Christian Friedrich Hunold

Christian Friedrich Hunold, alias Menantes, 1680–1721

Christian Friedrich Hunold (born September 29, 1680 in Wandersleben near Gotha, Thuringia; † August 16, 1721 in Halle / Saale ) became the most famous of the German-speaking “ gallant ” authors of the early 18th century under the pseudonym Menantes (see also galanter Novel ).

Origin and training

Hunold was born on September 29, 1680 in the Thuringian market town of Wandersleben, his father was Tobias Hunold (* 1650; † March 3, 1691), Countess Hatzfeld, tenant of the Vorwerk (today: elementary school) and mill owner, his mother: Barbara Catharina ( * 1652; † February 6, 1691). The names and life data of three siblings can be verified: Georg Heinrich (* around 1675; † 23 June 1728), Martha Katharina (* 4 October 1689; † 1765), Friedrich Wilhelm (* around 1681; † 25 May 1697) , Hunold's letters (as far as we know from Wedel in 1731) also mention a brother who died in Thorn in 1705.

At the age of ten, Hunold lost both parents in quick succession (in February and March 1691, according to the files, to a "heated illness"), the children received an (unknown) guardian, Hunold himself attended the city school in Arnstadt .

In July 1691 he continued his education at the Illustre Augusteum grammar school in Weißenfels , where he stayed until the summer of 1698. The choice of the school suggests that he achieved good results, because the Weißenfels grammar school was one of the most famous institutions in Central Germany. Christian Weise had taught here, August Bohse , who published novels under the pseudonym Talander and was the most famous of the “gallant” authors in the German language at the time, was employed by the Weißenfelser Hof and was probably connected to the grammar school put modern training in the " belles lettres " in the local language.

From 1698 to the winter of 1699/1700, Hunold studied at the University of Jena . He was enrolled in law, but his focus was on languages ​​during his undergraduate studies. A friendship with Johann August Meister (the son of the chef Christoph Meister, who was appointed by the Weißenfelser Hof), a relationship of greater importance, since Hunold had fallen in love with his sister, Johanna Sophia Meister, came from the Weißenfels time. The way her hand to stop and make a career at the Weissenfels court or in the environment, cutting himself when Hunold end of 1699 by his guardian received the news that his assets formerly 4000  Reichstalern to a residual of 80 thaler used up was .

Escape to Hamburg and career: 1700–1706

The opening of the financial situation hit Hunold as a disaster. His lifestyle in Jena had been expensive, he had drawn his inheritance in installments of 100 thalers and enjoyed fame as a “gallant student”. Good clothing, playing at least one musical instrument (he played viol and flute), skills in fencing, dancing and horse riding were all part of the reputation and had to be financed in private lessons. In the winter of 1699/1700, Hunold fled, without saying goodbye to his friends in Jena and Weißenfels, via the regular carriage connection to Hamburg, the largest city in the empire - and the city that is most likely to find himself without a completed education and without protection let earn. In Braunschweig, Hunold had to interrupt the trip because of the persistent cold and threatened to lose his remaining assets through this forced stay. The stopover was to be of importance in his life, because it was here that he met Benjamin Wedel , the bookseller's assistant to the Hamburg publisher Gottfried Liebernickel .

Wedel not only provided Hunold with winter-friendly clothing (he was gallantly dressed, "as if he wanted to go dancing", as Wedel said in his biography Hunolds, 1731), he also offered him the chance of his in Hamburg that same year, 1700 to publish the first novel at Liebernickel. Hunold had hired himself to be a clerk at a lowly attorney, a lowly lawyer, but then returned the favor with a mocking poem for a humiliation which one of the daughters of the house had given him coram publico. Hunold had met the lady in the house, paid her his respects in front of her male companions with the compliment "The lady's servant" and was fobbed off by her with the reply that he could lace her shoes if he wanted to be her servant. He wrote the mocking poem out of the situation and left the small company on the door of the room:

Politeness brings little in
      , Rosander can probably prove that,
He wanted to be so agreeable,
      And to be called a ladies' servant:
But Monsieur she said about this,
      If he
wants to call himself my servant, He clean my shoes too,
      That meant: He should don't get burned.
Morbleu! That was a sharp stab, so
      he has to think
about revange, she divides the offices among herself,
      so he will give her another one,
so that only everyone knows,
      so he cleans her shoes and she cleans his rump.

