Wanda (Gerhart Hauptmann)

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Wanda is the fourth novel by the German Nobel Prize winner for literature Gerhart Hauptmann , which was written in the late winter of 1927 within two months and was published in the Vossische Zeitung in the following year under the title The Demon . The book came out in 1928 under the title Wanda .

In the artist novel, the extraordinarily talented 28-year-old sculptor Paul Haake, child of a proletarian , fetches the completely lousy 16-year-old beggar Wanda Schiebelhut from Opole from the street and makes him his wife in Wroclaw . Wanda Haake burns out several times and travels across Germany as a tightrope walker with director Balduin Flunkert's circus . The man's world is carried away by the graceful "lustful body" of this woman. When Paul learns that Wanda's son is from Baldwin, he slays his rival and dies himself in the ditch.

Gerhart Hauptmann on a painting by Lovis Corinth from 1900

action

Haake had had women before Wanda. For example, years ago there was a beautiful maid. She had had a child from him. That died soon after the birth. Haake had carried it to the grave.

1

May 28th near Görlitz : The fiancée at Breslauer Haake ran away for the first time. Haake knows from a friend from Wroclaw police commissioner that he has to follow the Flunkert traveling circus on the route Herrnhut , Muskau , Spremberg , Cottbus , Lübben and look for the tightrope walker Pipilada, the Mexican. Indeed - the sculptor meets the troupe at Königs Wusterhausen . Haake doesn't want to know Wanda, who pretends to be Catalina Godoy from Buenos Aires to the head of the office and explains that she has messed with the Flunkerts. The desperate sculptor senses "madness and owls" in Wanda's eyes. Wanda, who looks unhappy on the rope, is under contract with Flunkert. The director does not give his employee out for a large sum of money. In a change of heart, Wanda suddenly wants to be saved by Haake from the "beast" Flunkert, who drives her back onto the rope with the long whip after every fall. The supplication is in vain. Wanda still does not approve of a flicker. The sculptor stays near the circus for several weeks and becomes a drinker.

The Breslau architect Willi Maak, Haake's best friend, wants to free the sculptor from the "enslavement by Wanda" and has a detective search for the circus. Flunkert's troops advanced to Erkner via Zeuthen . Wanda explains to the architect in Erkner that her world is the rope over the ring. Modeling in an eva costume and the role of a heavy-blooded housewife in Wroclaw would no longer be an option for an artist. Maak can only take his friend home with him.

2

The city of Wroclaw pays Haake for a six-week artist trip to Rome via Florence . First of all, the wealthy, aristocratic Swede Frau Ingeström in Rome considers the stocky, broad-shouldered sculptor - a bull by nature - to be the right man for her slim, blonde daughter Carola.

Why do Mrs. Ingeström and daughter Carola leave suddenly for Stockholm ? The narrator thinks an intrigue in the small Roman artists' village is likely. In any case, Haake works tirelessly - twelve to fourteen hours a day - in his studio. After drinking too much water, the artist fell ill with typhus . Again the friend Willi Maak appears as a savior at the right time on the scene. He takes Haake to the German Hospital on the Capitol . A convalescent holiday in the Alps is inserted before the return trip to Wroclaw.

In Breslau, Haake was given a professorship at the art school. The following winter he works in Florence. Carola Ingeström will not be admitted there. Back in Breslau in the spring, he marries Wanda. The rope acrobat, on the run from the violent director Baldwin Flunkert, had previously ruefully placed herself under the protection of her fiancé, the professor. The moody Haake soon suspects a secret correspondence between his young wife and Flunkert and pursues her with his jealousy. Wanda regrets fleeing to Breslau and complains to Willi Maak that she had fallen out of the rain into the eaves. The professor forced her to do things in the studio that couldn't be said. When the Renz Circus performed in Wroclaw near the Freiburg train station , Wanda caught the artist fever. The couple goes to a performance with Willi Maak. Balduin Flunkert appears as a guest. Then Wanda disappeared from the box. At home, the woman receives such a beating from her gigantic husband that she then runs away with her jewelry at the first opportunity. The professor cries like a child and surrenders once again to the drink.

