Story of the good Kasperl and the beautiful Annerl
The story of the good Kasperl and the beautiful Annerl is a frequently interpreted framework novella by Clemens Brentano . It first appeared in 1817 in the Gaben der Milde , edited by Friedrich Wilhelm Gubitz , and was a contribution by Brentano to a charity project “for the benefit of helpless warriors”. Brentano was inspired for the novella by the report of an acquaintance who told him about a child murder in Silesia and the suicide of a non-commissioned officer.
Brentano uses a narrative concept of the frame plot that is very common in Romanticism . He deals with it in a virtuoso manner, the first-person narrator is involved in both the internal and the framework story. The first-person narrator turns to the first-person narrator, he in turn turns to the reader.
The main characters are the writer (the first-person narrator of the framework story), the grandmother (the first-person narrator of the inner story), Kasperl and Annerl.
On a cool early summer night, a writer meets an old farmer's wife, Kasperl's grandmother. He learns from her from Sergeant Kasperl, for whom honor was the most important thing in life, and his fiancée, Annerl, who is waiting to be executed in prison as a child murderer. Kasperl shot himself at his mother's grave when he learned that his father and stepbrother had stolen from him. The grandmother doesn't want to plead for mercy, but rather ask the duke that Annerl and Kasperl should be buried next to each other in an honorable way. But the writer is so moved that he decides to plead for Annerl's pardon from the Duke. His plea for clemency is heard and he rides with his friend Grossinger to the place of execution to prevent the execution. But both are too late. Grossinger admits that he is the father of Annerl's child and later commits suicide in prison. The Duke arranges an honorable burial for Annerl and Kasperl, they should be buried next to Kasperl's mother. The grandmother dies at the funeral, and so the grandmother, her daughter, her grandson and Annerl rest next to each other. The Duke marries Grossinger's sister and orders the construction of a monument in the cemetery. It depicts wrong and right honor, grace and justice.
Brentano weaves his thoughts on the concept of honor, social constraints and the position of writers in Germany into the plot. He succeeds in creating a dense atmosphere of gloomy premonitions, Weltschmerz , strong feelings and longings.
The motive of honor
In Brentano's novella, the motif of honor takes on the function of the leitmotif. It appears a total of 107 times in history together with its compounds. The various figures simultaneously embody differentiating ideas of honor. Kasper and Annerl care too much about their honor and make it a compulsion or a duty, which limits both of them. Kasper takes his own life because he can't stand the shame that his father and stepbrother are thieves. He himself had brought her to court out of a sense of duty and asked for an honest burial. Annerl gets involved with a nobleman because of her ambition, who promises her marriage. Ultimately, she became pregnant and suffocated her child, but turned herself to court and was beheaded. However, she did not reveal the name of her seducer. The figure of the grandmother differs in its concept of honor from the other people, because she is not ambitious, but allows God alone to honor. Your only goal is an honorable grave for Kasper and Annerl. When she achieves that, she sinks to the ground and dies.
literature
- Clemens Brentano: Story of the good Kasperl and the beautiful Annerl. Verein-Buchhandlung, Berlin 1838. ( digitized and full text in the German text archive )
- Gerhard Kluge: Clemens Brentano, story of the good Kasperl and the beautiful Annerl. Texts, materials, comments . Hanser, Munich 1979. ISBN 3-446-12695-3
- Gerhard Schaub (ed.): Clemens Brentano, story of the good Kasperl and the beautiful Annerl . Reclam, Stuttgart 1990. ISBN 3-15-008186-6
