Lanvâl

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Lanvâl is a drama by Eduard Stucken , which was composed in 1903. It is divided into four acts . The most successful production took place in 1911 in the Vienna Burgtheater . It belongs to the eight-part drama cycle The Grail (1924).

Dates of the drama
Title: Lanvâl
Genus: drama
Original language: German
Author: Eduard Stucken
most famous performance: 1911
Place of performance: Vienna Burgtheater
people
Lanvâl
Finngula, a swan child
Lionors
Agravin, brother of the Lionors
Arthur
Ginover , wife of Arthur
Briant, Lanvâl's brother
Bishop Baldewin, Lanvâl's uncle
Arthurian Knight
Swan children
  • Aod
  • Fiachra
  • Konn
Yard employees
  • Clarisin
  • Florida
Knight of the Round Table
Noble ladies
Crowd
Seven pages

content

Princess Lionors, a niece of King Arthur , falls in love with the knight Lanvâl, who belongs to Arthur's round table and initially reciprocates this affection. Lanvâl is known for its many glorious tournaments. Despite the fame, Lionor's brother Agravain was against this relationship from the start, considering Lanvâl to be an unreliable womanizer. When Lanvâl meets the swan girl Finngula on a lake one night together with his brother Briant, Lionors and Agravain, he falls in love with her and secretly falls in love with her. The bond with this otherworldly woman can only remain if it is kept a secret and Lanvâl remains loyal to her. Lanvâl's sudden disinterest in Lionors breaks her heart. Since she is King Arthur's niece, Lanvâl threatens to lose his knighthood, honor or even his life if he refuses to marry Lionors. He must now prove that Lionors himself is not the reason for a refusal to marry, but that he himself cannot escape his obligations. Inevitably, he betrays Finngula and his relationship and thus loses his lover by breaking his promise not to tell anyone anything. However, nobody believes Lanvâl because nobody (except Lionor's) has ever seen Finngula. The knight's staff consults what to do with him. Meanwhile, Lanvâl decides to save his honor and his life by marrying Lionors. After Lionors and Lanvâl have married, they enter the great hall in which Lanvâl's verdict is supposed to take place. However, they forestall this by identifying themselves as a married couple. After the marriage was announced, Agravain accuses Lanvâl of a double marriage , which Lanvâl denies. A mysterious black knight then appears, who is killed by Lanvâl in a duel. Only after the murder does Lanvâl realize that it was Finngula who disguised herself as a knight. He loses his mind and is ultimately killed by Agravain.

Act 1

At night Lionors travels in a small boat with her brother Agravain on the so-called Girls Lake in the vicinity of Castle Camelot to observe the mythical swan children and to meet Lanvâl at the same time. While she is still on the boat, she tells her brother that she and Lanvâl have become closer. Agravain is very angry because of the love affair between Lionors and Lanvâl and meets him with hostility when Lanvâl appears with his brother Briant. That same night Lanvâl separates from the small group unnoticed and actually sees the swan children as they bathe in human form. He then secretly steals a shirt that enables them to be transformed back into swans so that Finngula has to get closer to him while her younger brothers fly away as swans. When this happens, Lanvâl immediately falls in love with the swan girl. At this first meeting, the first kiss occurs, which is seen by Lionors. But she is silent about this incident.

Act 2

This act begins with the typical constellation of the day song : Lanvâl and Finngula have spent the night together and talk about their love and the socially enforced separation. In their conversation, we learn that Finngula magically appears in his room every evening. However, Finngula already suspects that Lanvâl cannot remain loyal to her, marry Lionors and thus betray her. If such a fraud occurs, Finngula must murder Lanvâl. Lanvâl, however, denies the impending tragedy and firmly believes in his love for Finngula. Meanwhile, Briant suspects that something is wrong with Lanvâl, consults with his uncle and together they decide to use small traps to force Lanvâl back into Lionor's arms. When it comes to the meeting with Lanvâl, Briant raises violent allegations against him that Lanvâl broke the heart of Lionors. Shortly afterwards, Agravain appears at the court, who, against his will, was commissioned to invite Lanvâl to the Whitsun tournament at Artushof. However, he refuses to appear, which is a public insult to Arthur and a violation of vassal law . Lanvâl and Agravain then rush to each other, but are held back and decide to officially fight this fight at the tournament.

