Ponce de Leon (Brentano)

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Clemens Brentano (1778-1842)

Ponce de Leon is a comedy by Clemens Brentano that was printed by Heinrich Dieterich in Göttingen in 1803 . Towards the end of 1800 in the Propylaea, Goethe donated a price of thirty ducats for the best piece of intrigue. Then Brentano wrote the piece in the summer of 1801 and sent it on September 10, 1801 under the title “Let it please you” . None of the thirteen entries will receive a prize.

material

Brentano probably took the material from "Don Gabriel Ponce de Leon" . The story is part of the French fairy tale "Les Contes des Fées" by Madame Marie-Catherine d'Aulnoy .

people

Don Miguel Sarmiento de Torbadillo , colonel in the army in the Netherlands
Don Felix , his son in Seville
Isidora and Melanie , his daughters on his estate, three hours from Seville
Don Gabriel Ponce de Leon , young nobleman in Seville, friend of Felix
Fernand de Aquilar , young nobleman in Seville, friend of Felix
Valerio de Campaceo , poor citizen in Seville
Valeria , his daughter
Porporino , his foundling son
Isabella , noble widow in Saragossa
Lucilla , her daughter in Seville with her aunt, Felix's lover

content

1

Sarmiento has quit his service in the Netherlands and appears at his good old friend Valerio's in Seville. After a long absence in Spain, the colonel wants to have fun with his people. He longs for his children and asks Valerio about Porporino. Many years ago Sarmiento had taken care of the foundling Porporino with his friend. When Felix, Ponce and Aquilar arrive, Sarmiento introduces himself under a false name. He met Porporino on the trip. From this he knew that Ponce loved his lover. We are talking about Valerio's daughter Valeria. The father complains that Ponce always torments the daughter. Felix, pricked up by the speech of this newcomer from Flanders , asks about his father. Felix cannot recognize the wrong captain as his father because he was abandoned by him when he was three years old. Sarmiento lies to the son. The colonel is his friend. Sarmiento continues to merrily: he has a servant deliver the bad news that Doña Lucilla is on the way to her bridegroom. Felix is ​​beside himself. His lover wants to get married! Sarmiento knows a way out. Felix should kidnap Lucilla.

2

Porporino loves Valeria. At first, love is not returned. Because Valeria loves Ponce. But this in turn is in love with Isidora, one of Sarmiento's daughters. Ponce doesn't know Isidora personally, but only through his friend Felix. He is in love with her portrait. Sarmiento knows all this too. So the colonel asks his old friend Valerio to go to Isidora's house with Porporino to receive Ponce. Sarmiento lies to Ponce that he and Porporino will soon return to the army.

Valerio puts his daughter Valeria in the picture. He has to say goodbye and go to his friend's estate as a caretaker. Ponce left Seville too. That is a good thing, because Ponce had brought Valeria into the talk in Seville. Valeria, who still loves Ponce, learns from Porporino that Ponce and Aquilar are going to Isidora's estate because he loves the girl. Valeria also learns from Porporino that he is going to the estate at Sarmiento's behest.

3

Lucilla's mother, Isabella, arrives at the Sarmientos country house and is welcomed by Isidora as her father's sister, Don Sarmiento. Valerio and Porporino imagine Valeria in Seville. But she arrives masked as Mohrin Flammetta and offers Melanie, one of the master's daughters, her services. Flammetta quickly gets into conversation with Isidora and tells her about a certain Valeria in Seville and her fickle lover Ponce. Porporino appears as a doctor. Ponce and Aquilar sneak into the property as poor Flemish pilgrims.

4th

Flammetta kisses the wrong doctor. He fends off. His love lives in Seville. The two false pilgrims are talking. Ponce reports an unheard-of incident to Aquilar. Isidora mistakenly mistook him for her lover, hugged and kissed him. Melanie and Isidora also exchange ideas about the two strange pilgrims. Isidora mentions the wonderful idea of ​​her pilgrim - he was in her arms. Melanie also does not make sense of Aquilar's behavior. Aquilar returned a gift to Melanie that she doesn't know anything about. In spite of all of this, there is something noble in the conduct of the pilgrims, these “beautiful” men. First Isidora is encouraged by Flametta in her reluctance to face Ponce. Because Flametta wants to know that Ponce still loves that town girl Valeria. But then she hates Valeria who made her “poor pilgrim so unhappy”.

