To the wild man

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To the wild man is a novella by Wilhelm Raabe , which was written in the late summer of 1873 and published in Leipzig in 1885. The text belonging to the "Krähenfelder Stories" had already been printed in Westermann's monthly magazine in April 1874 .

A bourgeois friendship between the Reich and Germany of men is broken by the stupid Mammon.

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On a rainy October evening, the narrator and the reader find shelter in a small town near the Kyffhäuser under the roof of the pharmacy "Zum wilden Mann", the location of the plot of the following story:

Philipp Kristeller, the owner of the pharmacy mentioned above, is visited by his friends, Pastor Schönlank and the forester Ulebeule. Over a punch bowl, which Miss Dorette Kristeller, the pharmacist's sister, always refills, the landlord tells his friends how he got his property thirty years ago as a poor man. As an assistant to the old pharmacist who knew about plants, young Philipp had to look for a moss in the summer that would grow in secret near the blood stool. Forester Ulebeule knows the “indescribably grotesquely jagged stone mass” that served the pagan ancestors as a place of sacrifice. In this wooded area Philip met another young botanist from time to time, Mr. August. One made oneself known. August was "all alone in the world". Once Mr. August acted like a madman. Philip found the Lord thrown lengthways on the rocky blood stool. Philipp couldn't explain August's behavior. Soon after the strange incident, August emigrated overseas and left his fortune worth nine thousand five hundred thalers with Philip. With the money Philipp bought the pharmacy from his principal.

A third friend of the pharmacist, the rural physician Dr. Eberhard Hanff, joins the punch bowl round late in the evening. He introduces those present to a servant of the Emperor of Brazil. The stranger is called Colonel Dom Agostin Agonista. After thirty years of unstoppable military career in various countries in South America, this warrior is visiting his German homeland again for the first time and reveals himself to the astonished pharmacist as an old friend August vom Blutstuhl. Philipp is delighted. The colonel tells his life story to the eavesdropping punch bowlers. As the last offspring of a family of executioners with a centuries-old professional tradition, he was asked by the state thirty years ago to exercise his office.

Now Philipp understands the behavior of his friend back then on the sacrificial cliff. When August threw himself madly on the stone, shortly before the first delinquent had to bleed under his sword. Philipp can understand August's flight from Europe. The Brazilian stays at the pharmacist's house for weeks. Colonel Dom Agostin Agonista looks for the town's dignitaries in turn. When going to church on Sundays, the military cuts a fine figure in their parade uniforms decorated with religious orders. The relationship between the two friends seems more than cordial to the small townspeople. Only Fraulein Dorette, the pharmacist's sister, remains objective. She, who has kept her brother's books for thirty years, can only answer the question 'What does the South American actually want?' answer correctly: “He needs his money, and he has come to get it!” One day before Christmas Eve, the guest leaves for overseas. The pharmacy and also all silver-plable possessions of the pharmacist Philipp Kristeller are auctioned. Without exception, the three friends of the pharmacist bid during the auction in the pharmacy, shaking their heads. Dr. Eberhard Hanff buys the punch bowl.

Self-testimony

Otto Elster quoted on July 23, 1885 in the Braunschweiger Tageblatt Raabe: "None of my novels and short stories have given me as many inquiries, judgments and condemnations as the story Zum wilden Mann ."

reception

  • Keller is said to have appreciated the novella. “The dog!” Keller exclaimed during a walk with Raabe, referring to Mr. August - a figure that is presented as a myth.
  • Sprengel also goes into "symbolic exaggerations" when he discusses the figure of the executioner. Such extremes are a characteristic of “ poetic realism ”.
  • Fuld describes this "early settlement with the egoism of the early days" as "problematic".
  • Paul Spruth : On the psychology of the pharmacist Philipp Kristeller and the Supreme Dom Agostin Agonista in Raabe's novella "Zum wilden Mann" . Announcements from the Raabe Society 42, 1955
  • Fuld names two further studies: Tatsuji Hirata (1983) and Volker Hoffmann (1986). Oppermann has three references to older works: Theodor Müller (1938), Hans Butzmann (1949) and Friedrich Neumann (1960). Meyen refers to Oskar Riecke (Leipzig 1879), Hans von Wolzüge (Bayreuth 1881), Johannes Misslack, Ernst Bösser, Wilhelm Brandes , Gustav Plehn, Theodor Müller (Wolfenbüttel 1914, 1925, 1926, 1932, 1938), Wilhelm Fehse, Ernst August Roloff , Paul Spruth , Friedrich Neumann (Braunschweig 1937, 1949, 1955, 1960), Hans Roeder (Clausthal-Zellerfeld 1958), Klaus J. Heinisch (Stuttgart 1964) and Theodor Cornelius van Stockum (The Hague 1969).
  • A more recent work comes from Søren R. Fauth: Transcendent Fatalism: Wilhelm Raabe's story “Zum wilden Mann” in the horizon of Schopenhauer and Goethe . In: German quarterly for literature and intellectual history 2004.