The poem went through Hamburg's coffee houses and cost Hunold his first job.

His first novel, Die Verliebte und Galante Welt (Hamburg: Liebernickel, 1700), was an immediate and unexpected business success. Liebernickel guaranteed Hunold the handsome fee of two Reichstalers per print sheet (the print sheet resulted in 16 pages in the case of novels in octave format). The secret of success was the ease with which the author, currently 20, celebrated his own generation as fashionable and equipped his novel with small, possibly true love stories - a break with the more conventional Bohse / Talander novels and their far more officious, less private subjects , as well as a connection to the current scandalous novels by French authors. (For a more in-depth look at the history of the novel, see the article Roman .)

The success brought Hunold into the spotlight in Hamburg. He gave private seminars in poetry, published poetry, worked temporarily as the editor of a political journal, and secretly sold occasional poems - commissioned poems for funerals and anniversaries, which were paid for with two ducats per piece (2 2/3 Reichstalern), but better not to participate appeared connected to their own name.

The center of fashionable life in Hamburg was the opera on the Gänsemarkt . Reinhard Keizer , Christoph Graupner , Georg Friedrich Händel , Johann Mattheson and Georg Philipp Telemann set the musical accents here over the next few decades. The Conradi was part of the ensemble. The lyricists played a central role in the opera business - they provided the textual templates, which were set to music according to the latest fashion; their texts were printed and collected and formed the German drama of the early 18th century. According to one of the novels of the time, the librettists were also responsible for directing the pieces (quotes on this in the article on Hamburg's Opera at Gänsemarkt).

Hunold became friends with Barthold Feind , with whom he shared the apartment until 1706 - a relationship that degenerated into competition and enmity. As far as can be seen, he initially fell in love with the Conradi, but then switched to their rival, he caused a sensation less with his two opera texts on biblical subjects than with his oratorio set to music by Reinhard Keizer , which was because of its conceptual proximity to opera Resistance in church circles reaped.

Attempts to get secure employment failed. In response to an unofficial tender, he went to the prince-bishop's court in Eutin in 1703, expecting to become the prince's tutor. It was only after a while that he found out secretly that he had been brought in at the instigation of the Ober-Hofmarschall, who wanted him to teach his own children. The coveted position of a prince educator was not open at all. Hunold could not sue for damages. He finally accepted the post, which enabled him to return to Hamburg and was linked to an assignment: His future employer was a book lover and was persuaded to buy a larger book in Hamburg through Hunold. Hunold did not receive the money for this, 20 Reichstaler , in cash. It was ready for him in Hamburg, where he converted it into worthless monastery manuscripts, which he sent to Eutin with the note that although these goods were not quite what he expected, the trip was no less unexpected after all. He didn't want to bring the requested fonts with him until the promised position was vacant. The friends celebrated the 20 Reichstaler with sparkling wine.

The European courts love and hero story […] by Menantes (Hamburg: G. Liebernickel, 1705). One side of the “key” is provided by the article roman a clef

Hunold gained fame beyond Hamburg with his novels: Der Verliebten und Galanten Welt (1700) was followed by Adalie (Hamburg: Gottfried Liebernickel, 1702) - the adaptation of a French novel. He gained respect as a stylist with his most extensive title: The European Court of Love and Heroes' Story (Hamburg: Gottfried Liebernickel, 1705). The subject of the key novel of public histories was potentially scandalous - Hunold addressed the Königsmarck affair , which had put Georg Ludwig von Hannover , the contender for England's crown, under political pressure, and turned the circulating reports of the murder of the Swedish nobleman into one less scandalous history - part of a gallant service offering towards Hanover.

