A faithful servant of his master

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Data
Title: A faithful servant of his master
Genus: drama
Original language: German
Author: Franz Grillparzer
Publishing year: originated in autumn 1826; First published in 1830
Premiere: February 28, 1828
Place of premiere: Burgtheater , Vienna
people
  • King Andrew of Hungary
  • Gertrude , his wife
  • Bela , both children
  • Duke Otto of Meran, the queen's brother
  • Bancbanus
  • Erny , his wife
  • Count Simon , brother of Bancbanus
  • Count Peter , Erny's brother
  • the captain of the royal castle
  • two nobles of Duke Otto's entourage
  • several captains
  • a royal chamberlain
  • a doctor
  • a maid of the queen
  • Erny's maid
  • two servants of Bancbanus
  • two servants of the queen
  • a soldier

A loyal servant of his master is a drama by Franz Grillparzer . It is considered one of his weaker pieces and as his most personal piece.

Sources and suggestions

Since Grillparzer had originally planned a drama about Queen Gisela , who, as a “German”, is rejected by the Hungarians, there are some indications that it was the character of Gertrude who originally interested Grillparzer in the Bánk-bán material , the problems of a queen who, as a German, lives in a country whose population is hostile to her people. When deciding on the Bancbanus fabric, the decisive factor was that Grillparzer saw Gertrude as a much more ambiguous figure compared to Gisela, and found another interesting motif with her brother, who is involved in a relationship with a noble Hungarian woman. There are also parallels to the Lucrezia material in the relationship between Erny and Bancbanus or Erny and Otto. Erny's suicide may also be stimulated by Lucrezia's suicide.

The historical stuff

The historical Bánk bán, recte Bárkalán nembéli Bánk (died after 1228), was an influential nobleman in the Kingdom of Hungary in the first decades of the 13th century. In 1208 and 1209 as well as in 1217 he is recorded as the Ban of Slavonia , around 1212/1213 also as a palatine and around 1221/1222 as a royal judge. He was also Gspán of several counties during the first decades of the 13th century . In a legend that was shaped several times in the literature and performing arts of the 19th century, he is the (fictional) murderer of the Hungarian Queen Gertrude (killed in 1213), whereby his act is justified with the seduction or the death of his wife . The Queen is usually more or less complicit in this tragedy caused by one of her brothers. József Katona designed this material in his tragedy Bánk bán , which was translated into German in 1858. After this tragedy, Béni Egressy wrote the libretto for the Hungarian “national opera ” Bánk bán by Ferenc Erkel , which premiered in 1861. Grillparzer may not have known these works, whether he influenced them in any way is not clear.

Table of contents

After the death of his best friend, the aging nobleman Bancbanus, palatine and confidante of the Hungarian King Andreas, fulfilled his last wish and married his daughter Erny to offer her protection. Duke Otto von Meran, the brother of Queen Gertrude, openly pursues the young woman. The queen, who is very fond of her brother, wants when her husband has to go on a war campaign that Bancbanus and not Bancbanus take control of the kingdom during his absence. But King Andrew refuses and makes Bancbanus his governor. During his absence, the situation comes to a head, as Otto continues to try to seduce Erny. When Bancbanus finally wants his wife to leave the court, Otto tries to prevent this through a kidnapping, which is ultimately made possible by his sister. But Erny evades this by suicide. Since her brother and the brother of Bancbanus want to avenge their deaths, the result is an uprising against the queen and her brother and a civil war. Nevertheless, Bancbanus is loyal to the queen and her son and tries to protect them together with Otto. However, he cannot prevent the killing of the queen, who tries to save her brother at all costs. When King Andreas unexpectedly returns, he finds his country in turmoil, but since the people take sides for Bancbanus, Bancbanus manages to mediate a reconciliation between the individual parties at the last minute and convince the king to pardon the rebels . However, he refuses an increase in rank, which the king offers him out of gratitude, and retires to his castle to mourn his wife there, after he had stipulated that his only favor was to kiss the hand of the king's child.

To the plot

The structure, form and language of the drama are based on Spanish spiritual games of the Baroque period. As there, the hero is given the task of protecting the kingdom and the family of the king in the first act. In the following three acts this task is to be fulfilled, in the fifth act the king "checks" the performance of his "loyal" servant.

The play shows that it is not exactly easy to be a "faithful servant of your master". The play is not about (blind) obedience, but about responsibility. Bancbanus takes on the task of representing the king and his government, rather unwillingly, he has made no effort to be allowed to take over this task. But the king wanted it, he agreed and took on this task. As difficult as it is made for him, Bancbanus stands by what he has committed himself to. He is not a faithful servant in the sense of obedience, but a man who stands by commitments that he has made. He actually takes this responsibility very seriously. Grillparzer himself feared, however, that his piece could be misunderstood. The loyalty in the title does not mean (cadaver) obedience or servilism, but it is about loyalty in the relationship between the individual and society. At Grillparzer, service is self-renunciation and recognition of a timeless sacred order. Such a view is likely to be very strange, especially in the 21st century.

Character characteristics

The relationships between the characters are extremely interesting, especially the relationship between the married couple Erny and Bancbanus, but also between Gertrude and her brother Otto. The tragedy contains the title hero and the figure of the queen, two of Grillparzer's most profound characters.

