Siegfried von Lindenberg
Siegfried von Lindenberg. A comic story is a satirical novel by Johann Gottwerth Müller , published in 1779. A second, expanded edition followed in 1781.
content
The novel tells the story of the Pomeranian nobleman Siegfried von Lindenberg, who rules a very small territory. He was prepared for a military career by his father and otherwise had no education at all. After his father's death, he said goodbye to the military. Since his mother was of the opinion that as a nobleman he did not need education and that he did not have to be in common with any commoners, he initially only spent his reign riding and smoking pipes. Some time after his mother's death, however, he began to let the servile schoolmaster of the village he ruled read to him from various books and newspapers. The schoolmaster's education is also very sketchy, but what he wants to hide and always has an answer ready. As a result, Siegfried has no or a wrong idea of many things.
Since Siegfried is very proud of his old nobility and says of himself that he is a nobleman “as good as the emperor”, he would like to imitate everything he learns from the newspapers about the rulers of other countries: This is how one becomes in his castle A printing works was set up, a newspaper published, a “historical partnership” and a “secret council” founded. At the end a theater is even opened and Minna von Barnhelm is performed in it.
In all of these projects, Siegfried is, without even realizing it, influenced more and more by his schoolmaster. He accumulates more and more offices, which arouses the envy of the court poet and Justiciarius: When the swineherd of the village dies and none of the peasants want to take over the job, the Justiciarius convinces Siegfried that only the schoolmaster is worthy of this high office.
style
With this story, Müller mocks not only the ignorance and arbitrariness of the princes, but B. also the servility of their subjects, the intrigue at the princely courts and the "genius". The novel is from an authorial play narrator who interrupts the course of the action again and again by comments and digressions. Some characters, including Siegfried himself, speak dialect , which was rather unusual for the literature of the time.
reception
Siegfried von Lindenberg was Müller's most successful novel - so successful that he did not publish his subsequent novels under his name, but only with the indication "by the author of Siegfried von Lindenberg".
In 1790 a comedy appeared in five acts "edited after Müller's novel frey".
In 1984 Radio Bremen produced an audio book version with Christian Wolff as speaker.
Siegfried von Lindenberg paid little attention to literary studies . Jörg Schönert sees it as an example of a " trivialization " of the satirical novel of the Late Enlightenment. Müller turns to a broad audience and mixes criticism of the time with rather burlesque jokes and situation comedy , whereby he does not do justice to his own satirical claim. Despite his weaknesses, the protagonist is portrayed as a fundamentally good person; his subjects do not suffer from his espacades - that is why the “opportunities for topical and socially significant satire are 'given away'”.
Individual evidence
- ^ Digitized at Google Books. Retrieved November 19, 2017.
- ↑ MDR Kultur, accessed on November 19, 2017.
- ↑ Jörg Schönert: Satirical Enlightenment. Constellations and crisis of satirical narration in German literature of the second half of the 18th century. Previously unpublished habilitation thesis (submitted in 1976 to Faculty 14 of the University of Munich). Chapter on Siegfried von Lindenberg : pp. 433–448.