5

Felix seeks advice from Isabella because his friends have sneaked in as pilgrims and compromised the sisters. He also wants to prevent Lucilla's impending marriage. In Isabella's opinion, only an immediate marriage will help against the latter threat. It goes haywire. Isidora doesn't even know what predicament she is in. On the one hand she now hates Ponce because he deceived the poor town girl Valeria with love and on the other hand she loves the pilgrim. Felix closely watches the behavior of his two sisters. Love that doesn't trust itself is involved. Felix is ​​lucky in all the confusion. Lucilla wants to be his wife. But then Porporino appears - disguised as a knight - to fetch Doña Lucilla, his bride. Ponce dares everything. He draws the sword. But then he doesn't fight because Porporino unmasked. Ponce and the fake knight Porporino go on a search for Valeria. Because she is "nowhere, not in all of Seville." The Mohrin is doing the gentlemen a favor - she unmasked and "is white again". Valerio is delighted. Isidora and Melanie are pleasantly surprised by the transformation into that town girl. Then the two sisters also realize with delight that the pilgrims are Ponce and Aquilar. The kidnapped Lucilla appears, disguised as a preacher, with Felix, unmasked and hugs the bridegroom. Sarmiento reveals himself to the delight of his children Felix, Isidora and Melanie. The colonel reveals secrets: Porporino is his son and Porporino's mother Isabella is now the colonel's wife. Lucilla and Isabella would have always known everything and played along. Sarmiento entrusts his two daughters Isidora and Melanie to Aquilar and Ponce. Valeria releases Ponce and will love Porporino.

shape

Brentano builds on the power of his wit. For example, he makes Aquilar say

  • "If you think of dowry in love, you give poison to love."

Or Valeria asks:

  • “Flemish musicians are the pilgrims? Have you already made music? "Porporino replies:" Not yet, because one side [string] is torn and the other is out of tune. "

The constant change of the mostly short appearances causes unrest. In the stage instructions, the author joins in between the role text: "I have to note that ..."

Poetry

Grasp all pain
Avoid all joys
Leave all hope
Shall a loving heart full of suffering.

When Brentano received no response from Goethe to the above-mentioned submission and learned the content of the letter from Schiller to Körner mentioned below , he asked in a letter dated September 8, 1802 that the manuscript should be returned. In his accompanying letter of October 16, 1802, Goethe praised the "pleasant songs".

I wanted to tie a bouquet
Then came the dark night
Not a flower was to be found
Otherwise I would have brought it to you.
My darling stayed away
I'm so all alone
In love there is sadness,
And cannot be otherwise.

Testimonials

  • "... the Ponce who wants nothing more than to portray the funny in the willfulness of beautiful people ."
  • In his letter of July 1801, Brentano quotes Stephan August Winkelmann : The intrigue is very bad. Brentano will probably not send the manuscript to Goethe.
  • When it was sent in in September 1801, Brentano enthused in his letter to Goethe that he could easily imagine Mademoiselle Jagemann on stage as Valeria.
  • After Brentano had received the manuscript back from Goethe, he asked his brother-in-law von Savigny on December 15, 1802 for a "little review": "You should be my Goethe."
  • Brentano dedicates the printed version to his patron, the Duke of Aremberg . Brentano confessed to Winkelmann in a letter from February 1803 that the Duke understood French much better than German.
  • On November 20, 1804, Brentano wrote to Sophie Mereau that he was working with Arnim on an abridged version in order to get the piece on stage anyway. Reichardt wanted to set songs from the comedy to music.
  • A note has been received; probably from July 1813. Brentano writes in it that he had worked “with an uncommon effort” on the “performance” of the piece in Vienna.
  • On April 5, 1814, Brentano wrote to Arnim from Vienna, "on the verge of all" of his "efforts for the theater" he had met all kinds of "comedians and noble rascals."
  • After the world premiere of his "Valeria", Brentano noted : When he was standing in the scenery during this performance, someone working on the stage exclaimed from behind: "If only the cursed piece was down."
  • In his letter of January 15, 1837 to Johann Friedrich Böhmer , Brentano named the piece as a candidate if it was a question of putting together his songs.
  • In his letter of November 13, 1839 to Böhmer, Brentano is reluctant to publish his works, because the “Ponce” is still in bookshops along with other titles.

