Equestrian history
The equestrian story is a story by Hugo von Hofmannsthal published in 1899 . In the poet's work it is considered an exception, marking the beginning of literary modernism .
content
The story takes place in the revolutionary year of 1848 against the background of the Italian Wars of Independence . On the way to Milan, an Austrian patrol unit, led by Rittmeister Baron Rofrano, combed the then Austrian Lombardy . After successful minor skirmishes and the capture of some enemy soldiers, the squadron is in front of Milan and looks at the city, which has been left by all enemy troops. The Rittmeister decides to ride into this now defenseless city.
As they ride through the splendid streets, past the cathedral and other landmarks, accompanied by the gaze of beautiful women, the midday bells ring, the trumpets sound the general march and the seventy-eight cuirassiers present “seventy-eight pronged bare blades”.
The squadron has crossed the city and is just leaving it when Sergeant Anton Lerch thinks he sees the face of a woman he knows near the city gate. Curiously, he steps away from the squadron and sees a door open inside the house and a lush, “almost young woman” in a “somewhat destroyed morning suit” becomes visible. In the cozy, petty bourgeois apartment, he notices a stout older man who is just retiring. Lerch remembers meeting the woman many years ago in Vienna and spending time with her in the company of her lover at the time. As she smiles at him, he feels a need. He addresses her by her name Vuic and announces that he will return in a few days and stay with her. His horse tugs at the bridle and neighs after the other horses, he sits up and follows the squadron without receiving more than an embarrassed laugh from Vuic.
Under the blazing sun, Lerch indulges in erotic power fantasies in which the desire for a civil existence and military ideas are mixed. He imagines how he will amuse himself for some time with Vuic and the strange man who takes on the role of a “retired valet” and then transforms into other characters.
While the sergeant went about his daydreams, he felt a thirst “for gratuities, for ducats that suddenly fell into his pocket [...]. Because the thought of the imminent first step into the room with the mahogany furniture was the splinter in the flesh, around which everything festered with wishes and desires. "
Towards evening, when the patrol unit is planning another attack, Lerch discovers a remote village that looks tempting and arouses his desire for quick prey. With two subordinates, he breaks away from the squadron to take the village in a surprise attack. While his companions ride around the houses on both sides, he wants to ride up the village street with his pistol drawn. But his horse has to trot more slowly on the street, which is smeared with slippery fat, and Lerch is confronted with gloomy scenes: in the dead silence of the desolate place he sees dilapidated houses in which half-naked figures loiter. An old woman in dirty clothes shuffles up to him without his being able to see her face. Two bleeding rats , bitten into each other, roll onto the street, one of which gives a miserable scream that irritates his horse. A group of disgusting neglected dogs cross his path; one of them looks at the sergeant with tired and sick eyes. Lerch wants to go on, but the way is blocked by a cow, which is being dragged to the slaughterhouse by a boy on a rope and, shuddering from the haze of blood and the skin of a calf attached to the door, braces itself against its fate. The gait of his horse seems to Lerch harder and slower, so that his gaze struggles past "each of the millipedes and woodlice sitting there", the road seems to have no end and time seems to be endless.
Then Lerch sees a constable from his regiment approaching him at some distance across a bridge. When Lerch drives his horse and rides him towards him, the latter accelerates his pace and moves towards Lerch. Only when they both reach the bridge does Lerch recognize himself in the other. Horrified, he pulls his horse back and turns away, whereupon his double reacts in a mirror image and suddenly disappears. At the same moment there is another attack by the squadron. Lerch rides in the middle of the fray, hits an arm, knocks an enemy soldier off his horse and pursues a young officer on an iron horse . The officer aims his pistol at Lerch, but Lerch thrusts his saber into his mouth, “in whose small point the force of a galloping horse was compressed”, and preyed on the white horse, “which is light and graceful like a deer with its feet above his dying gentleman ".