However, he shouldn't break his neck with the politically explosive and ultimately not so explosive novel, but with his fourth title, the satyrical novel (Hamburg: Benjamin Wedel, 1706), returning to private histories . He divided his own story into two heroes in the novel. Conradi (in the novel: Caelia) fell in love with one (Tyrsates), the other (Selander) fell in love with her rival (the R. - in the novel Arismenia). Hunold had already fallen into disrepute in the run-up to the publication with his Hamburg amours. He effectively lived in a wild marriage with an opera singer. An author (Pohlmann / alias Polander), whom Hunold had attacked in a feud, had threatened him in a publication to reveal details about his disordered private life - a threat that would have made him impossible in Weißenfels as in Hamburg. Hunold had had to secretly plead for peace from the enemy. In the satyrical novel , he interpreted his "Marriage sans conscience" as a desperate yet unfulfilled love story. According to the publication, he could have married the woman he was living with without any loss of prestige.

The publication of the Satyrical Novel in June 1706 caused a scandal that forced Hunold to go into hiding in Hamburg. He had written an intimate diary for Conradi, in which she should have noted which gifts she received from which of her lovers for a "note". Readers could guess from the “headache days” that the diary noted every 28 days what the NB! each existed.

1. Jan. Get some nice tea stuff from my jester: I spoke to him for the evening and showed me appreciation beforehand.
2. –– Went to a restaurant A la Compania Dei Mercanti with Captain Sculteto, and many other officers: I am intoxicated: Tangible discourses with Scult: by accompanying me home.
3. –– Mons. Flax-Vigelius was with me, and offered me his love almost in tears.
4. –– Got a ticket from M. Pfeffer-Sacco: Picked up from him in the gondola at 11 o'clock in the night: Coming home at three o'clock: White atlas to dress. NB.
5. –– Received a letter written in blood from Lieutenant Bonifacio.
6. –– Got another one of them, in which he offered me a hey wire.
7. –– A hundred ducats from a fool who thought he was getting virginity from me.

The singer's brother, Captain Conradi, offered (if the rumors are true) a bounty of 50 thalers on Hunold, who fled to Wandersleben via Braunschweig on June 24, 1706. Jena's students meanwhile enjoyed the novel from Hamburg, Meletaon lets one of his student novel heroes experience the scandal:

"The same evening he went to the Raths-Keller to have a glass of wine, where even he met a number of Pursche who were engaged in different discourses, and then came to talk about the Romaine that sometimes such funny pranks occurred in the same, but peculiar delicacies They refer to the nice love calendar in Mr. Menante's satyrical novel, about the contents of which, because one of them has a copy with them, they laughed at themselves, and that they also made all sorts of glosses, which are told here because of the vastness . "

Orientation phase: Wandering life 1706–1708

Hunold's hope to get into conversation in Braunschweig as an employee of Duke Anton Ulrich was dashed. Anton Ulrich has been writing the volumes of the Roman Octavia for years and has included co-authors in the work. The European courts made Hunold interesting as such, but on his flight he did not have the financial means to wait for a favorable decision.

When he arrived in Wandersleben, an inheritance matter awaited him; At the same time there was the chance to live from writing as before and to work here in seclusion. Hunold began a second part of the Satyrical Novel , in which Arismenia (R., who had left Hamburg) turned out to be an adulteress, and wrote books that the student audience could hope for sales: advice on style and conduite.

On the side he toyed with the idea of ​​venturing a new beginning in Leipzig or Halle, the two modern university cities of those years.

Civil arrangement: Hall 1708–1721

Title page: Hunold, Christian Friedrich = Menantes, Satyrischer Roman, 1-2 (Stade: H. Brummer, 1710).