reception

  • In October 1801 Schiller wrote about the thirteen pieces mentioned above to Körner: “Not one of them is needed; most of them are completely under criticism. "
  • In 1836, in his Romantic School, Heine emphasized the “masked ball of words and thoughts”.
  • Eichendorff wrote in 1847 about the "wonderful comedy ... where a truly demonic joke plays with reality like a fountain with golden balls."
  • Ponce suffered like Brentano and was "full of unclear addictions".
  • Schulz aptly writes of high spirits and fantasy that dominated the piece and also addresses problematic issues: Lucilla and her half-brother Felix become a couple. Brentano's linguistic arrogance , meaning the pun mentioned above in the Form chapter , did not resonate with the viewer or the reader. The effort to be funny is one of the reasons for the failure of the play in its repetition.
  • Riley mentions other leading works: G. Roethe ( Brentanos Ponce de Leon, Eine Säcularstudie , Berlin 1901), G. Kluge (Dissertation, Cologne 1963), H. Arntzen ( The serious comedy. The German comedy from Lessing to Kleist , Munich 1968 ), S. Sudhof (Munich 1968), D. Borchmeyer (Zurich 1969), W. Hinck (Munich 1977) and R. Maurer-Adam (1980).

premiere

The play was never performed. A version revised by Brentano for the Vienna Burgtheater under the title "Valeria or Father List" was performed there once on February 18, 1814 and fell through. The Deutsche Bühnen Jahrbuch 1930 (p. 71) recorded a world premiere for the 1928/29 season on May 29, 1929 in the Lübeck City Theater, in an arrangement by Gust. Reason.

First edition

Clemens Brentano: Ponce de Leon. A comedy. 280 pages. Dieterich, Göttingen 1804.

literature

Quoted text edition

Web links

Individual evidence

“Source” means the quoted text edition.

  1. ↑ Feilchenfeldt, p. 41, entry "before September 22, 1803"
  2. ↑ Predating to 1804 (Schulz, p. 547, 17th Zvu)
  3. ↑ Source, p. 347
  4. ↑ Schulz, p. 547, 6. Zvo
  5. ↑ Source, p. 355, 2. Zvo
  6. ^ Vordtriede, p. 99: Letter to Tieck from January 11, 1802
  7. ↑ Brentano's cover letter to Goethe: see in Vordtriede, p. 97, 5. Zvo
  8. ↑ a b Schultz, 1999, p. 161 middle
  9. ↑ Schultz, 1999, p. 163, 14. Zvo
  10. ↑ Sarmiento still appears as an automaton (source, p. 372), as a knight and as a gypsy (source, p. 625).
  11. ↑ Ponce and Aquilar disguise themselves as Flemish pilgrims
  12. ↑ Valeria also appears as the Moor girl Flammetta
  13. ↑ Porporino also appears as a doctor
  14. ↑ Finally it turns out that Isabella is not Sarmiento's sister. In general, this comedy proves to be a confusion. Brentano gives most of the resolutions en bloc in the last appearance of the piece.
  15. ↑ Source, p. 452, line 6
  16. ↑ Source, p. 516, line 23
  17. ↑ The piece consists of 121 appearances.
  18. ↑ Source, p. 563, 2. Zvo
  19. ↑ Source, p. 462
  20. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 99, last entry: Brentano writes to Goethe, "that no criticism of the master is also a criticism."
  21. ↑ Schultz, 1999, p. 162, 8th Zvu
  22. ↑ Source, pp. 454/455
  23. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 96 above
  24. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 96, second entry
  25. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 98, 13. Zvo
  26. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 100 below
  27. ↑ Source, pp. 349–352
  28. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 102 middle
  29. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 105 below
  30. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 105 last entry
  31. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 106 below
  32. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 107 below
  33. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 93
  34. ↑ Vordtriede, p. 94
  35. ↑ Schultz, 1999, p. 166, 12. Zvo
  36. ↑ Schultz, 1999, p. 166, 8. Zvu
  37. ↑ Pfeiffer-Belli, p. 69, 5. Zvo
  38. ↑ Schulz, p. 547, 3. Zvo
  39. ↑ Schulz, p. 548 middle
  40. ↑ Schulz, p. 550 above
  41. ^ Riley, p. 141 below
  42. ↑ Source, pp. 637-796
  43. ↑ Schultz, 1999, p. 165, 8th below
  44. ↑ Feilchenfeldt, p. 93 last entry
  45. ↑ Playbill: Source, p. 970