Life of Quintus Fixlein

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Jean Paul, The Life of Quintus Fixlein (title 1796)

The life of Quintus Fixlein is an idyll by Jean Paul , which - created in 1794/95 - appeared in Bayreuth in 1796.

action

Anno 1791 in the village of Hukelum near the town of Flachsenfingen: the distinguished schoolboy Quintus Zebedäus Egidius Fixlein from Leipzig visits his mother Clara. The widow, an art gardener, lives in a garden shed in a castle garden.

The poor, insolvent, 25-year-old Miss Thienette, captain at Hukelum Castle, baked a large cake in honor of the visit. The orphan Thienette has a soft soul, is modest, polite and timid. Fixlein was almost brought up with her.

The Leipzig academic teacher Fixlein has already made a name for himself as a writer - for example as the author of a collection of errata in German writings. He also keeps his own biography in chronologically ordered boxes of notes. Fixlein says he is around 32 years old. He doesn't know exactly because the church book in question was destroyed in a fire. Fixlein's father, who could have provided precise information about this, died on the Sunday cantata when he was 32 years old . Fixlein himself, like the Hukelumers, lives in the superstitious notion that all the men in his family lay down to the cantata at the age of 32 and die.

After the mistress of the castle died, Thienette stood there unsupervised. In addition, the deceased had wanted to help Fixlein to the Flachsenfinger vice-rectorate . The council actually makes Fixlein deputy principal, but only because the councilors believe in the imminent death of the newly appointed. Fixlein is haunted by luck; inherits from the lady of the castle a. a. a grand bed and a chunk of money. Thus he becomes debt-free - an exception among school men - and promises Thienette marriage. Fixlein aims high. So that he can marry Thienette, he wants to become a pastor in Hukelum. In his petition to the lord of the castle in this regard, he gives good reasons and actually becomes a pastor - thanks to a confusion of names. Actually, Sub- Rector Füchslein should be appointed. But since the clerk had made a mistake in the certificate of appeal - it read "Fixlein" - the lord of the castle left it at that.

Fixlein preaches. They married on May 9, 1793, and Thienette became a mother in May 1794.

But it happens immediately afterwards. Fixlein moves into the poisonous earth shadow of death. The good superstitious mother had lied, had "hidden" the age of the dear son. As luck would have it, Fixlein finds his year of birth, faithfully recorded by the blessed father during his lifetime - in a lead box. This blow knocks the finder over. Fixlein wants to die on the sickbed.

Jean Paul, the narrator, simply interferes with the ongoing plot. He cures Fixlein by first complimenting all the superstitious in the infirmary. Only the mother is allowed to stay. After a successful cure, Jean Paul is bid farewell to Thienette with best wishes, and he walks "without a goal through forests, through valleys and over streams and through sleeping villages to enjoy the big night like a day."

shape

The narration are preceded

- the preface "Ticket to my friends" from June 29, 1795,
- the preface to the 2nd edition of August 22, 1796 and
- a must-have for girls.

The must-have part consists of the stories

- The death of an angel
- The moon.

The prefaces are tw. linked to Fixlein's story. For example, the motif of the poisonous giant snake as a symbol for the impending death from the episode “Die Mondfinsternis” (preface to the 2nd edition) is indirectly taken up again at the beginning of the 14th card box.

The actual story is called “Des Quintus Fixlein life up to our times; in fifteen card boxes ”. The narrator, who at the end - as I said - identifies himself as Jean Paul, draws from said fifteen boxes of the hero Fixlein.

"Some jus de tablets for men" are added to the story. The five texts are called

1. About the natural magic of the imagination
2. The magistrate Josuah Freudel Klaglibell against his cursed demon
3. There is no such thing as selfish love or self-love, only selfish actions
4. The rector Florian Fälbels and his primary school trip to the Fichtelberg
5. Postscript.

Under point 4, Rector Fälbel's journey, something like action is required. The schoolboy travels with his primary school students and his daughter Kordula via Töpen , Zedwitz , Hof , Schwarzenbach , Kirchenlamitz , Marktleuthen to Thiersheim . There another scholar revealed to him - the vice-principal Johann Theodor Benjamin Helfrecht from Hof ​​- that he had already documented the area that Fälbel wanted to describe. So Fälbel turns back shortly before the goal.

Quote

  • The most necessary sermon one can give for our century is to stay at home.

reception

18th and 19th centuries
  • In 1796 an anonymus criticized the pursuit of “poetic phrases”, the excessive use of “pompous expressions” and the hunt for “unbearable comparisons”. Johann Caspar Friedrich Manso, on the other hand, praised the “simple and yet pure poetry” in 1798 and Heinrich Julius Ludwig von Rohr called it in 1801 “fun small-town”. In 1817, Meißner recognized humor as the main text element. In 1839, Arnold Ruge and Theodor Echtermeyer emphasized Jean Paul's method in pursuit of the idea: the escape from finitude. Friedrich Theodor Vischer wrote in 1868 that the author had evoked the “most beautiful and purest moods” in Wutz and Quintus Fixlein . In 1870, Hermann Hettner far exceeded this great praise. He raves about the “delicate lyrical touch” that lies above the “narrow events”. This “wonderful idyll”, full of “comical mischief”, is “absolutely the most wonderful poetry by Jean Paul”. Hettner agrees with Vischer when it comes to moods. Jean Paul is not out to plot, but rather to portray moods that touch the reader or make them smile. The author achieves this “through the silent dialogue of their inner ideality with the harsh outside world”. Hettner attests the author of the Quintus Fixlein world literary status.
20th century
  • In 1913 Hugo von Hofmannsthal admitted that the text was not easy to read, but that “the distance” was “conquered” and “the near ... with an incomprehensible force, soulfully dissolved and deified”.
  • In 1974, Rudolf Augstein admired the “wonderful fantastic” Jean Paul.
  • The “resignation” shines through behind the “melancholy and cheerful” narrative, accompanied by “love, pity and better knowledge”.
  • Schulz uses the story of Rector Fälbel to prove that Jean Paul had been a Republican since 1781.
  • In the idyll, the "bourgeois tightness" is the theme.
  • Ueding deals with the interplay of ethos (character) and pathos (passion) in the narrative.
  • Brigitte Langer did her doctorate on the Quintus Fixlein in 2002 . The discussion brings detailed "To the life of Quintus Fixlein" as an "event narration". In addition, parts of the manuscript that are difficult to understand, such as the prefaces and after-speeches listed above, are subjected to a deeper, in some cases also philosophically supported, analysis. The recurring question in Jean Paul's 'book' is that of “the destiny of man to be whole”.
  • Höllerer speaks to the troubled reader from the soul when he chalked up Jean Paul "his digressive manner", "the tumultuous ideas" and the "metaphor clusters".
  • Höllerer quotes the dream piece - for example Die Mondfinsternis Max Kommerell : "The pure form of the Jean-Paul novel is the dream".
  • In all of this, Höllerer celebrates the end of the idyll as “a masterpiece of Jeanpaulian prose”.

literature

source
  • Norbert Miller (Ed.): Jean Paul: Life of Quintus Fixlein, pulled out of fifteen card boxes; together with a must and some jus de tablet. in: Jean Paul: Complete Works. Section I. Fourth Volume. Smaller narrative writings 1796–1801. Pp. 7-259. Scientific Book Society Darmstadt. License edition 2000 (© Carl Hanser Munich Vienna 1962 (4th, corr. Edition 1988), ISBN 978-3-446-10752-6 ). 1263 pages. With notes in the appendix (pp. 1141–1163) and an afterword by Walter Höllerer (pp. 1226–1251), order number 14965-3
expenditure
Secondary literature

Web links

Remarks

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

  1. ↑ Source (1142, below): Must = half of the contents of the pantry that the widow inherits.
  2. ↑ Source (1142, below): Jus de tablette = stock cube (vegetables, meat).
  3. ↑ Sprengel (341.12 from below): Maybe Julius Gustav Meissner
  4. ↑ Jean Paul's walk through the night.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Source (1245,19)
  2. ↑ Wilpert
  3. ↑ Source (191.1)
  4. ↑ Source, pp. 9 to 13
  5. ↑ Source, pp. 15 to 42
  6. ↑ Source, pp. 45 to 49
  7. ↑ Source, pp. 50 to 62
  8. ↑ Source, pp. 63 to 191
  9. ↑ Source, pp. 193 to 259
  10. ↑ Source, pp. 195 to 205
  11. ↑ Source, pp. 206-218
  12. ↑ Source, pp. 219 to 225
  13. ↑ Source, pp. 226 to 257
  14. ↑ Source, pp. 258 to 259
  15. ↑ Source (12.18)
  16. ↑ Sprengel, p. 8, 10th Zvu
  17. ^ Johann Caspar Friedrich Manso in: Sprengel, p. 18, 13. Zvo
  18. ^ Heinrich Julius Ludwig von Rohr in: Sprengel, p. 46, 4th Zvu
  19. ↑ Meißner in: Sprengel, p. 93, 8th Zvu
  20. ^ Arnold Ruge and Theodor Echtermeyer in: Sprengel, p. 143, 7. Zvo
  21. ^ Friedrich Theodor Vischer in: Sprengel, p. 206, 9. Zvo
  22. ^ Hermann Hettner in: Sprengel, p. 209, 9th Zvu
  23. ^ Hermann Hettner in: Sprengel, p. 212, 17. Zvo
  24. ^ Hugo von Hofmannsthal in: Sprengel, p. 228, 3rd Zvu
  25. ^ Rudolf Augstein in: Sprengel, p. 309, 17. Zvo
  26. ↑ de Bruyn (124.21)
  27. ↑ Ortheil (140.1-13)
  28. ↑ Ortheil (60.9)
  29. ↑ Ueding (80.8)
  30. ↑ Langer (191,11)
  31. ↑ Source (1232,32)
  32. ↑ Source (1239,4–32)
  33. ↑ Source (1243,32)
  34. ↑ Source (1241,29)
  35. ↑ Source (1245,1)