul must have written for a few months before he has wrapped up the reader so that he can throw and pull him as he wants.
  • He is reluctant to let his characters tell stories. He prefers to keep the booklet in his hand: "As an author, I will tell again".
  • The narrative tone is mostly funny. After the knight master married his Ernestine, Jean Paul wants to be “delivered to the hero of this book in nine months”.
  • With the best will in the world, Jean Paul cannot be counted among the “rabble”. Does the first-person narrator write "we big ones ...".
  • Jean Paul knows exactly how talkative he is when, finally arriving at page 52, he implies: “Now is my story first”.
  • He has the "declensions and conjugations" firmly under control: "With me there is no free train". With all this he is well aware of his natural limit when it comes to unearthly things: "Could I paint his [Gustav's] first kiss a thousand times more burning ...". However, he is never completely speechless, not even when “some” his “heart and” his “language” is too big.
  • Annoying novelists are dismissed at the next opportunity: “We will not hear from her [the shepherdess] again. - So it will go on through the whole book… ”.
  • Now and then this “biography” of Gustav turns into that of Jean Paul, z. B., as the latter tried to hold the post of court clerk, i.e. the bailiff in Maußenbach, and also filled this position. Now he calls himself - not without pride - “government advocate” and “writer in the life-describing subject”. Or z. B. when he chats about people he “knew in Leipzig”.
  • The story of the “very rich” secret legation counselor Herr von Oefel, a competitor of Jean Paul from the guild of novels, is also woven into the story of Gustav and that of “dear Paul”. Oefel is also writing a book about Gustav! Jean Paul is omniscient. He knows z. B. what his opponent, the "Roman stone mason" Oefel, thinks. But the contra is articulated with moderation. Jean Paul describes Gustav as the hero of "two well-written books".
  • Jean Paul has great respect for four of his characters. These are Ottomar, Gustav, the Genius and Dr. Fenk.

Quotes

  • But everything beautiful is gentle .
  • Everything big or important moves slowly ... - the clouds when the weather is nice .
  • Man is never as beautiful as when he asks for forgiveness or when he himself forgives .
  • The inner man has no tongue .

Testimonials

  • On the occasion of the second edition of the novel, Jean Paul called the work on June 24, 1821 one of “his dearest children”. As early as March 17, 1800 he wrote to Josephine von Sydow: "The morning red and the morning dew of the first sensation are on their leaves, they are green, I would like to say".
  • In his apology from October 1825, Jean Paul - shortly before his death - called the fragment of the novel “a born ruin” and as early as 1792 “a corpus vile where I learned to make a novel”.
  • The title “ invisible lodge should express something that relates to a hidden society”. However, Jean Paul reveals in the same breath that the veil will only be lifted in the "closing volume". Unfortunately this is not available. The novel remains a fragment.

reception

title
  • According to Walter Höllerer, Gustav was taken prisoner as a "conspirator" [member of a lodge ].
  • Also Gert Ueding thinks of a "secret society, was arrested for his membership Gustav".
grotesque
  • Karl Philipp Moritz writes that the novel is “a translation of Rousseau's ' Emile ' into the German grotesque”.
  • Hanns-Josef Ortheil explicitly warns the reader about the Invisible Lodge , this "thicket where a lot of the unpredictable happens". With such a generally valid judgment, Ortheil agrees with Jean Paul when he, hoping for the best, initiates a lawsuit: “Heaven grant that the reader understands everything…”.
fragment
  • After Walter Höllerer , Jean Paul did not finish the invisible lodge because he was rewriting the novel under the title " Hesperus " .
  • Günter de Bruyn finds an all too human reason for the termination: Jean Paul escapes from the first to the second novel.
  • Summary of the reasons for the fragmentary character of Höllerer and de Bruyn: Escape from the born ruin , article from June 1, 2018.
  • When discussing the Invisible Lodge , Berhorst goes into the “unfinished” - almost a characteristic in Jean Paul's novels .
Quite a lot of evidence for the fragment character can be found in the text itself:
    • Z. B. when Dr. Fenk is basking his "cold interpolated body".
    • When, after Amandus' death, the reader is in the mood for the obligatory funeral scene, the suddenly dead Ottomar is carried to the grave without motivation. This is all the more surprising since Ottomar is only allowed to act very sparingly in the novel.
    • The passage: "... dried one eye with the white cloth and looked at Gustav with the second pure and pouring ..." almost borders on the ridiculous.