Haake relaxes nervously in the lonely forest with his old friend, the forester Adolf Ronke in Görbersdorf . His 15-year-old daughter Marie - called Mieke - usually wanders all alone through the woods there at night. Mieke abandons the stubborn forest assessor Mahlmann and falls in love with the convalescent professor. Haake returns this love and wants to get a divorce. Wanda, having returned to Flunkert, freshly trained by the director, appears as an art rider . With the help of a lawyer, the artist presents herself as the victim of her husband's injuries. The amount she claims as compensation would ruin Haake. The professor, who wants to marry the now 17-year-old Mieke, goes to Zobten , the current location of the Flunkert circus, and wants to speak to his wife who is willing to negotiate. The couple spent the night after Haake's arrival in Zobten in peace. In the days that followed, Haake enjoyed being together with Wanda and was denied when Willi Maak worried about his health.

After a while, when the Flunkert circus is performing in Bremen , Wanda feels pregnant. She will have a son from her husband, the woman enthuses. Willi Maak, who sees through the "rabble" that wants to ruin the friend financially, reproaches him.

Because Haake didn't move, Mieke, who was also expecting a child from him, was forced to marry Mahlmann, the forest assessor. In mid-June, Wanda gives birth to little Paul Haake in Weinsberg .

In the eyes of the circus people, Professor Haake appears as a horned man. They also laugh at him for investing his money in the Flunkert company. The rumor of the horned husband comes true. Haake overhears a conversation between Wanda and Flunkert, in which true fatherhood is revealed.

filming

reception

Contemporaries
  • 1927: Hans von Hülsen saw the text as a draft that still needed to be formulated in terms of language. Gerhart Hauptmann is said to have replied to his friend: "Don't you think it's good enough for a newspaper print?"
Newer
  • 1996, Leppmann: Gerhart Hauptmann wrote the “sensational novel” for financial reasons. Gerhart Hauptmann invent something new. Wanda does not seduce the men, but is the rock on which the men shattered. Leppmann sees the text, so to speak, as Gerhart Hauptmann's autobiography, on which the criticisms rebounded.
  • 1998, Marx calls Wanda, in contrast to Leppmann, on the one hand a femme fragile . On the other hand, he emphasizes that Wanda is stronger than Mieke. In response to the exaggerations in the text, Marx aptly formulates that Gerhart Hauptmann continues his own erotic experiences into the fateful. Hardly any expected cliché is left out in the artist novel - for example Haake's zeal for work, alcohol consumption and loin strength.

literature

First edition as a book

  • Wanda. Novel. 277 pages. S. Fischer, Berlin 1928

expenditure

Output used:
  • Wanda. P. 635–814 in: Gerhart Hauptmann: The great novels. 814 pages. Propylaea Verlag , Berlin 1968

Secondary literature

  • Gerhard Stenzel (Ed.): Gerhart Hauptmann's works in two volumes. Volume II. 1072 pages. Verlag Das Bergland-Buch, Salzburg 1956 (thin print), p. 1066 overview
  • Wolfgang Leppmann : Gerhart Hauptmann. A biography. Ullstein, Berlin 1996 (Ullstein-Buch 35608), 415 pages, ISBN 3-548-35608-7 (identical text with ISBN 3-549-05469-6 , Propylaen, Berlin 1995, subtitled with Die Biographie )
  • Wanda . P. 326–333 in: Friedhelm Marx : Gerhart Hauptmann . Reclam, Stuttgart 1998 (RUB 17608, Literature Studies series). 403 pages, ISBN 3-15-017608-5

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ The model for Willi Maak is said to have been Gerhart Hauptmann's friend Wilhelm Kimbel (see also Marx, p. 331, 8. Zvo).
  2. ↑ The circumstances are more complex than outlined in this article. In this context, a minor figure from Baldwin Flunkert's circle appears in the Tiber metropolis (see also Marx, p. 331 above).
  3. ↑ For example, in 1883 Gerhart Hauptmann worked as a sculptor in the German artists' colony in Rome. Haake's love affair with Wanda appears as a parallel to Gerhart Hauptmann's liaison with Ida Orloff . And the author fell ill with typhus in Rome. (Marx, p. 329 middle)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Marx, p. 328, 15. Zvo
  2. ↑ Leppmann, p. 326 middle
  3. ↑ Marx, p. 328, 2nd Zvu
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 744, 11. Zvu
  5. ↑ Edition used, p. 734, 10. Zvo
  6. ↑ Gerhart Hauptmann quoted in Leppmann, p. 328, 9. Zvo
  7. ↑ Leppmann, p. 346, 6th Zvu
  8. ↑ Leppmann, p. 326, 6th Zvu
  9. ↑ Leppmann, p. 327, 6th Zvu
  10. ↑ Marx, p. 326 above, 331 below
  11. ↑ Marx, p. 332 below
  12. ↑ Marx, p. 332 middle
  13. ^ Entry at HathiTrust