Translations

Web links

Full texts

Meetings

literature

  • Hans Oppermann : Wilhelm Raabe. 160 pages. rowohlt's monographs. Rowohlt, Reinbek bei Hamburg 1970 (1988 edition), ISBN 3-499-50165-1
  • Fritz Meyen : Wilhelm Raabe. Bibliography. 438 pages. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973 (2nd edition). Supplementary volume 1, ISBN 3-525-20144-3 in Karl Hoppe (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.
  • Werner Fuld : Wilhelm Raabe. A biography. 383 pages. Hanser, Munich 1993 (dtv edition in July 2006), ISBN 3-423-34324-9
  • Peter Sprengel : History of German-Language Literature 1870–1900. From the founding of the empire to the turn of the century . 825 pages. CH Beck, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-406-44104-1
  • Eberhard Rohse : Image as text - text as image. Image quotations in narrative texts by Wilhelm Raabe. In: Wilhelm Raabe. The graphic work. Edited by Gabriele Henkel. Hildesheim, Zurich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag 2010, pp. 93–125, here pp. 104–185, ISBN 978-3-487-14332-3

First edition

  • Wilhelm Raabe: To the wild man. A story - with the author's portrait. 107 pages. Verlag von Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig 1885. RUB 2000. Linen, colored head cut

Used edition

  • To the wild man , pp. 187-271 in: Hans-Heinrich Reuter (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe: Erzählungen . 776 pages. Dieterich'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Leipzig 1962 (The edition follows: Karl Hoppe (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. The selected work. Critically reviewed edition. 4 volumes. Freiburg im Breisgau 1955)

expenditure

  • To the wild man. A story by Wilhelm Raabe . 107 pages. Reclam 1885 ( RUB 2000, see also editions 1910, 1927, 1931, 1956, 1959, 1965)
  • To the wild man . Pp. 159–256, with an appendix, written by Hans Butzmann, pp. 472–491 in: Gerhart Meyer (arrangement), Hans Butzmann (arrangement): Meister Autor . To the wild man. Höxter and Corvey . Owl Pentecost . (2nd edition provided by Karl Hoppe and Rosemarie Schillemeit) Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1973. Vol. 11, ISBN 3-525-20144-3 in Karl Hoppe (ed.), Jost Schillemeit (ed.), Hans Oppermann ( Ed.), Kurt Schreinert (Ed.): Wilhelm Raabe. Complete Works. Braunschweig edition . 24 vols.
  • Wilhelm Raabe: To the wild man . 128 pages. Reclam 1986, ISBN 978-3-15-002000-5

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Reuter in the foreword "Wilhelm Raabe in his time", edition used, p. XXX, 1. Zvo
  2. see under "First edition" in this article
  3. ^ Giesbert Damaschke : Wilhelm Raabe: "Krähenfelder Stories". Lang, Bern 1990, ISBN 3-261-04204-4
  4. quoted in Butzmann in the Braunschweiger edition, vol. 11, p. 477, 10. Zvo
  5. ^ Oppermann, p. 97, 1. Zvu
  6. Sprengel, p. 328, 9. Zvo
  7. Fuld, p. 268, 3. Zvo
  8. Fuld, p. 283, 10th Zvu
  9. ^ Fuld, p. 376, last entry
  10. Oppermann, p. 154, third entry from the bottom
  11. Meyen, pp. 390-391
  12. Meyen, p. 133, entry 814
  13. Oppermann, p. 98
  14. Meyen, pp. 132-133