Act 3

At Arthur's court, Arthur, Ginover , Bishop Baldewin and Briant decide to urge Lanvâl to marry Lionors, but Lionors now also refuses to marry Lanvâl as long as he does not do so voluntarily. The Arthurian Society's ruse is that they bet Lionor's hand as the prize of the tournament. Since Lanvâl is considered unbeaten and his sense of honor forbids him a voluntary defeat, they assume that he will be the winner and thus forced into marriage. At the same time, everyone is afraid that Agravain and Lanvâl will meet. Agravain continues to oppose his sister's marriage to Lanvâl. He detests the plans of the Artus Court. The clash between Agravain and Lanvâl takes a surprising turn, as Lanvâl defeats Agravain, but spares him and leaves him alive. As a reward for Lanvâl, Arthur wants to present him with his niece Lionor as his bride, but Lanvâl declines the offer to the dismay of all and reluctantly and forced to justify him, tells of his love affair with Finngula. Nobody believes him, so he should magically summon them as proof so that everyone can see that he is already in firm hands. But Finngula does not appear. By revealing her secret, he broke his promise to Finngula, loses her and also his right to his knight status. With a guarantee from knight Gawan , it is first discussed in the knight's staff what should happen to Lanvâl instead of judging him on the spot.

Act 4

The Round Table has gathered in a large hall to deliver Lanvâl's verdict. Lionors discusses with Lanvâl that his only salvation would be to marry her. Lanvâl decides to marry Lionors, believing Finngula to be a bygone delusion and wanting to save his honor. When the knights of the round table see the newlyweds, Agravain accuses Lanvâl of the double marriage, which Lanvâl denies. He tells in public how much his love for Finngula has confused him and scoffs at his relationship with her. Suddenly it gets dark and a shimmering woman's foot can be seen in the hall. Lanvâl recognizes the sign as his menetekel , whereupon a black knight appears in the hall. Lanvâl reacts in panic, challenges the silent knight to a duel and stabs him. Only when his counterpart is dead does he see that Finngula was the black knight. Her three younger swan brothers appear, carry her away, and leave Lanvâl broken. He goes insane, insults Lionors when she tries to stand by him. He is eventually killed by Agravain.

Medieval sources

As a framework for his drama Lanvâl, Stucken refers to the Arthurian legend and the Irish legend of Lir . Originally, in this legend, the children of Lir are transformed directly into swans by Lir's second wife, since the children come from the first marriage and they are a thorn in the side of the second wife. However, the second wife does not originally dare to kill her. In the prehistory of the drama, however, the children were drowned by her in the Maiden Lake near Camelot and return as swans. Another parallel leads to Grimm's fairy tale the six swans . In Lânval's relationship with Finngula, Stucken's main source, Marie de Frances Lai Lanval, is constructed according to the narrative pattern of the disturbed marriage : Finngula is a supernatural being and the relationship is based on a secret that must not be revealed ( taboo ). In the work of Marie de France, Lanvâl is an honorable knight who also has another lover. Here, too, he mustn't betray his love for her, because otherwise he would lose her. When one day Ginover offers himself to him, he refuses and is defamed by her as homosexual . He denies this and tells her in a dispute about his lover, who is much more beautiful than the queen. Ginover is very offended and publicly accuses him of harassing her. When Lanvâl has to appear before the king, the knighthood also guarantees him in this work and the appearance of his beloved would save him from judgment. The decisive difference between Maries de France and Stucken's “Lanvâl” is that Lanvâl is actually saved by his lover at Marie: She appears when the judgment is pronounced, proving her existence and outstanding beauty. Together they ride to Avalon .

Productions

Cast of the performance at the Vienna Burgtheater: Alfred Gerasch as Lanvâl, Else Wohlgemuth as Ginover, Lotte Medelsky as Lionors, Ida Orloff as Finngula and Ernst Pittschau as King Arthur. Director: Alfred von Berger .