Hunold finally chose Halle. A short stay made it clear that he could finance himself with private seminars in Halle. His novels were celebrated in student circles, and he was considered the most gallant writer of the time. Style and demeanor were tickets to the careers of the court, which students looked for. Hunold noted that he was able to make a better living from the seminars in Halle than from the diverse work with which he had kept himself afloat in Hamburg: a “Collegio in Oratorio and Letters” held in front of 40 students brought in 200 thalers. (For comparison, he had earned 34 thalers on the 17 printed sheets, 256 pages, of his Satyrical Novel ).

In 1710 the second edition of his Satyrical Novel was published in Stade by Hinrich Brummer - Wedel, frustrated by the protracted revisions, had given the title to his publisher friend. While Hunold had initially only planned a second part, which was supposed to put his Hamburg affairs in a new light, he finally thinned the first part of the novel and removed Conradi from the scandal. R., whom he left behind in Hamburg, got off worse as an adulteress.

Hunold resumed his studies in Halle. In 1713 he publicly regretted his previous novels in the preface to his volume of poetry Academic Secondary Lessons - a step into a middle-class career, which, however, reflects something of the surprising career that the author had just put behind him.

My pen had a few words in its power: so it already thought to fly. I was young; I possessed nothing of virtues, and of sciences I had little knowledge, and at the same time I aimed high. I had heard of the eagle's flight to the sun; and thought with stupid eyes of my darkened intellect to find such a sudden path as well. But I moved with my senses among the owls, who love the night and shy away from the day, or rather keep the day before the night.

In 1714, Hunold completed his law degree with a dissertation. In the same year he married Elisabeth Zindel (or Zündel), the daughter of the "Hochfürstlich Anhalt-Bernburgischen Commissarius and court director at the Lord of Wintersheim (or Wietersheim) zu Worpzig ( Wörbzig )", with whom he should have four children, von where two sons and a daughter survived childhood.

Details from Hunold's life are relatively dense for the years of close contact with Benjamin Wedel - those are the years 1700 to 1714. Wedel published a biography in 1731, including an appendix of letters from Hunold to the publisher and friend. Data from the years 1713 to 1721, however, are sparse. The print data of titles whose publication accompanied Hunold's teaching activities and which continued to appeal to the student body are preserved here. In addition, Hunold continued to write texts that found musical compositions - including some texts that Johann Sebastian Bach set to music .

Hunold died on August 6, 1721 in Halle of tuberculosis "41 years old, 10 months and eight days" - the burial took place in the cemetery of the Ortisei community. The funeral Carmen quoted by Wedel came from student circles.

Post fame

Monument to Christian Friedrich Hunold in Wandersleben

Hunold's fame began well before his death. His novels had mainly sold in university towns. In the first decade they set a new goal in student circles: Those who had the courage created a pseudonym for themselves in the fashion "Greek names" founded by Talander and published under this name, from the anonymous student body, "Novels of native matters", student novels , preferably from own amours with daughters of the cities in which the student body was lodged. The production raised with Meletaon ( Johann Leonhard rust ) and Celander and determined the modes 1710 to 1720 before the new wave of Robinsonaden enriched novel market.

In the fashion field, Hunold was recognized by everyone as the most gallant author of this market - his resignation in 1706 had not cost him this position, on the contrary: leaving the market in an open scandal was ultimately none of Celander's anonymity students risked about Sarcander , L'Indifferent, Adamantes, to LeContent, which picked up fashion.

Among the authors who were able to compete with Hunold in the field of the novel, one can only name Selamintes, who had his second novel - the foolish and yet popular Cupid (Leipzig / Halle / Hamburg, 1713) - set in the Hamburg milieu and was there Hunold's second part of the satyrical novel courageously imitated in an opera scene.

Hunold's letter holder and his European courts gave as style ideals until the middle of the 18th century. Ultimately, however, Hunold's entire oeuvre fell victim to the redeployment of the authoring scene that Gottsched initiated at the beginning of the 1830s. According to Gottsched's criticism, it could not be acceptable for authors to write for the opera instead of writing regular dramas, nor could the “gallant conduite” appear acceptable in the long run, a conduite that proved itself in the scandal during the establishment of a poetic tradition of the Nation demanded responsibility for the nation's art.

