Gottfried Keller (Ricarda Huch)

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Gottfried Keller (1870)

Gottfried Keller is an essay by Ricarda Huch that appeared in 1904 by Schuster & Loeffler in Leipzig and Berlin.

The basement admirer Ricarda Huch tells stories from his vita almost a decade and a half after the poet's death and praises his work regardless of the fact that he is “praised by everyone, read by a few and only appreciated by a few”: “At Keller's works feel as if nature herself made them ... ”The man from Zurich teaches us“ to love the least thing, provided it has unadulterated life ”.

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Many Swiss - this is how Ricarda Huch begins her little biographical study - is laughed at in the world for being unpolished. But this childlike, rural closed person gathers a lot of imagination inside, "because it is not constantly wasted on the outside". In his younger years Gottfried Keller was both a “playing dreamer” and a “political creature”. His poems To the Fatherland and With a Child's Body from 1844 and 1845 bear witness to this .

Louise Rieter brings no luck to Keller in Zurich. In 1848 he went to Germany with a scholarship of 800 francs from the Swiss. In Heidelberg he goes to school with Henle , Hettner , Häusser and Ludwig Feuerbach . In Heidelberg, Keller falls in love with Johanna Kapp, the daughter of a philosopher. Johanna gives him the cold shoulder and studies painting in Munich. Keller went to Berlin in 1850 and wanted to become a playwright there. Instead he writes - also because of the money - on the Green Heinrich . The publisher Vieweg promotes the grumpy, ungrateful debutante Keller. In Berlin the poet gnaws at times of starvation. Ricarda Huch tells an anecdote about this. Once, Keller wanted to buy bread for the last penny. The baker's wife rejects the invalid coin. About the witty, aestheticizing effusions of the Berliners in their salons - Varnhagen , his niece Ludmilla Assing and Franz and Lina Duncker are mentioned - Keller mostly remained silent "in an expressive" way and thus made "a significant impression". In the Varnhagen house, it is sometimes about the countless letters from the late Rahel Varnhagen . Ricarda Huch writes about reading out these correspondence that Keller did not really like such “exposing something inner, the intrusive stirring up of what nature tends to cover up”. In any case, the guest from Switzerland admired the style of Varnhagen. In Berlin too, Keller adores a “beautiful, tall girl” - as he did in Zurich and Heidelberg. Again love turns out to be unhappy. Ricarda Huch does not reveal the girl's name; only writes that the poet met the young beauty at Duncker's (see above) and that she had become a model for Dortchen Schönfund and Lydia . Ricarda Huch shares anecdotal information about the Berlin years. This is how Keller meets the butcher Scherenberg on the Spree , whom he considers an "ignorant Hanswurst".

In 1855, Keller finally returned to his mother.

The acquaintance with Freiligrath , Semper , Vischer and Böcklin had an invigorating effect on Keller . Ricarda Huch points out Keller's correspondence with Marie Melos.

In addition to the praises of Keller's works mentioned at the beginning and throughout the essay, there are also critical tones. Regarding Martin Salander , it is noted: "... the tired poet was unable to blow the breath of life into his last work". Ricarda Huch has not withheld critical voices, even about Keller's Romeo and Juliet in the village . Emil Kuh and Mommsen would not have liked Keller's poems. A few disparaging views of Keller's writing contemporaries are also mentioned. He doesn't like Grillparzer's and Ludwig's “Brooding over the Mache”. Keller thinks an artist knows what he wants; he doesn't have to look first. And Keller clashes with C. F. Meyer's “Penchant for Mannerierheit”.

When looking at works by others and by his own, Keller always paid special attention to the inner form.

Self-testimony

Ricarda Huch wrote on March 14, 1904: "I am working on a small monograph about Gottfried Keller, with which I want to earn the money for the unfortunate trip to Rome ..."

literature

Editions of the work

  • Ricarda Huch: Gottfried Keller. [First edition]. Schuster & Loeffler, Leipzig 1904. (Series: Die Dichtung. Edited by Paul Remer . Volume 9. Book decorations by Heinrich Vogeler )
  • Edition used: Ricarda Huch: Gottfried Keller. Insel Verlag, Leipzig. (Insel Library No. 113.)
  • Karl-Maria Guth (Ed.): Ricarda Huch: Gottfried Keller . Contumax-Hofenberg, Berlin 2017. ISBN 978-3-7437-2275-0

Other literature

  • Marie Baum : Shining lead. The life of Ricarda Huch. Rainer Wunderlich Verlag Hermann Leins , Tübingen and Stuttgart 1950
  • Helene Baumgarten: Ricarda Huch. About her life and work . Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1964

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Schuster & Loeffler. Zeno.org , accessed January 2, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Marie Baum : Shining trace. The life of Ricarda Huch. Rainer Wunderlich Verlag, 1950, p. 518 (5th entry).
  3. ↑ Helene Baumgarten: Ricarda Huch. About her life and work . Hermann Böhlaus successor, Weimar 1964, p. 230 (9th entry).
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 57, 4. Zvo
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 54, 14. Zvo
  6. ↑ Edition used, p. 59, 8. Zvu
  7. ↑ Edition used, p. 4, middle
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 4, 6. Zvu
  9. ↑ To the fatherland. In: Spiegel Online . Retrieved January 2, 2019 .
  10. ↑ In the case of a child's body. In: Spiegel Online . Retrieved January 3, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Edition used, p. 10
  12. ↑ Women in Keller's Life . University of Zurich. Retrieved April 20, 2019.
  13. ↑ Gottfried Tears Simpel. In: Spiegel Online . Retrieved January 3, 2019 .
  14. ↑ Edition used, p. 15, 5th Zvu
  15. ↑ Edition used, p. 16, 12. Zvu
  16. ↑ Edition used, p. 21, 15. Zvu
  17. ↑ Edition used, p. 19, 1. Zvo
  18. ↑ Marie Melos. University of Zurich (UZH) - German Seminar, accessed on January 3, 2019 .
  19. ↑ Edition used, p. 49, 15. Zvo
  20. ↑ Edition used, p. 52, 3. Zvo
  21. ↑ Ricarda Huch, quoted in Marie Baum, p. 144, 8. Zvo
  22. ↑ The 1st – 10th Tausend was published by Insel in 1914 ( Dr. Steiner Collection ( Memento from October 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ))