Melusine (other)

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Melusine is a dilogy by the author Jean Firges ( pseudonym : Hannes Anderer) who grew up in East Belgium and writes in German . It is named after the mermaid and legendary figure Melusine and consists of the two autobiographical novels Unterwegs zu Melusine (2006) and Encounter with Melusine (2007).

On the way to Melusine. Book 1

The two novels, written in first-person form, describe the protagonist's first 20 years of life (1934 to 1953) in St. Vith and the surrounding area, right up to his Abitur and his first year of study in Leuven . He comes from the medium-sized family of a municipal official with a German wife from Duisburg , a family that is loyal to Belgium, in contrast to most people in the German-speaking area and close relatives. In the region there are a few rich large farmers compared to many poor, the boundaries between the social classes are difficult to overcome, which is particularly evident in marriage plans. For most people, the struggle for their daily bread is arduous; the poverty in the eastern Ardennes is comparable to that in the Eifel . Other impressively describes the harshness of the upbringing methods in this family. The necessary separation of the son from the father is difficult for him; Resisting the father's pressure of advancement and adjustment requires great efforts on his part.

An important topic of the first book is the role of Catholicism in Ostbelgien. Since the boy might want to become a priest or a teacher, he goes to a Catholic boarding school . The mental pressure on Hannes is great, be it from classmates, be it from teachers, whose controls and peculiarities he is massively exposed to. The boy tries hard to develop his own personality . The vigorous demonization of sexuality by the sponsorship of the boarding school is particularly impressive. During the war, especially during the Ardennes offensive by the German National Socialists in the winter of 1944/45 against the Allied advance, Hannes experienced the bomb carpet in the air raid shelter. The forced incorporation of the German-speaking Belgians into the Nazi empire occurs indirectly.

Meeting with Melusine. Book 2

In the second book, the author describes his first year of studies as a 20-year-old in Leuven, a continuation of book 1. This includes sexual escapades, described without hesitation, a comprehensive walk through the western cultural history in literature, music, philosophy and psychology from antiquity to Sartre and Husserl with a focus on French culture, a current adaptation of the Melusinen myth with an emphasis on the water motif and finally the crisis - ridden self-discovery in postadolescence, remembered from age .

Others develop these topics in conversation or dream situations, or in the form of self-reflection, sometimes by reproducing diary-like entries from the experience.

The young student Hannes is spending his first year at the Catholic University of Leuven. On her discreet but very decisive initiative, he meets a young woman who is 10 years older than him, dressed as a nun. When an opportunity arises, he can spend a week with her in her luxurious villa, in which she lives a second identity, as a revenant of the Melusine from her Provençal homeland. Accompanied by music, discussions about literature and philosophy and good food, Hannes experiences his sexual initiation. The sexual games between the two of them this week are vividly told. External circumstances force it to end after this week. Hannes leaves the villa, shortly afterwards the two have sex with each other again, then it's all over. The stressful exam time comes, he collapses; Back at his parents' house in St. Vith, he made the decision to turn his back on the Belgian study system, which in his opinion was only based on drumming, and to continue his studies in Germany with a more pronounced discussion culture at the university (as he thinks). He puts this through with great effort against the resistance of his father.

The prohibition of viewing women in the Aquitaine Melusinen saga transforms other literarily into a prohibition of contact that the nun Heloise imposes on her partner Abelard after their last meeting. When he accidentally breaks through it, a crisis arises, and ultimately the student leaves Belgium and studies in Freiburg .

The author has incorporated a wealth of literary and philosophical material across the intellectual history of the West. With these materials, often of a mythological nature, he builds the novel. On the one hand he writes chronologically over the course of an academic year, on the other hand there is a great deal of philosophizing, discussion and music making, and the literary material addressed is explained. All in all, through the student's perspective, the reader learns a lot about myths, especially when they have to do with water, and about the most famous lovers in western cultural history; after all, the two protagonists call themselves “ Heloise and Abélard ”.

The intense sexual encounters between the two protagonists deliberately counteract the hostility that others saw in large parts of Catholicism in the 1950s and from which he himself suffered greatly in childhood and youth. Ultimately, he decides against the celibacy that applies to Catholic priests. So he gives up the previous professional plan, which his father especially wanted for him.

Religious-historical classification

Basically, Other sees a very negative influence of French Jansenism on Catholic sexual morality, as it has been handed down to us, and others. a. by Blaise Pascal , Jean Racine and Madame de La Fayette .

With the alleged connection to the anthropology of Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, Jansenius saw an abysmally corrupt human nature. According to him, Adam's original sin is passed on from generation to generation, namely through the desire active in the act of procreation, original sin . Sinfulness makes man blind to religious truth and dead to moral will. Therefore, for Jansenius, only direct intervention by God can bring about something good and save man; that is a negative anthropology par excellence. Jansenius uses the image (taken from Luther) of a horse being ridden by a rider. So he sees a person before him, whom either the devil or God is riding. Only when God takes the reins firmly in hand and guides and guides people with an iron hand can they develop into something good. With Jansenius, the human being appears like a marionette with two players pulling the strings: either God or the devil. In this picture, grace is understood as a direct intervention by God's hand in human life.

literature

  • On the way to Melusine. Novel. Book 1. Sonnenberg, Annweiler 2006 ISBN 3933264464
    • Excerpts in Alfred Strasser Ed .: With light luggage. An anthology of contemporary East Belgian literature. Ed. Krautgarten , (St. Vith) 2007 ISBN 2873160292 , pp. 12–28 (from the orig. Pp. 52–62 "Near death" and pp. 163–169 "War years")
  • Meeting with Melusine. Novel. Book 2. ibid. 2007 ISBN 3933264472

supporting documents

  1. actually more of a siren motif if you consider the important role music plays in seduction
  2. Grace and Education. An outline of the problem (PDF; 136 kB) by Winfried Böhm , p. 8, with reference to Joseph Sellmair: Die Pädagogik des Jansenismus, Donauwörth 1932. Basic theses of Jansenist pedagogy : Man must not follow his nature, because it is corrupted, rather he has to fight his nature down and kill it. Since the child is spoiled, it cannot do anything out of itself, but everything must proceed from God or from his earthly servants and accomplices: the educators and teachers. They have to "ride" the child in an authoritarian manner and with force, that is to say: they have to lead, monitor, control and subject them to the strictest discipline at every moment, from infancy to old age, from early morning to late at night . This "total" upbringing has to break the will of the child, to incite his industrious diligence into useful and devoted work and to keep away from him everything that can promote the love of the world: games, leisure and entertainment of all kinds, including music, poetry, theater, itself the most innocent laugh. Protective supervision, habituation that dulls one's own will, the exemplary example of the educators, strict discipline, severe punishment and useful work are the formative means of this education. The basic principle of Jansenist pedagogy can be summarized: the foreign authority, as the mediator and representative of grace, takes the place of nature and one's own decision. To oppose ecclesiastical and educational authority is to close oneself to God's grace and to sin against it.