Hunold found little respect for the poetry criticism that began in the 1830s, and was forgotten when the line of tradition in German literary history was created in the second half of the 18th century, bypassing the years 1680 to 1730. Hunold belonged neither to the Baroque nor to the Enlightenment, as the surrounding "great epochs" were finally called.

Herbert Singer's work on the gallant novel in 1961 and 1963 was Hunold's first discovery. More recent research has shown interest in the gallant than - European - style ideal and opened up views of the specific public of the early 18th century, a public with similar careers as a writer inspired the European parquet. A place for new Menantes research was created in 2005 with the Menantes memorial in Wandersleben, which seeks to inspire and focus the work on Menantes.

Works (selection)

• Die verliebte und gallante Welt , Hamburg: Liebernickel, 1700 (reprint of the 1707 edition, published by Hans Wagener: Bern 1988)
• The noble effort of idle hours. Hamburg: Liebernickel, 1702 ( digitized and full text in the German text archive )
• Chosen | new | Letters, | In addition to a | Instructions, | As in the vast majority of incidents | the pen for prosperity and the | To lead prudence | Put in the light of | Menantes. | The fourth edition with the | Other part | increased. Halle: Wäysenhaus, 1721 ( digitized version of the ULB Saxony-Anhalt )
• The European Court of Love and Heroes History , Hamburg: Gottfried Liebernickel, 1705 (reprinted by Hans Wagener and Eli Sobel: Bern 1978)
• Satyrical novel of the gallant world on the hilarious curiosite, brought to light by Menantes , Hamburg: B. Wedel, 1706 (reprinted by Hans Wagener: Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-86598-219-0 ; Internet edition : Editions Marteau )

Translations:

• Antoine de Courtin: La Civilité Moderne, Or the Courtesy of Today's World , Hamburg 1708 ( digitized version )

