Difficult hour

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Hard Hour is a novelistic study that Thomas Mann wrote for the Schiller Year 1905 as a commissioned work for Simplicissimus .

content

The story tells of a difficult hour in the life of the great German poet one night in 1796 when he was wrestling with the subject of his Wallenstein . The December wind hisses through the streets of Jena and Schiller suffers from his heated breast disease . The doctor would like to keep him in the room. Even Goethe , his friend-enemy, who over in Weimar is so considerate of his own health, has advised him to be more careful. But Schiller doesn't want to know anything about it. He has to write the Wallenstein now. The text lacks momentum. He couldn't be performed like that. When he wrote to Körner ( Christian Gottfried Körner [1756–1831], Schiller's sponsor), he scolded and held up against him the successful Don Carlos . Schiller contradicts the popular opinion that talent is a gift from gods. Talent is a scourge, he postulates. Then what make you great? If he disregards the torment and moves on. He suffers when he works. Selfishly he creates something special. At the same time he envy the friend-foe who over in Weimar writes sensually, divinely and unconsciously lightly. The beautiful lawsuit ends confidently:

“ And it was finished, the work of suffering. It might not turn out well, but it got done. And when it was finished, behold, it was good too. "

Remarks

In the text Thomas Mann mentions neither Schiller nor Goethe by name once. We also look in vain for the word Wallenstein . From the context, however, the reader can see without a doubt what is being discussed.

  • Sprengel points out the parallel that Thomas Mann draws from himself to Schiller.
  • Reading the short story a second time, one would like to agree with Kurzke, who even claims that Thomas Mann “was” Friedrich Schiller in a difficult hour . Anyone who knows Thomas Mann's vita knows that there is something to it. His work is anything but narrow. He has produced successfully by descending into chaos, but not staying in the dangerous area for a moment longer than absolutely necessary. Thomas Mann always focused strictly on the one piece of material that he just had on his desk. The recipe for success of the tireless Thomas Mann, who most likely forced himself to write like Schiller, can be paraphrased with such pithy encouragement: Don't get bogged down! Get ready! Forget the finished one! It's over! Start the next work! In addition, Kurzke draws attention to the hidden brother who would be in the novella. What is meant is the Secret Council over in Weimar. The comparison of the poet prince with Heinrich Mann is a little out of the ordinary.
  • Vaget points out that Thomas Mann's text contrasts favorably with the nationalist cult around Schiller in 1905. Thomas Mann's assertion that greatness follows from suffering took on criticism ungraciously during the First World War . Back then, a German did not suffer in the trenches, but fought.

expenditure

  • First printing: In «Simplicissimus» Munich, vol. 10, September 6, 1905
  • First book publication: In «Das Wunderkind», short stories. Berlin: S. Fischer [1914] (Fischer's library of contemporary novels, vol. 6)
  • Thomas Mann: All the stories. Volume 1. Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag, Frankfurt 1987, ISBN 3-10-348115-2 , pp. 364-372

literature

Web links

Wikibooks: Ambiguity as a system - Thomas Mann's demands on art: Difficult hour  - learning and teaching materials