Mistris Lee

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Achim von Arnim
(1781–1831)

Mistris Lee is a short story by Achim von Arnim that appeared in the collection “Der Wintergarten” in the Realschulbuchhandlung Berlin in 1809 .

content

The beautiful young Mistris Lee separates from her husband after three years of childless marriage without divorce and from then on lives a few houses further in London. Old Mr. Lee is generously supporting his wife's new household financially. Mistris Lee is looked after by a girl and a servant. Growing up with brothers Laudon and Lockhart, Mistris Lee had actually always loved Lockhart since childhood. As a teenager, she had only played her love for Laudon - irritated by the unpolishedness of the hunter Lockhart.

Laudon had served as an officer in the West Indies for years and is returning to London. The now 23-year-old takes the old, feigned affection of the young woman at face value and worships her. Mistris Lee playfully goes into Laudon's kidnapping plan that is to lead to Valais . The occasionally insecure Laudon seeks and finds support from his always energetic brother during the preparation and implementation of the company. When things get serious - the carriage with the brothers pulls up - Mistris Lee hesitates and reveals the intention to kidnap her maid. The two servants bravely oppose the kidnappers, but are held in check by Lockhart hunter-style with the gun. During the escape, Mistris Lee and the brothers spend the night in an inn outside London. Mistris Lee is afraid of being alone in her room. Lockhart has to persuade the brother forcefully to keep his lover company overnight. Laudon impregnates Mistris Lee. The woman then goes to the landlady and tells her that she was forcibly kidnapped. The brothers are imprisoned. Mistris Lee returns to London. Mr. Lee is delighted. His wife lives with him again and gives birth to a child nine months after the kidnapping. Laudon and Lockhart are exiled to Botanybay . They manage to escape to an island. There they rule over the locals with "terrible moral rigor".

reception

  • The text is considered Arnim's first own prose work and is based on a London trial that the author attended as a spectator. Facts about Arnim's stay in London can be found at Wingertszahn.
  • Schulz goes into the winter garden (see above). Arnim took over some of the older texts of other authors literally. Mistris Lee, however, is the only work of his own in the winter garden collection.
  • Andermatt's book turns out to be a real treasure trove for analyzing the narrative. Based on the examination of the three erotic pair formations with one and the same woman, the Lucerne Germanist examines relationships to family, professional, political and even cosmic constellations in great detail.

literature

  • Gerhard Schulz : The German literature between the French Revolution and the restoration. Part 2. The Age of the Napoleonic Wars and the Restoration: 1806–1830. 912 pages. Munich 1989, ISBN 3-406-09399-X
  • Renate Moering (Ed.): Achim von Arnim. All the stories 1802–1817. Vol. 3 in: Roswitha Burwick (Hrsg.), Jürgen Knaack (Hrsg.), Paul Michael Lützeler (Hrsg.), Renate Moering (Hrsg.), Ulfert Ricklefs (Hrsg.), Hermann F. Weiss (Hrsg.): Achim von Arnim. Works in six volumes. 1398 pages. Deutscher Klassiker Verlag Frankfurt am Main 1990 (1st edition), ISBN 3-618-60030-5
  • Christof Wingertszahn: Arnim in England . P. 81-102 in: Heinz Härtl (ed.), Hartwig Schultz (ed.): The experience of other countries. Contributions to a Wiepersdorf colloquium on Achim and Bettina von Arnim . 390 pages. Walter de Gruyter, Berlin 1994, ISBN 978-3-11-014289-1
  • Michael Andermatt: Stunted life, happiness and apotheosis . The order of the motifs in Achim von Arnim's narrative. 629 pages. Peter Lang, Bern 1996, ISBN 3-906756-15-7

expenditure

Quoted text edition

  • Achim von Arnim: Mistris Lee . P. 5–31 in Konrad Kratzsch (ed.): Achim von Arnim: Erzählungen. 635 pages. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin and Weimar 1968 (1st edition)

Web links

  • The text as part of the chapter The New Amazons (Fifth Winter Evening) in the collection of novellas Der Wintergarten (Berlin 1809), pp. 200–240
  • The text at Zeno.org
  • The text in the Gutenberg-Desig project

Individual evidence

Source means the quoted text edition

  1. ↑ Information on the edition history of the Wintergarten collection can be found in Moering, pp. 1052-1071 and on Mistris Lee ibid, pp. 1060-1062. The story was probably written in Berlin at the beginning of 1809 (ibid. P. 1061 below).
  2. ^ Kratzsch in the afterword of the source, p. 608, 11th Zvu
  3. ↑ Schulz, p. 405 below
  4. ^ Kratzsch in the afterword of the source, p. 608, 12th Zvu