Christmas ghosts

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Christmas spirits is a novella by Wilhelm Raabe , which was written in October 1857 and published in March 1858 in the Stuttgart Hausbl Blätter by Edmund Hoefer . The book edition was published by Ernst Schotte in Berlin in 1859. Meyen gives four reviews from the years 1860 to 1911.

content

The young journalist Dr. Karl Theodor Hinkelmann is invited to Bureaustraße 96 on December 23rd. The miserable poet Frau Privy Councilor von Weißvogel is hoping for a favorable review of her latest work in Hinkelmann's sheet “Chameleon”. Unfortunately, Theobul Raimund Weitenweber - that is Hinkelmann's friend - panned the creation of the secret councilor. So there will be no renewed invitation to that salon for the upcoming Christmas Eve. Hinkelmann would have liked to go to the writing lady - if only because of the charming daughters. The house also has a tasty Burgundy.

Hinkelmann now has to spend Christmas Eve in his dreary dwelling. Before that he buys a child's doll filled with bran on Christmas Eve. Hinkelmann doesn't celebrate alone. Freund Weitenweber appears and sets up a battery of wine bottles. While enjoying the self-made punch punch, the bran doll turns into an elf and gives Hinkelmann a Christmas dream that has nothing to do with the secretary's “daisy poetry”. The elf not only waves her wand over the royal palace, but also over the basement apartment, the attic, the hospital and the prison. The “big city” has bad dreams. Intimidated, hungry children crouch around a corpse under sackcloth. The honey cake man , whom one of the children is selling “out there in the snow wind”, has an armed force of lead soldiers line up: “Shoulder your rifle! March! March! ”But the elf uses her staff to put an end to the riot.

interpretation

According to Fuld, Raabe goes beyond ETA Hoffmann's “ Nutcracker and Mouse King ” when describing the urban misery , when he paints the ghost of “social unrest” on the wall of the well-heated Christmas room for the full citizen.

According to Hoppe, entries in the diary testify to Raabe's intention: to penetrate into writing with the help of the imagination.

The first-person narrator Hinkelmann looks "shy and suspicious" of his craft. By confronting his product with the work of the secret councilor, he remains uncertain of its effect when he exclaims: "Beautiful ladies, ask for us!"

expenditure

First edition

  • Half a mile, half more! Stories, sketches and rhymes by Wilhelm Raabe . 177 pages. Ernst Schotte, Berlin 1859 (The way to laugh. The student from Wittenberg. Christmas ghosts. Lorenz Scheibenhart. One of the crowd)

Used edition

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ The “big city” means Berlin. Because Weitenweber and the “chameleon” also play a role in Raabes Berlin in “ The Children of Finkenrode ”.
  2. ↑ See also the prediction of a "future proletarian revolution " mentioned by Oppermann (Oppermann, p. 38, 2nd Zvo) in Raabe's " Ein Frühling ", in the " Hunger Pastor " and in the "Weihnachtsgeistern".

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ von Studnitz, p. 308, entry 5
  2. ↑ House Papers
  3. ↑ Hoppe in the edition used, p. 570
  4. ↑ Meyen, p. 388
  5. ^ Fuld, pp. 117-119
  6. ↑ Fuld, p. 117, 7. Zvo
  7. ↑ Hoppe in the edition used, p. 570, 8. Zvo
  8. ↑ Edition used, p. 303