The reviews of the Schaubühne zu Lanvâl were mostly negative; the most frequent criticism was the unnatural and forced language. Alfred Polgar wrote the following about the production (also in Die Schaubühne ):

“There are many praiseworthy and doubtful things to be said about the language of 'Lanvâl'. She is artful; of a virtuoso stiffness. That about the inner rhyme of the verses is only for the eye. To the ear, it is an endless sequence of short-chopped, rhyming lines that are often compulsively stretched, bent, curled and fragmented just to get to the rhyme. [...] You saw a beautiful, misty, fairytale lake wedged between cliffs, later the obligatory alpine glow, and heard the throttle clatter when her cue came. Otherwise the production bore the usual signs of an unimaginative, colorful sobriety. Most of it stood at the limit of the operatic. Stage sets in the cutest modeling arch style; Gun scenes that were moved like the cornfield in the wind, soon all to the right or all to the left or all in stiff calm; At the tournament, seven to nine women stood on the high balcony and waved their seven to nine handkerchiefs with their seven to nine handkerchiefs, while King Arthur held a cercle behind her back. When the knights stepped into the throne room immediately after the duel - the murderous and bloody horror of which is harshly described in Homeric - they looked absolutely brand new. Everything was sweet and lukewarm. Next to the seal. Without poetry, without size, without weight. Oil pressure genre. "

interpretation

What is interesting about this drama is that myth and reality face each other. The Arthurian world is presented realistically, while the legend of the swan children remains on the mythical level and is doubted by the Arthurian court, who embodies the general public in the drama. The clash of myth and reality becomes blatant when Lanvâl steals Finngula's shirt, forcing her to become real. In this scene, Lanvâl and Finngula are on an intermediate level, as both come from two different worlds and yet meet. Although Lanvâl knows the myth , he does not learn from it, but runs towards the determined tragedy. Finngula's death is concretized in the last scene with the sword fight for the stage. Lanvâl actually verbally murdered Finngula when he negated her semi-real status and took her for a dream. There is no great sympathy for the role of Lanvâl, because in the first act Agravain first characterizes him in a negative way, creating a distance between the character and the recipient. Despite the logically enlightened thinking that Lanvâl displays, winning the tournament in particular leads back to the determined fate and triggers a lack of understanding on the part of the recipient / viewer: According to general logic, Lanval would have lost and thus Finngula's betrayal can prevent. The reason for his behavior is the, contemporaries Stuckens possibly not insightful, honor concept of the Middle Ages.

The contemporary influence is evident in this piece; Lanvâl embodies the stereotype of the nervous , which has a sickly appearance due to its overdriven world perception, but which is perceived as attractive. Finngula represents the stereotype of the femme fragile through her appearance , but her behavior corresponds to the femme fatale , for example by determining the rules of marriages and by her own self-description as La Dame sans merci (Stucken 1911). Lanvâl's speech, in which he depicts Finngula as a dream, has parallels to Freud's interpretation of dreams, which was very sensational at the time . If one finally observes the figure constellation, a triangular construction similar to that of Hamlet can be recognized in Linors, Agravain and Lanvâl : the figures of lovers (Hamlet and Ophelia), the older brother who hates the lover (Laertes).

literature

  • Marie de France (1980): The Lais (Classical Texts of the Romantic Middle Ages 19). Munich: Wilhelm Fink Verlag, pp. 209–249.
  • Polgar, Alfred (1980): Lanvâl. In: Die Schaubühne, 7th year 1911, complete reprint of the years 1905–1911, Königstein / Ts .: Athenäum Verlag, pp. 19–21.
  • Stucken, Eduard (1911): Lanvâl. A drama (4th ed.). Berlin: Erich Reiss Verlag.

Remarks

The dramatic cycle of the Grail of Stucken includes the three early dramas "Gawân" (1901), "Lanvâl" (1903) and "Lanzelot" (1909), the actions of which are linked. This becomes clear on the one hand when Gawân stands up for Lanvâl in the third act on the basis of his own history from Gawân and shows understanding for him. On the other hand, the possibility of an affair between Lanzelot and Ginover is alluded to, which is already over in the next drama ( Lanzelot ). Based on Lanzelot's submissive reaction to Ginover's answers, one can speculate that the affair in “Lanvâl” is topical at the moment.

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