In the haze of the setting sun, it appears to Lerch as if the red, shimmering pasture landscape was covered in large pools of blood. He rides past the troop and realizes that they haven't lost a man, but have won nine horses. With his prey, Lerch goes to the Rittmeister and reports what has happened. He only sounds absent-minded and initially orders a captured light howitzer to be sunk in a swamp.
The squadron is in high spirits due to the successful battles and seems to want to attack further enemies in the frenzy of victory. The Rittmeister, however, gazing out of sleepy eyes, orders instead that the captured horses be released. The squadron hesitates to obey the order and give up the booty. The Rittmeister draws a pistol, repeats his order a little louder, and begins to count. He looks at Lerch, who is sitting motionless on his horse and staring back at it. His consciousness is "flooded" with the pictures of the day, anger rises in him against his superior who does not grant him the noble iron mold, "such a terrible anger about the face, the voice, the demeanor and the whole existence of this person, how it can only arise in a mysterious way through years of close living together. ”The Rittmeister carelessly raises his arm, counts three and fires at the sergeant. Lerch stumbles onto his horse's neck, hit in the forehead, and falls dead to the ground. Immediately the soldiers let go of their prey horses.
Another attack on the enemy is not returned. A short time later, the squadron reached the rest of the army.
background
The story published in the Christmas supplement of the Neue Freie Presse in 1899 shows autobiographical references. In 1894 Hofmannsthal spent a year as a volunteer in Moravia and in 1896 and 1898 took part in weapons exercises in Galicia . During this time he wrote letters about filth and ugliness, misery and sadness. Hofmannsthal's military experiences and the military milieu found their way into the story of the rider as well as the other early stories Soldier's story (written in 1895/6) and The fairy tale of the 672nd night (published in 1895).
On July 23, 1898, almost half a century after the day on which the story takes place, Hofmannsthal wrote a letter to Leopold von Andrian , in which he reported his plan to become a “short equestrian story from Radetzky's campaign in 1848 write". Such exact chronological references to certain events can also be found in other works by Hofmannsthal.
The date 1899 marks the border between two centuries and describes the literary situation of the young Vienna . The intertextual orientation of the equestrian story to Heinrich von Kleist's prose , which was recognized by many interpreters, is just as striking as its avant-garde, hermetic closeness.
The author had the equestrian history reprinted several times later, but did not include it in his representative edition of the collected works of 1924 and described it as a writing exercise.
Hofmannsthal, who wanted to continue what was stylistically achieved here in the later, fragmentary Andrew's novel , has distanced himself from the modernity of equestrian history in his subsequent works . Since his break with Stefan George and during the fruitful collaboration with Richard Strauss , which was important for opera history , he has increasingly sought wide public recognition of his work. His turn to the recognized genres of comedy and opera, as well as his more accessible essay writing, show a distance from the avant-gardism of his early narrative, even though he repeatedly showed modernist tendencies in his prose , for example in the depiction of brutality .
After it appeared there were hints that it could be in the Rider story to a plagiarism act. In a diary entry Arthur Schnitzler had expressed himself about Hofmannsthal's tendency to "literary appropriations". In addition to the story of the rider , he mentions the story of the Marschall von Bassompierre's experience , whose obvious reference to Goethe ( conversations of German emigrants ) Hofmannsthal did not think he had to refer to, but made up for it later at the end of the text. Hofmannsthal, according to Schnitzler, also found the similarities strange, "but did not admit anything". The suspicion has not yet been clarified, also because a literary or historical source of the equestrian history could not be identified.
particularities
The equestrian story is considered unusual in the poet's work. The idea of the subtle, highly gifted aesthetes associated with the name Hofmannsthal since its early fame, who was believed to have been known to slide his hand over a bowl of precious gemstones while writing, is shaken by this text.
The juxtaposition of authorial and personal narrative perspectives is striking in the narrative. The puzzling behavior of the people is reminiscent of later works by Franz Kafka .
