The battle omen
The Battle-Omen is the title of a short story that appeared anonymously on November 2, 1830 in the Salem Gazette . Many literary scholars attribute it to Nathaniel Hawthorne ; it would then be his first published short story and, after his novel Fanshawe (1828), his second published work at all.
content
The story is about two young men who return home from a military exercise "before our great war" and cross a frozen lake in the process. They jokingly talk about the fact that their pious Puritan ancestors were always warned in advance of coming upheavals such as threatening wars by celestial phenomena or other omina , whereas the heavenly forces seem to be neglecting this in today's times. The narrator also comments on this old superstition in a longer insertion; often soldiers, "the future dead of uncontested battles," heard military music that seemed to come from heaven itself.
When the two men take a break and deepen their conversation, they suddenly think they can hear a serene march, including cymbals, drums, the clash of weapons and Indian war chants. Increasingly frightened, they listen to this acoustic "phenomenon" that seems to pass them from east to west until it slowly fades away in the forest on the bank.
Authorship
During his lifetime, Hawthorne did not confess to the authorship of the story, unlike in the case of other early works such as An Old Woman's Tale (1830), which he also included in his later short story collections, which were also published in the Salem Gazette . It was not until 1936 that Donald Clifford Gallup demonstrated convincingly that The Battle-Omen was a work by Hawthorne, citing stylistic features, but particularly striking overlaps in the subject matter and choice of motifs with other early stories by Hawthorne as evidence. So too did The Hollow of the Three Hills (1830) an acoustic "appearance" to the object, the subject of the battle is about Omens in Old News prominently (1835). Roger Malvin's Burial (1831) also has the theme of two soldiers walking home, and marching music is a motif in several of Hawthorne's early stories, such as My Kinsman, Major Molineux (1831) and The Gray Champion (1835).
literature
expenditure
In the Centenary Edition of the Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne (Ohio State University Press, Columbus OH 1962-), the authoritative work edition, The Battle Omen was included in Volume XI ( The Snow-Image; Uncollected Tales ) edited by Donald Crowley . Roy Harvey Pearce, however, co-editor of the Centenary Edition , did not include it in his reading edition Tales and Sketches (New York 1982), which was obtained for the Library of America , because the clues for Hawthorne's authorship did not seem clear enough to him. It is also absent in numerous other collections of Hawthorne's stories; a full-length print can be found in a work in secondary literature:
- Alfred Weber : The development of the framework narratives Nathaniel Hawthorne . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1973. ISBN 3503007148
Secondary literature
- Donald Clifford Gallup : On Hawthorne's Authorship of "The Battle-Omen" . In: The New England Quarterly 9: 4 December 1936. pp. 690-699.
- Hans-Joachim Lang : Poets and punchlines. On the American narrative of the 19th century . Palm & Enke, Erlangen 1985. (= Erlanger Studies 63) ISBN 3789601632
- Alfred Weber : The development of the framework narratives Nathaniel Hawthorne . Erich Schmidt Verlag, Berlin 1973. ISBN 3503007148