  • Bancbanus is an unusual hero, also with a view to the time of origin: an old, not particularly attractive man, plus a real pedant (see e.g. the court scene, where he attaches great importance to where his chair has to be), in places he also shows a bit of his own sense of humor when he z. B. At the beginning, when Otto and his cronies shout in front of his apartment and throw stones at the window, have them opened so that at least the window panes remain intact or when he informs King Andreas of the death of his queen by saying that she would be his Visiting (dead) woman. His sense of duty and his ability to put his own feelings aside may seem strange from today's perspective, but Grillparzer gives him greatness and dignity.
  • Ironically, old Bancbanus and young Erny Grillparzers are the only married couple who have actually found something like happiness. Erny, young and beautiful and a little impulsive, is devoted to her husband with childlike admiration. With the increasing persecution by Otto, she seems overwhelmed. Although she is clearly not in love with him or interested in a sexual relationship with him, one of his attempts at seduction shows that she does address his ostensibly erotic fascination
  • Duke Otto is a voluptuous and weakling with questionable behaviors that are occupied as "female" (e.g. suicide threats). When the rebellion breaks out, he acts as an undignified coward who would safely sacrifice his sister and nephew to save his life. Nonetheless, his effect on Erny suggests that he obviously has an attractive appearance. Its questionable character is somewhat softened by the fact that it makes a rather immature impression.
  • Queen Gertrude has those "masculine" qualities such as energy and courage that her brother clearly lacks. She tries to compensate for her "dependency" as a woman by transferring her "wishful actions" to her brother, who is also her main focus. Ultimately, it is her psychological dependence on him that not only causes Erny's death, but also her own. A dagger thrown at him costs her life.

symbolism

  • In the first act, Bancbanus's apartment and the royal palace form two separate rooms in which the plot begins. The basic tension can be felt through their inner contradictions, as the castle does not appear to be the seat of the king, but rather the dominion of Duke Otto and his sister.
  • Bancbanus later saves the heir to the throne by covering him with his cloak.
  • The scene in which he draws his sword against the rebellious nobles, who are actually his people, and collapses, symbolizes on the one hand his powerlessness as an individual, but on the other hand also the impotence of the use of force in general.

reception

In 1825, Grillparzer was proposed to write a festival for the impending coronation of Empress Karoline Auguste as Queen of Hungary, which he refused after the historical material he proposed on Hungarian history met with disapproval from the authorities. After his trip to Germany, Grillparzer began to write the drama based on this material in the autumn of 1826. He initially wanted to dedicate this work to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , but failed to do so, perhaps out of self-doubt.

The first performance of A faithful servant of his master in the presence of Emperor Franz I on February 28, 1828 was obviously a success. A little later, however, the play was tacitly removed from the repertoire after Grillparzer refused to sell it to the emperor, who tried to prevent further performances and printing. In 1830 the tragedy was first published by Wallishausser in Vienna.

A loyal servant of his master is one of those pieces by Franz Grillparzer that have rarely been performed in Austria either. An exception was the performance at the Vienna Volkstheater under the direction of Emmy Werner in 1995 with Michael Rastl as Bancbanus and Franziska Stavjanik as Gertrude, which, however, was not a real success.

expenditure

Secondary literature

  • Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Volume 6, Munich 1988, pp. 903f.
  • Herbert W. Reichert: The Characterization of Bancbanus in Grillparzer's "A Faithful Servant of His Lord". In: Studies in Philology. Vol. 46, no. 1, Jan 1949, pp. 70-78.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ E. Brenner: German history of literature. 13th edition. Verlag Leitner & Co., Wunsiedel / Wels / Zurich 1952, p. 152.
  2. ↑ a b c grillparzer.at
  3. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Volume 6, Munich 1988, pp. 903f.
  4. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Volume 6, Munich 1988, p. 904.
  5. ↑ a b c Suggestions on this from E. Brenner: Deutsche Literaturgeschichte. 13th edition. Verlag Leitner & Co., Wunsiedel / Wels / Zurich 1952, p. 152.
  6. ^ Heinrich Laube: Afterword. In: Franz Grillparzer: Complete works: Fifth and sixth volumes: The golden fleece, King Ottokar's luck and end, a faithful servant of his master. 2016, p. 255.
  7. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Volume 6, Munich 1988, p. 904.
  8. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Volume 6, Munich 1988, p. 903.
  9. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Volume 6, Munich 1988, p. 903 and p. 904.
  10. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Volume 6, Munich 1988, p. 903 and p. 904.
  11. ^ E. Brenner: German history of literature. 13th edition. Verlag Leitner & Co., Wunsiedel / Wels / Zurich 1952, p. 152, on the other hand, assumes a failure.
  12. ↑ Annemarie Stauß: Acting and national question. Costume style and performance practice in the Burgtheater of the Schreyvogel and Laube times. Tübingen 2011, ISBN 978-3-8233-6557-0 , p. 192.
  13. ↑ Kindler's New Literature Lexicon . Study edition. Volume 6, Munich 1988, p. 903.
  14. ↑ emmywerner.at