The mixture of factual reporting tone and precise description of experiences and memories, wishes and fantasies also catches the eye. While the sober opening sentence is reminiscent of a newspaper report, the cynical description of how the white horse “lifted its feet over its dying master lightly and gracefully like a deer” points to features of literary modernism.
Another striking feature of the style of the narration is the impressionistic juxtaposition of certain individual impressions , which is also reflected in the syntax of the narration. This process creates extensive and complex sentence structures in which the central main sentence disappears as well as the hero of the event.
interpretation
The story has received numerous interpretations. The answers to the question asked by Richard Alewyn : “Why does Sergeant Anton Lerch have to die?” Vary widely. In addition to work-immanent and symbolic interpretations, sociopolitical questions were also asked and the distance between the noble Baron Rofrano and the sergeant from the middle social classes was pointed out. While Volker O. Durr sees the killing of the sergeant as the "excessive reaction of a weakened and disturbed upper class", Alewyn assesses his behavior as a "revolt of the common against the noble, the ugly against the beautiful".
Other interpretations emphasize the aspect of violence . The story, which goes beyond a simple soldier's story, shows the mechanisms of violence and strategies of its relocation and redirection. After this observation, the sergeant's strange death appears as their vanishing point. The violence between the sexes as such. B. is expressed in the relationship between the subordinate Vuic and the possessive Lerch, was already thematized in Hofmannsthal's early dramas The Woman in the Window and The Wedding of Sobeide , and each presented from the perspective of the suffering woman. With the focus on violence, the narrative can be interpreted as an analysis of aggression that leads to ruin in the clash of excesses and obstacles. Two patterns of order collide with one another: the described, militarily necessary behavior of the soldiers is opposed to the inner world of the sergeant, whose dreamy special paths and erupting wishes lead to his death . Death appears ambivalent as the result of radical violence, as well as resistance to the power of the superior captain, who in the end may feel the danger of insubordination.
The two patterns of order can also be described as the military and the economic: Lerch is subject to military rules and structures of rule through his membership in the army. At the same time, desires for prosperity and financial power are awakened in him. a. in the risky attack on the village, from which Lerch is hoping for a "gratification". Both principles, military and economy, complement one another, as shown by the gain of the prey horse by killing the enemy, but do not merge without resistance: In the confrontation at the end of the story, the military order meets, represented by the Rittmeister, who is conscious of his authority Rofrano, and Lerch's economic claims, symbolized by the prey horse, which he is not ready to give away, with a fatal outcome for each other.
A number of other interpretations follow a depth psychological approach. These interpretations identify erotic and aggressive motives in the behavior of the squadron and the sergeant . The rider's claim to domination, for example, is expressed in the obscene victorious gesture of riding through Milan with prized bare blades . According to this reading, the blade motif has a phallic background. The sergeant's behavior towards the woman and his fantasies show that the Eros, which has been hindered by long suppression, needs disgust as a stimulant. At the sight of a fly crawling over the woman's hair comb, Lerch gives himself up to the thought of how he would immediately put his hand, with which he scared away the fly, on the "white, warm and cool neck". The expressions of tenderness are combined with the domination gesture of violently moving the woman's head and unquestionably announcing his billeting with her. The memories of the experiences in Vienna are also of an erotic nature. The woman, whose name already has something ambiguous ( Vuica is the Croatian word for she- wolf and is also used synonymously for whore ), fascinates him with a sticky, dull sensuality, and the thought of the room alone releases a wealth of erotic images. The strange man becomes the object of erotic fantasies of violence and transforms himself into a servant or other figures that Lerch imagines to control.
The gloomy village episode with the nightmarish images of the creature's suffering is interpreted as a representation of Lerch's inner view. Lerch's fixation on the iron mold with its beautiful and smooth movements is reminiscent of a fetish .