literature

source
  • Norbert Miller (Ed.): Jean Paul: The invisible box. A biography. Mummies. in: Jean Paul: Complete Works. Section I. First volume. Pp. 7-469. Scientific Book Society Darmstadt. License edition 2000 (© Carl Hanser Munich Vienna 1960 (5th, corr. Edition 1989), ISBN 978-3-446-10745-8 ). 1359 pages. With an afterword by Walter Höllerer (pp. 1313–1338), order number 14965-3
First edition
expenditure
  • Jean Paul: The invisible box. A biography . Reimer Berlin 1822. 2nd improved edition, 2 volumes. 40, Roman num. Pages (preface), 392, 462 pages.
  • Klaus Pauler (ed.): Jean Paul: The invisible lodge . 495 pages, linen. Verlag edition text + kritik 1981. Text of the first edition from 1793 with the variants of the edition from 1826, explanations, notes and registers, ISBN 978-3-88377-089-5
  • Jean Paul: The invisible box . Piper Munich 1986. 584 pages, ISBN 3-492-10573-4
Secondary literature

Web links

Individual evidence

References to a citation are sometimes noted as (page, line from above).

  1. ↑ Wilpert, p. 306
  2. ↑ Source (56,18)
  3. ↑ Source (415,33)
  4. ↑ Source (165,11)
  5. ^ Rampant among Jean Paul's characters: Hesperus
  6. ↑ Teidor belongs to the Moluccas , but is, typical for Jean Paul, close to the small German state Scheerau
  7. ↑ Source (411.30)
  8. ↑ Source (422)
  9. ↑ Source (467.19) and Source (468.18)
  10. ↑ Source (105,16)
  11. ↑ who "did not study law", but passed the bar exam (source (164,12))
  12. ↑ Source (329.4)
  13. ↑ Source (414.9)
  14. ↑ Source (160.9)
  15. ↑ Source (163.35)
  16. ↑ z. B. Source (189.21)
  17. ↑ Source (410,32)
  18. ↑ Small window in the monastery through which the nun speaks to a visitor
  19. ↑ Source (261,16)
  20. ↑ Source (37.9)
  21. ↑ Source (43,33)
  22. ↑ Source (46.28)
  23. ↑ Source (50.8)
  24. ↑ Source (52.7)
  25. ↑ Source (89,16)
  26. ↑ Source (143,16)
  27. ↑ Source (281,11)
  28. ↑ Source (145.3)
  29. ↑ Source (180ff.)
  30. ↑ Source (370,11)
  31. ↑ Source (258.15)
  32. ↑ Source (183ff.)
  33. ↑ Source (209,5) and s. a. (280.15)
  34. ↑ Source (212.4)
  35. ↑ Source (221.5)
  36. ↑ Source (69,21)
  37. ↑ Source (135,24)
  38. ↑ Source (139,18)
  39. ↑ Source (333,34)
  40. ↑ Source (14,16)
  41. ↑ quoted in Ueding (49,30)
  42. ↑ Source (13.5)
  43. ↑ Source (1319.28)
  44. ↑ Source (20.15)
  45. ↑ Source (20:18)
  46. ↑ Source (1326.4)
  47. ↑ Ueding (56.29)
  48. ↑ quoted in Schulz (338,26)
  49. ↑ Ortheil (44:18)
  50. ↑ Source (152) footnote 1
  51. ↑ Source (1319,18)
  52. ↑ De Bruyn (118.15)
  53. ↑ Berhorst p. 4ff.
  54. ↑ Source (288.1)
  55. ↑ Source (303)
  56. ↑ Source (412.1)
  57. ^ Brother -in-law of the Jean Paul admirer Karl Philipp Moritz