literature

• Benjamin Wedel: Secret Messages and Letters from Mr. Menante's Life and Writings. Cöln: Oelscher, 1731 (reprint: Zentralantiquariat der DDR, Leipzig 1977)
• Hans Schröder: Lexicon of the Hamburg writers up to the present . 8 volumes. Perthes-Besser u. Mauke, Hamburg 1851–1883
• Wilhelm Creizenach :  Hunold, Christian Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1881, pp. 419-421.
• Hermann Vogel, Christian Friedrich Hunold (Menantes). His life and works [diss.] (Leipzig, 1897).
• Herbert Singer: The gallant novel . Metzler, Stuttgart 1961.
• Herbert Singer: The German novel between baroque and rococo . Böhlau, Cologne 1963.
• Hans Wagener : The composition of the novels Christian Friedrich Hunolds [= University of California Publications in Modern Philology, 94] (Berkeley / Los Angeles, 1969).
• Herbert Singer:  Hunold, Christian Friedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 10, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1974, ISBN 3-428-00191-5 , p. 69 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Vosskamp, ​​Wilhelm, “The ideal of the gallant in Christian Friedrich Hunold”, in: August Buck et al. (Ed.): Europäische Hofkultur , 1-3 (Hamburg, 1981), pp. 61–66.
• Bernhard Fischer: “Ethos, convention and individualization. Problems of the gallant novel in Christian Friedrich Hunold's European courts and in the satyrical novel ”, German quarterly journal for literary studies and intellectual history , 63.1 (1989), pp. 64–97.
• Gerhard Dünnhaupt : "Christian Friedrich Hunold (1681-1721)", in: Personal bibliographies on Baroque prints . Volume 3. Hiersemann, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-7772-9105-6 , pp. 2184–2213 (list of works and literature)
• Anette Guse: On a poetology of love in the Hamburg Opera textbooks (1678-1738). A case study on Heinrich Elmenhorst, Christian Friedrich Hunold and Barthold Feind . Dissertation, Queen's University, Kingston (Canada) 1997.
• Olaf Simons: Marteau's Europe or the novel before it became literature. An examination of the German and English books on offer from 1710–1720 . Rodopi, Amsterdam 2001, ISBN 90-420-1226-9
• Jens-Fietje Dwars : Life and work of the formerly famous Christian Friedrich Hunold alias Menantes . quartus-Verlag, Bucha near Jena 2005, ISBN 3-931505-74-X
• Olaf Simons: Menantes. Poet between the Baroque and the Enlightenment . Biography in two parts: Palmbaum. Literary journal from Thuringia , issue 1 and 2 (2005) as well as issue 1 (2006).
• Cornelia Hobohm (ed.): Menantes. A poet's life between the Baroque and the Enlightenment , (Jena: Quartus Verlag, 2006).
• Florian Gelzer: Conversation, gallantry and adventure. Romanesque narration between Thomasius and Wieland (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2007). ISBN 978-3-484-36625-1
• Jörn Steigerwald: Polite laughter: The distinguishing comedy of court society (using the example of Christian Friedrich Hunolds 'Satyrisches Roman') , in: Anthropology and mediality of the comic in the 17th century (1580-1730) . Ed. V. Stefanie Arend et al. Amsterdam / New York 2008, pp. 325–355.
• Dirk Hempel : Hunold, Christian Friedrich . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 198-199 .
• Dirk Rose: Conduite and Text. Paradigms of a gallant literary model in the work of Christian Friedrich Hunold (Menantes) . De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2012 (Early Modern Period 167). ISBN 978-3-11-026471-5
• Jörg Krämer: From the “rhetorical” to the “musical” paradigm? On the function of music in Christian Friedrich Hunold's poetry , in: "Collected and put to the light". Poetry, Theology, and Music in Anthologies of the Early 18th Century . Ed. V. Dirk Niefanger, Dirk Rose. Olms, Hildesheim 2019, ISBN 978-3-487-15794-8 , pp. 241-270.

Web links

Commons : Christian Friedrich Hunold  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikisource: Christian Friedrich Hunold  - Sources and full texts

• Literature by and about Christian Friedrich Hunold in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Christian Friedrich Hunold  in the German Digital Library
• Digitized prints by Christian Friedrich Hunold in the catalog of the Herzog August Library
• Works by Christian Friedrich Hunold at Zeno.org .
• Works by Christian Friedrich Hunold in the Gutenberg-DE project
• biography

swell

1. ↑ Reproduced in Benjamin Wedel's Secret Messages and Letters from Mr. Menante's Life and Writings Cöln 1731, pp. 12-13.
2. ↑ Benjamin Wedel does not write out the name of the lady in his biography in 1731. Hans Schröder identified R. as the "Riemschneider" in the lexicon of Hamburg writers up to the present (1851–1883), p. 432. The assignment may not be certain. Hans Joachim Marx / Dorothea Schröder, The Hamburg Gänsemarkt Opera. Catalog of Text Books (1678-1748) (Laaber, 1995) name only two male singers with this name. Female alternatives would be Mad. Reinkin (verified 1725), a Mad. Rhedern (verified 1707), Mad. Rischmüller or Richmöller (verified 1694). Mad. Angiola Romani (proven 1743/44/45) comes too late.
3. ↑ Menantes, Satyrischer Roman (1706), p. 207.
4. ↑ Johann Loenhard rust (Meletaon) Look Square (1711), vol. 1 p 318
5. ^ Menante's academic auxiliary hours of all kinds of new poems (Halle / Leipzig: JF Zeitler, 1713), preface.

Jens-Fietje Dwars and Detlef Ignasiak recently researched the biographical sources as part of the establishment of the Menantes memorial in Wandersleben . Information can be obtained from there.

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on March 1, 2006 .