The demise Anton Lerch starts with the swinging out from the formation when he sees the woman's face. Although he can follow the others after a short time, the thought "of the imminent first step into the room with the mahogany furniture was the splinter in the flesh around which everything was festering with desires and desires".
The ego's encounter with itself as a doppelganger was interpreted as the announcement of one's own death. In tradition and superstition , the sight of oneself was often seen as a sign of imminent death. On the other hand, the encounter can be interpreted as a sign of mental dissociation or psychological turmoil : the sergeant's real and desired self fall apart. The doppelganger motif in Hofmannsthal's wife in the window was also a sign of approaching death.
literature
- Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Collected Works in Ten Individual Volumes, ed. by Bernd Schoeller in consultation with Rudolf Hirsch, S. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M., 1979, Vol. 7. Stories, invented conversations and letters, journeys. (Equestrian history, pp. 121-131). ISBN 359622165X
- Richard Alewyn : Two short stories. In: RA About Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Göttingen 1967. pp. 78-95
- Volker O. Durr: The death of sergeant Anton Lerch and the revolution of 1848. To Hofmannsthal's equestrian story. In: The German Quarterly 45, 1972. pp. 33-46
- Theodore Fiedler: Hofmannsthal's equestrian story and its readers. On the politics of irony. In. Germanic-Romanic monthly NF 26 (1976). Pp. 140-163.
- Mathias Mayer: Interpretations, Stories of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 1. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte, pp. 7–207, Reclam, Stuttgart, 1996
- Thomas Nehrlich: The insubordination of the sergeant Lerch. On the conflict between the economy and the military in Hofmannsthal's “Equestrian Story”. In: Hofmannsthal Yearbook on European Modernism 18 (2010), pp. 143–170.
Web links
- Equestrian story at Zeno.org .
- Equestrian history in the Gutenberg-DE project
- Wolfgang Unold: The interpretation of the 'equestrian history' as the "Rittmeister history" and its references to the subject of war in the complete works of the author Diss.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kindlers Neues Literatur-Lexikon, Vol. 7, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte , p. 1010, Kindler, Munich, 1990
- ↑ cit. based on: interpretations, stories of the twentieth century, vol. 1. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte, p. 9
- ↑ Interpretations, Stories of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 1. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte, p. 8, Reclam, Stuttgart, 1996
- ↑ cit. based on: interpretations, stories of the twentieth century, vol. 1. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte, p. 9
- ↑ Interpretations, Stories of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 1. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte, p. 7, Reclam, Stuttgart, 1996
- ↑ Interpretations, Stories of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 1. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte, p. 11, Reclam, Stuttgart, 1996
- ^ Kindler's Neues Literatur-Lexikon, Vol. 7, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte , p. 1009, Kindler, Munich, 1990
- ↑ cit. based on: Kindlers Neues Literatur-Lexikon, Vol. 7, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte , Kindler, Munich 1990, p. 1009
- ↑ Interpretations, Stories of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 1. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte, Reclam, Stuttgart 1996, p. 17
- ^ Mathias Mayer, equestrian history. In: Interpretations, Stories of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 1. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte, Reclam, Stuttgart 1996, p. 8
- ↑ Thomas Nehrlich: The insubordination of the sergeant Lerch. On the conflict between the economy and the military in Hofmannsthal's “Equestrian Story”. In: Hofmannsthal Yearbook on European Modernism 18 (2010), pp. 143–170
- ↑ Kindler's Neues Literatur-Lexikon, Vol. 7, Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte , Kindler, Munich 1990, p. 1010.
- ^ Mathias Mayer, equestrian history. In: Interpretations, Stories of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 1. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte, Reclam, Stuttgart 1996, p. 14
- ↑ Gero von Wilpert, Lexikon der Weltliteratur , Werklexikon, Reitergeschichte, pp. 1091-1092
- ^ Mathias Mayer, equestrian history. In: Interpretations, Stories of the Twentieth Century, Vol. 1. Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Reitergeschichte, Reclam, Stuttgart 1996, p. 14